There's about a million "Eddies" in my family tree, which automatically puts me off in terms of researching any of them, because on the surface, they already don't seem very unique or interesting. However, at this point in my genealogy journey, I should definitely know better. Everyone has a fascinating story to tell, even if their name isn't as glamorous or one-of-a-kind.
Eddie Dean is one of those cousins who I didn't think twice about when I initially saw his leaf dangling on my maternal branch. But in 2009, I travelled to Oklahoma for a family gathering and learned little nuggets of info here and there on my mom's Dean side from three of my great aunts, Frances, Sheila, and Thelma. I was curious about their brother, Raymond, who had passed away long before I was even born.
From what I gathered, Raymond had had a wife and two sons. And yet, I found it odd that I did not know this great aunt of mine or her kids (who would be around my mom's generation), let alone any children that those sons may have had who could have been my age.
Larry, Eloise, Eddie, and Raymond Dean (left to right)
The gap in information didn't appear to be geographically-caused, as Raymond and his wife Eloise had lived in West Virginia where the entire Dean family had originated. Plus, I learned his sons had ties to California, where a few of the branches of the tree (including my own) had relocated to. So location was not the reason for lack of communication.
Raymond and Eloise were both deaf, which may have played a part in different branches of the family not keeping as close ties. Speaking different languages can certainly break down communication. However, another great aunt (Ray's sister Mary Ruth) was also deaf, and that had never stopped us from keeping in touch with her or her offspring. I'm very much in touch with Mary Ruth's kids and grandkids, so the language barrier should not have prevented me from being in touch with Raymond's kids or grandkids; especially given the fact that both of Ray's boys were hearing.
Emory Marsh, Charles Marsh, Eddie Dean (standing left to right); Larry Dean (sitting on left); Arlene Marsh (sitting on right); Beatrice Dean (seated in middle holding baby Lynn Marsh); Cindy Mays and Fran Millhouse (standing on either side of Beatrice) at Christmas 1954
The real reason I think we got cut off from their family was because Raymond's death was self-inflicted. He gassed himself to sleep with car fumes in his parents' garage. I think the emotional damage it had on his siblings reverberated in a way that resulted in his name getting brought up less often than others. And, of course, he just wasn't around to participate in future family events, so as his sons grew up, everyone eventually grew further apart.
But that's not to say they weren't in touch with the family at all. It's just that I, being a couple generations removed, was not really brought into that same fold. So I grew up not really knowing that branch of the tree. But during this Oklahoma reunion I caught wind of some extremely interesting tidbits concerning Ray's two sons.
I'll start with the younger boy, Larry. He was born about 1947 in West Virginia. He married a woman named Beverly, and the couple had one or two kids. They had actually attended my great grandparents' 10th wedding anniversary party in August 1971, so I had a record of what they looked like from this photo.
Larry Dean, Beverly (Illingworth) Dean, baby Shannon Dean, and Beverly Dean's blonde boy, August 1971
That celebration occurred before I was born, so I had not actually met them in person. And I had inherited no other photos of this family unit. The blonde kid in this picture I don't even have identified with a name (the photos are only labeled as "Bev Dean's son", so I have a theory he was born to a previous relationship of hers).
What I learned in Oklahoma was that just about 8 years after this photograph was taken, Larry died of a drug overdose on 9 Feb 1979 after a stint in rehab. If that isn't shocking enough news, what I just learned recently was the baby in this photograph, Shannon Carmel Dean, died in 2006 when her parachute failed to deploy while BASE jumping over the Snake River in Boise, Idaho!
"BASE jumpers unfazed by free-fall accidents," The Fresno Bee, Fresno, California, 11 Jun 2006, page A7.
So these circumstances would clearly warrant the fact that I haven't had much knowledge of, or interaction, with these 1st cousins once and twice removed. But what about Larry's older brother, Eddie, born in 1944, the true subject of this article?
The end of the line comes quick with that one, as my great aunts informed me he was stabbed to death in prison! I already wasn't expecting the drug overdose news, but now this. Their family was certainly plagued with some bad juju vibes.
