A look back at 'The Shooting of the Century' in the 1950s on LI's Gold Coast

He had once been declared the most eligible bachelor in America. She'd once been called "The Most Beautiful Girl in Radio."

Together, they were high-society stars, Ann and William Woodward Jr. Her, a woman who'd fled Pittsburg, a town tucked into the bottom corner of desolate, desperate east Kansas. Him, a Harvard grad, a U.S. Navy hero who had been awarded a Purple Heart in World War II, an heir to the Hanover National Bank, a blue blood playboy whose thoroughbred, Nashua, would be the horse of the year in America.

Then in the dark, early morning hours of Oct. 30, 1955, not long after arriving home from a dinner party in Locust Valley hosted by Wallis Simpson, the Duchess of Windsor, Billy Woodward, 35, was dead. And Ann Woodward was a grieving wife who admitted shooting him.

By accident, she told police, thinking he was "a prowler."

That Billy was standing naked in the backlit doorway of his bedroom when his wife hit him with one of two shotgun blasts?

Well, accidents will happen. Right?

Seventy years ago this week, the real-life society scandal — one that would rival the notoriety of the fictional Gold Coast shooting death of Jay Gatsby in F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby" — became the biggest story on Long Island, if not the world.

It's almost on the scale of the Kennedy tragedies, the types of disasters that followed

Robert von Scholz, board secretary of the Locust Valley Historical Society

Life magazine would declare it "The Shooting of the Century."

It would inspire a catty, torturous Esquire piece 20 years later by Truman Capote. It also would lead to a famous 1985 novel by Dominick Dunne, "The Two Mrs. Grenvilles," a book that poured fresh gasoline on the already smoldering aftermath, and, most recently, a 2024 FX series on the relationship between Capote, Ann Woodward and other high-society socialites called "Feud: Capote vs. The Swans."

Ann Woodward, exonerated after the police investigation, died by suicide. Her death was followed by the suicides of Ann and Billy's sons, William III and James, both of whom had been home asleep in the mansion known as Playhouse when their mother killed their father. 

The May 8, 1999, edition of The New York Times, reporting the suicide of William III, said: "The Woodwards had old money and blue blood, but they also had a penchant for self-destruction that inspired novels by Truman Capote and Dominick Dunne, and landed them in the headlines of newspapers around the world."

The sons' deaths were the culmination of a seemingly never-ending series of family tragedies, which James Robert von Scholz, board secretary of the Locust Valley Historical Society, this week said rivaled that of another American dynasty.

"It's almost on the scale of the Kennedy tragedies, the types of disasters that followed," von Scholz said. "They floated in the same circles, the Woodwards and Kennedys." But, von Scholz noted, "looking back on it now, maybe it's 'Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous' meets 'Real Housewives,' name the city."

'Cinderella Tragedy'

The headline in the Oct. 31, 1955, Final Edition of Newsday blared: "LI SPORTSMAN SLAIN BY WIFE."

Accompanying it was a photo of Ann and Billy in loving embrace — and a photo of Nassau County District Attorney Frank A. Gulotta and police looking on as Billy Woodward's cloaked body was removed from the Oyster Bay Cove estate — with a photo caption declaring: "Cinderella Tragedy."

Nassau County Police Department Chief Insp. Stuyvesant Pinnell said Ann Woodward told investigators she'd been awakened sometime after 2 a.m. by a mysterious sound. That she and her beloved Billy slept in separate bedrooms; that each, concerned by word there'd been a prowler burglarizing estates in the area, had gone to bed with loaded shotguns at their sides. That she'd seen a "shadowy figure" in the doorway — and fired.

Twice.

"Probably accidental," is what Pinnell told Newsday. Though, he stressed: "The case is still very much under investigation."

What followed was a roller coaster of twists and turns, most orchestrated, history would later strongly suggest, by the family matriarch, Elsie Woodward, widow of William Woodward Sr., to protect the legacy of her son. It was an investigation that ended when a Nassau grand jury failed to indict, exonerating Ann — reportedly after Elsie testified about the strength of her son's marriage.

"I know Ann loved Billy very much and the shooting could be nothing but an accident," Elsie told the press.

