Melvin Lane Powers Charged (1964)

This unedited footage from Houston’s KPRC-TV captures events following the arrest of Melvin Lane Powers. The Harris County Sheriff’s Department took Powers into custody on July 3, 1964. The next day, authorities booked him into the Harris County Jail and formally charged him with first-degree murder. The first segment in the footage sees Powers’ defense attorney, Percy Foreman, arriving at the jail on July 4 to confer with his client. The second segment shows the bond hearing for Powers on July 6. District Judge Sam Davis ruled Powers be held without bond pending his extradition to Florida. Powers was accused of murdering Jacques Mossler, husband to Powers’ aunt, Candace Mossler. Jacques was stabbed and bludgeoned to death on June 30, 1964, at his home in Key Biscayne, Florida. Candace Mossler was not indicted until July 1965. The accused went to trial in 1966, with the prosecution arguing that Powers and Mossler were lovers hoping to acquire the victim’s multi-million-dollar fortune. According to the New York Times, the trial was so lurid that the judge barred spectators under 21. The pair were acquitted in 1966. Powers went on to become a Houston real estate tycoon.