I remember on the flight either going to or returning from Oklahoma, I sat next to my great aunt Sheila on the plane and she shared a vivid memory of her nephews Eddie and Larry from when she was younger and living back on the family farm in West Virginia. Because she was born several years after her brothers and sisters, Sheila wasn't that far apart in age to her nephews. She was only 1 year older than Eddie and 3 years older than Larry, so their interactions were more like that of cousins.
Sisters Edna, Frances, Thelma, Mary Ruth (left to right) and Sheila Dean (in front)
She recalled the boys had dug a hole in their backyard, filled it with broken glass, and covered it over with dirt and grass. One morning, they enticed her to go down the hill, where they had laid out the trap, unbeknownst to her. She tripped over a fishing line they had tied between 2 trees and fell onto the hole head-first, cutting up her face pretty badly! Most of the cuts weren't too deep, but the worst of them was on the outer corner of her left eye. And they were all bleeding profusely and dripping all over her clothes.
She went home to get cleaned up, and when she told her mother (my great grandmother) what happened, her mother was furious. The cut near her eye would not quit bleeding, so she kept a towel and ice pack over her face and laid down on her back until her sister Edna (my grandmother), who was a nurse, got home from work around midnight. Edna butterflied the deepest wound for her. Eddie and Larry were forced to clean out the hole the next day and got a surefire whipping.
The gash near Sheila's eye left a permanent scar. She jests that now, about 70 years later, it has drooped about 1.5 inches down her face onto her cheek and resembles only a mere dimple.
She admits that Eddie was the prankster of the family. He would come up with ideas all the time. Larry was just the follower of his brother's antics.
For years I tried to dig up further info on Eddie, but initially I did not get very far. All I knew from the Social Security Death Index was that he died in 1975. But I really wanted to corroborate the story of him being stabbed to death in prison. A couple years ago I wrote to Sheila (who is now the only surviving sibling of the Dean clan) to see if she knew any other details on his passing.
She returned my letter with a legendary story (transcribed below):
"My brother Ray's oldest son, Eddie, knew Charlie Manson from Moundsville in WVa. One summer in the late 1960's, he (Eddie) and 3 friends traveled to Ca to spend some time with Charlie. I can't remember now if Charlie was at Spahn Ranch or Porter Ranch at the time. On the way, they stopped at our house.
That was quite an experience. Clearly, they were all on some kind of drug. They were starved, so I fixed them supper. Then they spent a few hours pounding pots and pans until they tired them-selves out and all went to sleep on the living room floor. It was a work night for me, but I had to clean up the kitchen, so I ended up staying up all night, because I didn't feel comfortable with them there. They were a scrungy look-ing group, for sure. Long, dirty hair and beards. I got them up early so they could shower. I fixed them breakfast and they left before I went to work. We only had one bathroom, so it was quite a morning. Dean and Tammy [Sheila's kids] had to get ready for school and I had to leave for work. Kenny [Sheila's husband] didn't have to get up until after I left by 645 AM. All went fine, and I felt better once they were gone. I don't know how long they stayed with Charlie's family [the name of Charles Manson's cult], but on their way back to WVa, Eddie was arrested for armed robbery in Minnesota, I think, and went to prison there. A few months later, he was stabbed to death in prison."
Charles Manson, Associated Press
I was pretty floored to read this tale. Of course some of the dates and places are likely smudged a bit due to fading memory over the decades (such as them meeting in Moundsville, rather than McMechen, just down the river where Manson lived), but overall this story wouldn't be anything I could ever dream of finding in extant census records or death certificates, or anything online or in a library! This was a unique memory one could only learn by talking to someone who lived it.
This correspondence also gave me a credible piece of info to help me in confirming the details of Eddie's death. Sheila believed it was in the state of Minnesota that he was arrested and imprisoned. Unfortunately, and rather oddly, that didn't turn up any more material in my searches. And for the past couple of years, I sat on it. But recently, I decided to research the Minnesota state prison system to see if that couldn't yield further clues. I learned that Stillwater Prison was the largest at the time that Eddie would have died, so there was a good chance he was housed there.
