Alice and Gerald Uden

This is a bit of an odd case. This is not a case in which a couple murdered people together like Ray and Fay Copeland, or say, Bonnie and Clyde. Between the two they would be convicted or plead guilty to four murders. One occurred before the couple met and married in 1976. The others occurred some four years after and while there is speculation that there may have been some collaboration between the two, nothing has ever legally proven this and only considered to be speculation at this point, although as you will see later, it could be “good” speculation. It is also alleged that another murder occurred before the couple met, but again there seems to be no evidence to back this up.

On September 29, 2013 Gerald and Alice Uden were arrested at their Chadwick Missouri home. The couple, who were now in their seventies, had lived on the sixty acres that they owned since the 1980's and it appears that no one suspected that the couple were anything but upstanding. Well, no-one in the community at large that is. They were both arrested for murder and the warrants had come from the state of Wyoming. Alice was being accused of murdering her third husband, Ronald Holtz sometime between late 1974 and early 1975. Gerald was being accused of killing his ex-wife, Virginia and her two sons that he had adopted just prior to their divorce, twelve year old Richard and ten year old Reagan in 1980. The couple waived extradition to Wyoming to face the charges.

Gerald and Alice had married in 1976. It was said that they had five children, but it appears that all of those children belonged to Alice and were products of her first two marriages. It was said that she had three sons and two daughters but it is unclear just what all of their ages were and how much time they spent with Alice or in the Uden household. It does appear that her youngest was around four when the couple married and may have had the most contact with the couple but beyond that things are not completely clear.

I could find, little to nothing on Alice's first husband. I am going on the assumption that his last name may have been Scott based on the surname of one of her sons who would testify against her at her trial in 2014. Her second husband was a man by the name Donald Prunty. He was the father of at least her youngest child, Erica. Prunty died in 1973 of what was said to be complications from alcoholism. This cause of death has been questioned and Gerald has come out in the last several years claiming that Prunty was in fact one of Alice's victims but there seems to be nothing to back up this claim. And, to be fair this was not the only claim against Alice that Gerald would make but none of them would be made until after Alice's death in 2019.

In 1974 Alice would meet Ronald Holtz while she was a nurse at the local Veteran's Hospital in Sheridan Wyoming. Holtz was a Vietnam Veteran who had been honorably discharged in 1970 at the age of twenty-one. It was said that he had “numerous psychiatric problems” including threats of suicide. Alice and Ronald would marry on September 17, 1974. Apparently sometime in December he was back in the psychiatric unit at the VA hospital and would be released on December 24^th of that year. It has been said that no one heard from him after his release from the hospital. Alice would file for and be granted a divorce on February 5, 1975. Much of the reason that the divorce was granted was the fact that not only had Ronald failed to show, but he could not be found to be served. While no one knows when Alice murdered Ronald, and she did admit to his murder several times, it is said to have obviously happened sometime between his release from the hospital and their divorce being granted.

Then there was Gerald. He had been married to his wife, Virginia who had two young sons. He would claim, that six weeks after he had adopted her two sons, Virginia had filed for divorce. This appears to have occurred sometime between 1974 and 1976, prior to his marriage to Alice. Gerald too would admit to murder. On September 13, 1980 Virginia and her sons would disappear after a planned outing with Gerald. Her mother, among others were always convinced that Gerald had been involved. Sadly her mother, Claire Martin would die in April 2013 at the age of ninety-two, some five months prior to Gerald's arrest and only a little more than six months prior to him admitting to murdering her daughter and two grandsons.

While Ronald Holtz's murder occurred first in the timeline, I am going to start with Gerald's crimes because his case was legally resolved first and less complicated than when it comes to Alice. Gerald fairly quickly not only confessed to murdering Virginia and the two boys but even by standards in which took place in cases decades ago he was quickly “convicted.” Granted he readily accepted an agreement in which he pleaded guilty but it is still a conviction legally. He would describe in detail how he had set up to meet them at a remote area on the premises that they would going to go bird hunting. It even appears that Virginia would bring the weapon that he would ultimately use against the victims, a .22 caliber rifle. He would shoot them all in the head on September 13, 1980. It is unclear exactly where he stated he dumped the bodies. Some reports claim that he dumped them in Fremont Lake where the depth sometimes reached 450 feet, while other reports he dumped them in an old mine shaft. Regardless, the bodies have never been found to this day. Virginia's abandoned car was found on October 4^th and there were traces of blood left behind. Gerald was quoted as saying “I saw all of them as the wedge. I knew if I was going to kill one of them, I was going to have to kill all of them.” He agreed to the plea and was sentenced on November 1, 2013, just over a month after his arrest. He would receive a life sentence.

