The Bonded Blonde

Candace Mossier is a lissome, lippy blonde of 46 who says that she took her children out for a drive in Key Biscayne, Fla., one night last June to mail some letters at the odd hour of 1 a.m. Instead of returning home, she says, she suffered a migraine headache and went to a hospital. During her absence, something even odder happened to her millionaire husband, Miami and Houston Financier Jacques Mossier, 69. He was bludgeoned and stabbed 39 times. The results were fatal. According to Miami police, Mossier left a note: "If Mel and Candace don't kill me first, I'll kill them." While Candace fled to the Mayo Clinic for more migraine therapy and treatment for what she calls "too many red corpuscles," the Miami cops extradited Melvin Powers, 23, Mossler's burly nephew. As police told it, Powers, who was Candace's longtime lover, jetted over from Houston the day before the murder, crushed his uncle's skull with a king-size Coke bottle and jetted home next morning. Said Candace on hearing the charge: "Oh, pooh!" Last month a Miami grand jury indicted Mel for murder--and Candace, too. Voluntarily rising from her Mayo bed, Candace wound up in jail with Mel, pending trial in November. "This is Russia," she stormed. "They would convict Jesus Christ." Last week Mel and Candace got an unusual legal break. In most states, murder defendants may be held without bail pending trial if there is probable cause to believe them guilty. But in Florida, murder defendants must be released on bail, unless the evidence against them is so "nearly conclusive" that conviction is virtually assured. At a habeas corpus hearing, the prosecution produced a stewardess who identified Mel as having been a passenger on the plane from Houston, and an ex-convict who said the pair had offered him $10,000 to murder Mossier. But to Circuit Court Judge Harvie DuVal, the case was not yet airtight: "The testimony I have heard and read does not meet the evidence requirements." Judge DuVal duly freed the defendants on $50,000 bonds. While Mel discreetly headed for Atlanta, Candace emerged from jail as other inmates showered her with hearty obscenities. Smiling and blowing kisses, the irrepressible widow jounced off to Houston. It promises to be some trial.

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