He was suspected of killing his fourth wife, Winona Wallace, and his nephew, Cornelius Wright, to collect on life insurance benefits.

[5] A native of Hale County, Alabama, Lisenba first worked in the cotton fields and then was sent to barber school by his sister's husband.

[4] By the time of the 1910 census he was living with the family of his oldest sister, Anna; 16-year-old Lisenba and his brother-in-law were both employed in coal mining.

"[1] Lisenba moved to Kansas and remarried, but his second wife divorced him after the father of a pregnant young woman ran him out of town.

According to another account, he married Vera Mae Vermillion in Kansas; she ended the marriage "after a few months" because of Lisenba's serial infidelity.

On September 21, the couple was driving on Pikes Peak Highway near Glen Cove, Colorado, with Wallace at the wheel when "the steering knuckle broke,"[1] the car left the road and fell down a mountainside.

"[6] James told investigators he managed to jump free, but Wallace remained trapped in the vehicle until it stopped against a large boulder about 150 feet below the road.

[17] Wallace was released from the hospital on October 8 and recovering at a tourist cabin in Manitou Springs when about a week later, James and a grocer found her lying on her back in a half-filled tub.

At the coroner's inquest, medical examiner George B. Gilmore testified that James told him his wife had ignored physician's orders to avoid washing her hair because of the head wound and drowned as a result.

James soon wrote to Dr. George B. Gilmore, Manitou coroner, asking him to alter the death certificate so he could collect double indemnity on his wife's life.

Following the death of Busch, an autopsy was made on Wallace and the medical examiner testified that she suffered two skull fractures caused by a hard, moving object projected against in it.

"[1] Hope brought the snakes, reportedly named Lightning and Lethal, to the James' house on August 4 to find Busch, who was pregnant at the time, strapped to the kitchen table with her eyes and mouth taped shut.

[20] Hope watched as Ray put Busch's foot in the box with the two snakes, which bit her, then left the house to return and pick up his wife.

Drunk and outraged, Ray took her to the bathtub, drowned her, and put her body by the fish pond in their backyard in an attempt to make it look like an accident.

According to another version, by Los Angeles journalist and historian Cecilia Rasmussen, "James confidently tried to redeem his insurance policy on Mary.