McGee and Stevens donned masks, forced their way into the house with a sawed-off shotgun, and allowed McElroy time to dry herself and get dressed.
[7][8] Walter McGee was arrested in Amarillo, Texas on June 2 after attempting to purchase a car with some of the ransom money.
She related that Walter McGee had ordered her to strip naked before releasing her so that they could be sure she was not smuggling evidence; she refused and they did not force her.
"[12] She was found in Normal and brought back to Missouri where she explained her irrational departure to the authorities: "I felt like a murderer...
On March 30, 1935, his sentence, death by hanging, was announced; had it occurred, McGee would have been the first person to be executed for kidnapping in the United States.
In April 1935, she wrote to Governor Guy Brasfield Park: "Walter McGee's sentence has hung as heavily over me as over him.
The abduction and the subsequent fallout proved to be extremely traumatic for Mary McElroy, and she suffered several 'nervous collapses' in her years after the case.
[16] On January 21, 1940, her maid discovered McElroy's body in her bedroom; she had committed suicide, shooting herself in the head with a small pistol.