In the quiet, close-knit community of Jefferson City, Missouri, Richard Earl Hodges, a 49-year-old Male, and his mother, Mildred Lorene Hodges, 75, were well-regarded figures. They were not just family but also business partners, running a successful real estate company, Mildred Hodges Realty, from their home on Boonville Road. Richard, an only child, was inseparable from his widowed mother, and together they had built a comfortable life.
But the peace of their lives was irrevocably shattered on December 15, 1988, by a brutal home invasion that ended in a double murder.
The crime was set in motion by two men with a history of violence, Bert Leroy Hunter and Tomas Grant Ervin. The pair, who had met while serving time in the Missouri State Penitentiary for separate murders, were on parole and looking for money. On that December afternoon, they drove around Jefferson City searching for a target. The sight of a luxurious Lincoln Continental parked in the Hodges' driveway convinced them that the owners were wealthy. Their plan was impulsive but deadly. Posing as a delivery man, Hunter knocked on the door. When Mildred Hodges opened it, he and Ervin forced their way inside at gunpoint.
Hearing his mother's screams, Richard rushed to her aid from another part of the house. The intruders quickly overpowered him, forcing him to bind his own mother with duct tape before they bound him as well. The men ransacked the home, believing a large amount of cash was hidden in a file cabinet, but their search yielded little money. At some point during the robbery, Ervin's mask was pulled off, and the Hodgeses recognized him. This sealed their fate. To eliminate any witnesses, Hunter and Ervin decided to kill both mother and son. They suffocated Richard and Mildred Hodges by placing plastic bags over their heads.
For days, the Hodgeses were simply missing. A business associate grew concerned when Mildred failed to show up for an appointment. The grim truth began to unfold on December 19, 1988, when railroad workers in Marion, Missouri, discovered a man's body wrapped in plastic bags. It was Richard Hodges. This discovery led police to the Hodges' home. Inside, they found the decomposing body of Mildred, also wrapped in plastic. The family car was missing, along with jewelry and a fur coat.
The investigation gained traction in January 1989 when the Hodges' stolen Lincoln was found burned in the parking lot of an inn in Paducah, Kentucky. A crucial break came from a notepad found inside the Hodges' home, which held the indentation of a license plate number that investigators traced to the perpetrators. The trail led to Bert Leroy Hunter and Tomas Ervin. Hunter, who was already back in prison for a parole violation, confessed to the murders and implicated Ervin as his accomplice. Both men had been paroled despite previous murder convictions. Hunter had been sentenced to life in 1969 for shooting a tavern owner, and Ervin was serving a life sentence for the 1967 stabbing of a taxi driver.
Hunter pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree murder and one count of first-degree robbery, waived his right to a jury trial, and requested the death penalty, stating he was suicidal at the time. He was sentenced to death in February 1990. Tomas Ervin maintained his innocence, claiming he was at home when the murders occurred, but he was convicted by a jury and also sentenced to death.
On June 28, 2000, Bert Leroy Hunter, aged 53, was executed by lethal injection at the Potosi Correctional Center. His final words were, "There is no justice. It's time for this nightmare to be over, as far as I'm concerned." Nine months later, on March 28, 2001, Tomas Grant Ervin was also executed for his role in the murders, still professing his innocence. The executions brought a final, somber end to a case that began with a senseless robbery and ended the lives of a devoted son and his mother.