I stumbled upon a digital website for the Gale Family Library that held
audio recordings from court hearings relating to the mishandling of prisoners' safety in the Minnesota state prisons in the year 1975 (the year Eddie died). Apparently, a sudden rise in inmate killings had led to an internal investigation.
There are hours of recordings to listen in on, so I've barely begun to dive in, but I immediately began researching some of the other prisoners who were named on the tapes. And when I did that, the floodgates opened for me! I was finally able to uncover newspaper articles mentioning Eddie's tragic death.
"Warden believes probe of Stillwater prison would be useful," St. Cloud Times, Saint Cloud, Minnesota, 22 May 1975, page 13.
"Stabbing of Stillwater inmate being probed," The Winona Daily News, Winona, Minnesota, 6 Jan 1975, page 8.
The court proceedings also paint a very grim picture of what life was like behind bars during the 1970s at Stillwater. You can really envision what Eddie would have been faced with in Cell Block A.
And the surprises didn't end there. The digital library's website offered up way more than just mp3 files. It outlined various archival holdings of prisoner records that are accessible via public record request. So with the minimal information I had on Eddie's incarceration, I submitted a query for his file. And within just a couple weeks, I received an email back with some astounding attachments!
Eddie Dean mugshot, Stillwater State Prison, inmate case files, box 125.F.13.2F
They supplied me with his mug shot and entry paperwork. And wouldn't you know, he was the spitting image of Charles Manson! Honestly, if I didn't have Google to compare, I'd have pegged it for being a photo of Manson by mistake. The resemblance is pretty uncanny.
Eddie Dean case folder, Stillwater State Prison, inmate case files, box 125.F.13.2F
His case is still held under privacy laws, so without a court order, I was only able to obtain the front copy of his folder. But that gave me some good intel, as it was. He was convicted of Aggravated Criminal Damage to Property and Burglary in Blue Earth County, MN.
Typically, burglary is considered a lesser offense than robbery (where the aggressor is usually armed), so it's possible aunt Sheila's assessment of his charges were slightly exaggerated, but also possible he was convicted for a smaller level crime than initially arrested for. The maximum sentence he was facing was 4 years 8 months and 26 days, and only 6 months in to serving, he had applied for parole and was denied on December 11, 1974. That date and decision is so powerful, because less than 1 month later he would be killed.
"Stillwater inmate killed," Star Tribune, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 5 Jan 1975, page 7.
His mother Eloise was the family member residing in Chase, Maryland at the time of his death, having now lost her husband and eldest son in two very different tragic ways. And sadly, she would still have one more heartache to go when Larry passed in '79. She made plans to bury Eddie in Sherrard, West Virginia, where a bulk of our Dean family tree has been laid to rest. The headstone application she filed on his behalf gave me one last glimpse into a piece of his life.
National Archives at St. Louis; St. Louis, MO, USA; Applications for Headstones and Markers, 7/1/1970-9/30/1985; NAID: 6016127; Record Group Number: 15; Record Group Title: Records of the Department of Veterans Affairs, 1773-2007; Ancestry (https://ancestry.com : accessed 1 May 2025), Lehi, UT.
It turns out, Eddie had served as a Senior Airman in the U.S. Air Force for a 4 year term in the early '60s. He was stationed at Mountain Home Air Force Base in Idaho, oddly enough, just next to the Snake River, where his niece Shannon would later perish in 2006.
Although Eddie's life played out in awful ways, had it not been for his institutionalization, I would not have any idea of what he looked like in his adult years. For whatever reason, he was not present for my great grandparents' wedding anniversary in '71 and just a few years later, he would be gone from this earth forever. It's amazing what records can be found with some thorough digging and years of patience. I have the Stillwater Prison and the Gale Family Library to thank for filling in some pieces of my family tree puzzle.
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