Felix Vail, who was arrested May 17, 2013, for the 1962 murder of his first wife, Mary Horton Vail
The upcoming murder trial of serial killer suspect and Mississippi native Felix Vail will feature testimony regarding two other women who disappeared.
Vail, 74, was charged in May with murder in the slaying of his first wife, Mary Horton Vail, whose 1962 death in Lake Charles, La., was originally ruled an accidental drowning.
He is the last known person to be with her and two other women: his common law wife, Sharon Hensley, who disappeared in 1973; and his wife, Annette, who disappeared in 1984.
His arrest marks what experts say is the oldest serial killer suspect case in U.S. history.
Mary Horton in the McNeese State College yearbook shortly before she married Felix Vail in 1961
Vail insists he is innocent and blames his arrest on the press, politics, powerful people, money and the women’s families.
“It’s been an avalanche coming down the mountain all that time,” he said in a recorded conversation from the Calcasieu Parish Jail, “waiting to hit my head, and it finally has.”
Authorities reopened the case after The Clarion-Ledger published its 2012 story “Gone,” in which a pathologist pointed to a bruise on the back of Mary Vail’s head and a scarf 4 inches in her mouth as proof of homicide.
The coroner in Lake Charles has since ruled the death a homicide.
Days after his May 17 arrest, Vail, who grew up in the Clay County community of Montpelier, shared his story with private investigator Gina Frenzel about what happened the night he said his wife, Mary, drowned.
Sharon Hensley circa 1968
That story differed substantially from what he told deputies in 1962.
His explanations for Hensley’s disappearance also have varied. In July, Frenzel discovered a March 1973 letter that Vail wrote about Hensley’s whereabouts. It differs substantially from what Vail told Hensley’s mother a year later.
In his March 20, 1973, letter, which authorities have obtained, Vail told his mother he was no longer “married” to Hensley and that when he last saw Hensley, he sent her and an unnamed man “off to the ocean and each other with my good wishes and blessings.”
A year later, Vail wrote Hensley’s family, saying the last he saw her she was in Key West, Fla., where she was leaving to travel the world with an Australian couple named “John and Venessa.” A year later, Vail told his mother that Hensley had left with “Frank and Sally.”
In 1984, Vail and his wife, Annette, had a home in Tulsa, Okla., purchased with money she inherited after the death of her father.
After her mother, Mary Rose, reported her daughter missing that fall, Tulsa police questioned Vail.
He told them the last he saw her in September 1984, dropping her off at the Trailways Bus Station in St. Louis.
This is a photograph of Annette Craver Vail, torn from her passport. Her husband, Felix Vail, told authorities that she left for Mexico.
There are at least two problems with that story: There has never been a Trailways Bus Station in St. Louis, just a Greyhound Bus Terminal built in 1967 between 11th and 12th streets in downtown, and relatives reported seeing the couple weeks later in Sulphur, La.
This much is known for sure: By late October 1984, she was gone.
In October 2013, the family that bought Vail’s home made a haunting discovery.
Inside the long-locked attic storeroom, they found a dust-coated suitcase containing Annette’s birth control and clothes. Tulsa police seized the items as evidence.
Two pairs of Annette Vail’s clothing, found inside a suitcase tucked in Felix Vail’s old attic
Before Wednesday’s hearing began, Vail complained loudly, talking about the “hypocrisy” of the legal system.
His attorney, Ben Cormier of Lake Charles, told him to “chill out” and later to “shut up.”
Assistant District Attorney Hugo Holland argued that evidence of the disappearances of the two women should be admissible because Vail insisted his first wife’s death was an accident and that he has insisted he had nothing to do with the disappearances of the other women.
Cormier responded that these two women being gone for decades doesn’t mean they’re dead.
Judge Robert Wyatt responded that under Louisiana law, anyone missing after five years is presumed dead.
Annette Vai’s birth control pills found inside a dusty suitcase in Felix Vail’s old attic
Cormier said if such evidence was admitted, he would, in essence, be required to defend Vail in three crimes.
Wyatt ruled in the prosecution’s favor, saying this evidence is permissible under Louisiana law, which mirrors federal statute permitting evidence of other “bad acts” in certain cases.
After the ruling, Cormier told Vail, “You have no chance.”
Another hearing is set for May 7, when the judge says he will set a trial date.
Families welcomed the decision.
Earlier Wednesday at a staff meeting, Sharon Hensley’s brother, Brian, said he and others “were praying for justice and for everyone.”
Will Horton holds a photograph of his sister, Mary Vail, in her wedding dress.
He said he hopes things continue to progress in a positive way.
Mary Vail’s brother, Will Horton, said he’s glad to see “justice coming full circle.”
What he looks forward to most of all is the trial, where a jury will finally hear the evidence in the case, he said. “Felix has done so much all these years, and accountability is finally showing up.”
Annette’s mother, Mary Rose, said bringing the three families together for the trial will be more than a time for justice.
“It will be a time for healing,” she said. “Now it will be public knowledge that (Vail’s wife) Mary wasn’t the only one and that other families have suffered because of Felix’s bad deeds.”
