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The March 1963 murder of St. Paul wife and mother Carol Thompson shocked the Twin Cities as few local crimes have. Despite community fears of a homicidal maniac, investigators soon focused on T. Eugene "Cotton" Thompson, the victim’s husband, as their prime suspect.
Tilmer Eugene " Cotton " Thompson (August 7, 1927 – August 7, 2015) was an attorney from Saint Paul, Minnesota who hired a hit man to kill his wife. In December 1963 he was sentenced to life in prison.
- Another Side
- Wife, Mother
- An Arrest Made
- Telling The Story
- A Nice Life
- After Prison
T. Eugene Thompson’s paid obituary, which ran in Wednesday’s Pioneer Press and Star Tribune, did not mention the murder case. It said Thompson “loved engaging in thought-provoking discussions and … was a multi-faceted person. Oscar Wilde said, ‘Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future.’ Amen.” Jeff Thompson, who was 13 when his mother w...
Carol Swoboda Thompson, 34, was a housewife and the mother of four young children, ages 6 to 13, when she was slain on the morning of March 6, 1963. “She was, in many ways, the prototypical early 1960s wife and mother,” Swanson said. “I mean, they had everything except the white picket fence out front. She was active in her church (Edgecumbe Presby...
Pieces of the pistol’s grip, which had broken off during the attack, were left at the scene and led investigators in April 1963 to Anderson, an ex-convict from Michigan. He confessed to the killing, saying he was hired by Norman J. Mastrian, a former Twin Cities prizefighter, on behalf of T. Eugene Thompson, to murder Carol Thompson for $3,000. Tho...
“Everybody of a certain age in St. Paul knows the T. Eugene Thompson case,” said author and former Pioneer Press reporter Larry Millett. “It was, in its day, the most sensational murder case that had occurred in St. Paul in a long, long time. … The media loved it because of the way it played out. You had so many story lines: You had high-powered de...
T. Eugene “Cotton” Thompson grew up in Elmore, Minn., a small town on the Iowa border, where he was a high school classmate and played high school football with former Vice President Walter Mondale. He was nicknamed “Cotton” because of his white-blond hair. “We grew up together. His family lived just a block from mine,” Mondale said. “His dad was i...
Thompson served most of his sentence at the Minnesota Correctional Facility — Stillwater. After his release, he resettled in the Twin Cities and married Margaret Culver, who preceded him in death. A convicted felon, he was prohibited from practicing law. “How did he support himself? That’s a pretty good question,” Jeff Thompson said. “I believe he ...
It tells the story of T. Eugene “Cotton” Thompson, a St. Paul lawyer who hired an ill-equipped hitman to murder his wife, Carol, in the home they shared with four children.
Sep 3, 2015 · Carol Thompson was rushed to Ancker Hospital, where surgeons took a 3-inch knife blade from her throat, but she died three hours later. The brutal murder shocked the Twin Cities and traumatized the Highland Park neighborhood. “People started locking their doors,” Swanson said.
Sep 5, 2015 · On Dec. 6, 1963, after deliberating for 12 hours, a jury of six men and six women convicted Mr. Thompson, a leading local criminal defense lawyer, of first-degree murder after a bungling hit...
Mar 4, 2023 · Who Killed Carol Thompson? According to news reports, the investigators found pieces of the Luger pistol’s grip in the Thompson residence, which led them to Dick W.C. Anderson, an ex-convict from Michigan, in April 1963.
