Bill Olds's Final Resting Place

     Murderer F. M. Snow's father-in-law, Bill Olds, garnered arrests for theft, forgery, and murder. Bad Bill's quite demise happened some years before his wife, daughter, and grandson became victims of his hatchet-happy son-in-law. When the aging Bill Olds became too infirm to pose a threat to relatives, he was forced to leave the family home. Having no income or anyone willing to care for him, Bill spent his remaining days at the Erath County Poor farm, an early welfare system. (The new edition of Blood Legacy includes a photograph of the old farmhouse.) Olds died there sometime between 1910 and 1919, and he was buried in one of the unmarked graves in the farm's cemetery near Smith Springs, Texas. Here's how that cemetery looks today. The heavy iron crosses that adorn each of the graves give an almost Gothic appearance to the thickly wooded burial ground.