156: The Mysterious Lloyd Gaines & a Creepy Church Lady

Let's Go To Court!

When Lloyd Gaines requested a course catalog from the University of Missouri’s School of Law, the registrar sent one right away. Later, when Lloyd applied to the school, university officials thought nothing of it. He was a qualified applicant. Then the university’s registrar received his undergraduate transcripts, and shit hit the fan. The transcripts came from historically black Lincoln University. But the University of Missouri School of Law refused to accept black students. They asked Lloyd to go to law school in a neighboring state, but Lloyd refused.

Then Brandi tells us about a creepy church lady. Mary Jane Fonder had been attending Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church for years. Despite her long tenure at the church, she didn’t have many friends there. People generally thought she was pretty weird. But her weirdness kicked into overdrive when she convinced herself that she and the church pastor had feelings for one another. She left him long, incoherent messages. She snuck food into his house. Later, when he began helping a new church member named Rhonda Smith, Mary Jane lost her shit.

And now for a note about our process. For each episode, Kristin reads a bunch of articles, then spits them back out in her very limited vocabulary. Brandi copies and pastes from the best sources on the web. And sometimes Wikipedia. (No shade, Wikipedia. We love you.) We owe a huge debt of gratitude to the real experts who covered these cases.

In this episode, Kristin pulled from:

“Before Brown: Charles H Houston and the Gaines Case,” by Douglas O. Linder for Famous-Trials.com

“Lloyd Gaines,” entry on Wikipedia

“Charles Hamilton Houston,” entry on Wikipedia

“Little known Supreme Court case from Missouri was early stepping-stone to school desegregation,” by Ryan Delaney for St. Louis Public Radio

In this episode, Brandi pulled from:

“Mary Jane Fonder” episode Snapped

“Test of Faith: Killing shocks congregation” by Keith Morrison, Dateline

“Bucks County killer Mary Jane Fonder dies just weeks after search for missing father reopened” by Manuel Gamiz Jr., The Morning Call

“Police hope remnants of Bucks County home, once owned by a murderer, holds clues about long-missing man” by Vinny Vella, The Philadelphia Inquirer

“Mary Jane Fonder” wikipedia.org

“Mary Jane Fonder” murderpedia.org