Black Night for the Bluegrass Belle a: The Murder of Verna Garr Taylor and the Kentucky Honor Code That Gave Her Justice

On November 6, 1936, 40yearold Verna Garr Taylor of LaGrange, KY, was found dead in a soggy ditch just over the Henry County line. Her companion that night, 60yearold Henry H. Denhardt, the sitting adjutant general of the Kentucky National Guard and recent lieutenant governor of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, insisted that Verna had spontaneously committed suicide with his gun on the same night she tried to return his engagement ring. Because of a series of macabre, bizarre, and sometimes laughable events, "the Iron General" would never be held legally responsible for the murder of this beautiful, honorable widow and businesswoman. But that does not mean that Denhardt was innocent.