In the small town of Amazonia, Missouri, John Montford Lyle was a respected local business owner, known for operating Lyle's Tavern. In the quiet, early hours of Sunday, June 16, 1968, the life of the 58-year-old Male came to a brutal and sudden end in the place he had built his livelihood. His death would leave a lasting scar on the community and mark the beginning of a violent criminal career for one of his killers.
On the night of Saturday, June 15, after the last patrons had left,
Mr. Lyle was closing up his tavern. Sometime after midnight, two young men, 21-year-old Bert Leroy Hunter and his friend Carl W. Paxton, arrived with the intent to rob him. Paxton was known in the community and even considered himself a friend of Mr. Lyle. The pair had been drinking earlier and talking about finding a place to get money, with Paxton suggesting "an old man up in Amazonia" who supposedly kept a large amount of cash. They knocked on the door of the closed tavern, and when Mr. Lyle let them in to buy a six-pack of beer, they attacked. During the robbery, John Lyle was shot in the head and killed. His body was discovered later that morning by his waitress. The cash register was open, and a box where he kept valuables was missing.
The investigation, led by the Andrew County Sheriff and the Missouri Highway Patrol, quickly zeroed in on Hunter and Paxton. Within days, Hunter's girlfriend and her roommate implicated the two men in the murder. After their arrest, Hunter and Paxton were tried and found guilty of first-degree murder. Though eligible for the death penalty under Missouri's second offender law, a jury sentenced Hunter to life in prison. Paxton also received a life sentence. Hunter later appealed his conviction, claiming his confession was coerced by a Missouri State Highway Patrol officer, but the appeal was dismissed.
Hunter’s story, however, did not end in prison. While serving his sentence at the Missouri State Penitentiary, he befriended another convicted murderer, Tomas Grant Ervin. In a turn of events that would have tragic consequences, both Hunter and Ervin were eventually paroled despite their violent records. After his release, Hunter relocated to Florida, but his violent tendencies were far from over.
Twenty years after the murder of John Lyle, Hunter would kill again. In December 1988, he and Ervin teamed up to commit another robbery in Jefferson City, Missouri. Posing as delivery men, they forced their way into the home of 75-year-old Mildred Hodges and her 49-year-old son, Richard. After binding the victims and robbing them, Hunter and Ervin suffocated them both with plastic bags.
This double murder led to a major investigation that ultimately brought Hunter back into custody in early 1989. He and Ervin were arrested, tried, and convicted for the murders of Mildred and Richard Hodges. This time, there would be no parole. Both men were sentenced to death. Hunter initially pleaded guilty and requested the death penalty, though he later tried to withdraw the plea, claiming mental illness. His attempts to evade responsibility failed.
On June 28, 2000, Bert Leroy Hunter, the man who had robbed and shot John Montford Lyle more than three decades earlier, was executed by lethal injection at the Potosi Correctional Center. His final words were, "There is no justice." His accomplice in the Hodges murders, Tomas Ervin, was executed the following year. The execution marked the final chapter in a criminal saga that began with the senseless killing of a small-town tavern owner, bringing a measure of closure to the families of all his victims.