At his sentencing and in his confession at the time Gerald insisted that he had acted alone when he murdered Virginia and the boys and that Alice had not been involved. There appeared to be no proof or thought at the time that this was a lie. However there are reports and speculation that Virginia was demanding more child support from Gerald and that Alice had “convinced” him that she was “becoming a problem.” Some believe that Gerald committed the murders because he believed it was the only way to keep Alice happy. Some also believe that she convinced him to commit the murders and was the “mastermind” behind them. After Alice died in 2019 Gerald sent a letter to author Ron Franscell, who had written a book on the case and had interviewed Gerald in the past, saying that Alice had actually committed the murders herself and that he was not involved but obviously knew about them. While it seems that no one will ever know for sure if Alice was the actual murderer, or even the mastermind as Franscell himself even believes and from a legal standpoint Gerald committed the murders alone, it does seem unreasonable to believe that she was not aware of the murders even if it was just after they had occurred. I agree though that it does seem likely that she knew the murders were going to be committed and it is entirely possible that she had helped plan them. Either way it seems that soon after the murders Gerald and Alice left Wyoming for good and moved to Missouri where they appeared to start a new life.

Getting Alice to admit to murdering Ronald Holtz was not as easy for prosecutors as it had been with Gerald. While Alice would admit to murdering her third husband, it was the manner in which he died that was in dispute. Alice was not going to plead guilty to murder as she claimed she had done so in self-defense and took her case to trial. Holtz's body was found in the bottom of an old abandoned mine shaft in the summer of 2013 and this had led to her arrest. And, to jump back just a bit, while Alice and Gerald were arrested for their crimes on the same day I am unsure what evidence had been obtained against Gerald. But, since he confessed and pleaded guilty it did not seem to matter.

Prosecutors would allege that Alice had murdered Ronald Holtz in his sleep and then dumped his body in the mine shaft, many of which that are apparently in the area. They would apparently come to that conclusion based on the testimony of two of her older children. Alice would go on trial in May of 2014 (some say August, but I believe that was her sentencing). While Alice, through her defense attorneys as well as through her own testimony would claim that her young toddler daughter was crying and that Holtz had become agitated. She would claim that she shot him because he was “moments away from attacking her.” Some reports claim that she said the shooting actually happened in her daughter's bedroom and near her bed. I never really found anything that stated how she was able to get his body into the mine shaft or any evidence that anyone was accused of helping her. However, prosecutors had her son, Todd Scott and her daughter, Theresa Twyford who would both claim that Alice had told them that she had murdered Ronald in his sleep. For Theresa's part is seems she believed her mother's claim that Holtz was violent and abusive and while it seems she may not have agreed with murder, she believed the story behind it. Todd Scott however would feel differently. He would say that his mother had also told him that she had murdered Holtz in his sleep and that afterwards he had informed anyone he could from the police to his employers. Obviously there were issues between mother and son, but what they were was not clear. When he stepped down from the witness stand he turned to his mother and mouthed, “I hate you.” He had told the jury he never understood what kind of mother would tell this story to her child and that the confession had burdened him for years. It is unclear if his persistence had led finally to the discovery of Holtz's body.

The jury would find Alice guilty of second degree murder and she would be sentenced to life in prison. Throughout their time in their respective prisons while they could not see or call each other they wrote each other frequently. I find this interesting considering how fast Gerald seemed to be read to throw Alice “under the bus.” She died in a hospital in Nebraska on June 12, 2019, the day after she was transferred there from prison. She was eighty years old.

The day after her death Gerald sent author Ron Franscell a letter saying “the murderer” was dead. He then proclaimed his innocence in the death of his ex-wife and children and vowed to try for release. He claims that Alice buried them in a “clandestine grave in the mountains.” This is when he also claimed that she had been responsible for the death of her second husband, Donald Prunty. I believe it seems very convenient for Gerald to change his story at that point to make himself look better. While I stated earlier I find it hard to believe that Alice had not at least known about the plan to murder Virginia, if not involved, I also believe the same could be said about Gerald. It is my opinion that Alice would have had to have help hiding the body of Ron Holtz and if we are to believe that she was also the murderer of Virginia and her children she would have also need help. In the case of the latter Gerald would be the most reasonable person to assume had helped her. I do not see his appeals getting very far, if his plea even allows him to do so.