Evening star., 1939-03-25
Husbands Map
Leads Way 10
Socia|ite' S Body
Cunninehom's S Break
In Pre-ReIeose Quiz
Ends l9-Doy Mystery
By the Associated Press.

By the Associated Press.
OKLAHOMA CITY, March 25.-
The body of socially prominent Mrs.
Eudora Cunningham was dug by
flarelight from deep sewer grave
early today after her husband broke
. stubborn 19-day silence with a
dramatic last-minute confession.
Just a few hours before a sched-
uled habeas corpus hearing officers
said would have ended in freedom
for 33-year-old Roger Cunningham,
he broke, admitted he strangled his
wife March 6. and directed search
ers to her body with crude map.
With a Arm, neat hand, the
bearded and haggard Cunningham
sketched the diagram to show off,
GERS where the body was buried,
then retired to his Jail cell for the
FIRST sound sleep jailers said he had
this week.
When he awakened, Cunningham
indicated for the first time his mo-
tive for Staying his wife. In an
interview he said he suffered a fit
of rage because he was tired from
overwork and she nagged him.
Year of Discord.
The strangling, he said, climaxed
. year of domestic discord rising to
fever pitch as the couple sat in his
automobile the night of her death
and she berated him for working
too much and neglecting her.
1--WE sat in the car" he said. land
argued. I got out of the car. Then
she got out and said she was going
. to walk to. town. I lost all sense.
II don't know what I did. I
didn't shoot her because 1 had no
gun. lost all sense, that's all"
Earlier, headed by Sheriff George
Gon and Assistant County Attorney
E. w. Brown, weary searchers who
had toiled many hours in hunt for
the 30-year-old Mrs. Cunningham,
sped to the spot indicated by her
F. H. A. inspector husband.
Body Fully Clothed.
There, toiling In the red earth by
the light of Pickering signal flares,
the searchers dug almost eight feet
into the ground.
Then Mr.. Brown signalled to off,
GERS to herd back a crowd of 100
curious and announced:
Il struck her. There she is"
His shovel had barred the head OF
the missing woman.
Carefully, the searchers removed
the earth, moistened by recent rain
fall, from around the body of Mrs.
Cunningham, employed as librarian
at Foster High School.
Fully clothed, even to q pitifully
jaunty little blue hat, trim brown
sport shoes and a tan swagger coat,
the body was lifted into a waiting
hearse.
Il strangled my wife Eudora and
buried her in partly filled sewer"
Cunningham said in signed state
ment to County Attorney Lewis r.
Morris. who questioned him in a
dramatic midnight end to a 44-hour
isolation period.
May God have mercy on my
soul"
Mr.. Morris said Cunningham
made and signed the confession
after three hours of questioning,
then sketched the diagram show
ing where he had strangled his wife
and painstakingly dug an 8-foot
deep grave while her lifeless body
lay nearby on the ground.
All this, Mr.. Morris said, took
place within 20 or 30 feet of several
occupied houses.
Mr.. Morris conferred with Cum
ningham in a last chance effort to
find some clue that would form the
basis for charges against Cunning
ham so the latter could be held
while searchers hunted his wife's
body.
"Sorry Did It."
She long since had been given up
for dead because she had no money
when she disappeared and left no
possible indication she was leaving.
II just backed him up in a cor
ner," Mr.. Morris said, in describing
how he obtained the confession
"and said to him:
"'Now you're not going to let tina:
dear old lady CMrs. Joel p Stokes,
Mrs Cunningham's motheD choke
to death with the lump in her
throat that she has from not know
ing what became of her daughter,
are you?'
II just kept boring that question
into him, and as it turned out. that
choking process was just what he
had done to his wife"
After Cunningham signed the
statement, he called Mr.. Morris
back to say:
I'm sorry I did it."
Cunningham is the son of the late
DR.. s. r. Cunningham. who was
chief orthopedic surgeon at the
Oklahoma Crippled Children's Hos
pital here. His mother is dead, but
a stepmother is living.
Mrs. Cunningham's stepfather, a
wealthy real estate dealer. developed
the residential district in which he
and his sonin-law lived.
The Stokes home stands about $50
yards from the Cunningham resi-
oence In wooded area.
cunningham had been married
previously and was divorced. Mrs.
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