Margaret Ledbetter Dewey

Margaret Ledbetter was the daughter of John Jackson Ledbetter Sr. and Lucy A. Ledbetter, and the sister of Col. John Jackson Ledbetter Jr. and Alvin Ledbetter. She married Rico Dewey and lived near Live Oak, Florida.¹

Death

On February 1, 1936, Margaret was found dead of a gunshot wound. The coroner ruled it self-inflicted. Her brother JJL Jr. immediately drove from El Paso to Arkansas upon receiving the news.²

JJL did not accept the coroner’s finding. He filed an insurance claim stating that he did not believe his sister’s death was self-inflicted. Rico Dewey was later convicted and sentenced to twenty years in prison.²

Margaret’s death cast a long shadow over the family in 1936, a year already marked by the stresses of the Depression.