But author Roseanne Montillo said: "He wanted to divorce her and, you can give her all the grace you want, but he would've also taken the children."

In 2022, Montillo wrote "Deliberate Cruelty: Truman Capote, the Millionaire's Wife, and the Murder of the Century." It focused on the contentious relationship between Capote and Ann Woodward; it also explored the volatile, often hidden, double life of Ann and Billy — most notable being that Billy Woodward was likely an abusive husband. And likely bisexual.

"Can you imagine the scandal if the rest of the world found out that Billy really wasn't such a good guy?" Montillo said. "And that not only wasn't he such a good guy, but that he also had this 'interesting' double life? I think Ann thought divorce was worse than being a widow."

Of note, Montillo said, was Ann and Billy often went on safari — and Ann was a terrible shot.

"She was known to not be able to hit a rhino if it was right in front of you," Montillo said. "Yet, she managed to hit her husband right where it mattered."

Within hours of the shooting, Ann went off to Doctors Hospital in Manhattan, suffering what was described as "anxiety." A day after the shooting, police arrested a burglar, a German immigrant named Paul W. Wirths.

The 6-foot-2, 22-year-old Wirths was "sipping coffee" in a Huntington diner when police officers nabbed him. He had previously admitted 12 burglaries in Nassau, Newsday reported, and seemed bemused by the whole ordeal, smiling and waving to a Newsday photographer from the police car.

But Wirths was innocent and was never charged — at least, when it came to being at the Woodward estate the night of the shooting, where, in an interesting aside, the soundtrack for the film "Around the World in 80 Days" was being recorded in a sound studio on the grounds that very night.

Police confirmed Wirths had been elsewhere, committing a different burglary when Ann shot Billy.

Radio actress

Born Dec. 12, 1915, Ann Lucille Crowell was the daughter of a streetcar conductor and a schoolteacher. She'd been estranged from her father, Col. M. Jesse Crowell, since 1923, Newsday reported. Her mother, Ethel, had been among the first women to receive a master's degree from the University of Kansas, and had been married several times — leaving young Ann with a miserable home life.

Montillo's book reported that, as a girl, Ann had tested with a 139 IQ.

And so, she fled Pittsburg to become a New York City showgirl, landing a gig as a radio actress — with a role in Noël Coward's "Set to Music."

"At that time," von Scholz said, "I think that being in society had a very different tonal value than it does now. It was very protective of those dirty deeds done dirt cheap. But, they followed Ann even as she rose through the ranks to the highest echelons of society, where she mingled with all of those 'swans' Truman Capote would write about ... Plain and simple, she was seen as a gold-digger."

Meanwhile, Billy Woodward's father, William Sr., had controlled the Hanover National Bank until his death in 1953 and had once been secretary to the ambassador to England, where he mingled with King Edward VII. An uncle helped finance the building of the Panama Canal.

The Woodward horse farm, Belair Stud, had produced Triple Crown winners Gallant Fox (1930) and Omaha (1935), as well as other noted race winners, among them Johnstown and Nashua, the 2-year-old champion of the year and winner of the 1955 Preakness and Belmont Stakes, having lost a heartbreaker to Swaps in the Kentucky Derby.

At the time of his death, Billy Woodward drove a black Ford Thunderbird and had a Studebaker that Montillo said he referred to as his "Studillac."

Billy Woodward also had an admiring fan from his days hanging around the racetrack in Saratoga: Ian Fleming, author of the James Bond novels.

Of Fleming's love of Billy and his "Studillac," Montillo wrote in "Deliberate Cruelty": "The car so impressed Fleming that he would dedicate his book 'Diamonds Are Forever' to Billy: 'To the memory of W.W.J.R., at Saratoga, 1954 and 1955.' "

But, as Locust Valley Historical Society president Herb Schierhorst said: "Unless you were in society or unless you were involved with the family — if your great uncle was a butler; if a family member drove a car on the estate — you wouldn't have known any of this."

As artist and author Monica Randall, who said she rented a floor in the old Woodward estate from its subsequent owners in the 1960s and does local talks on the shooting, said this  week in an interview: "I heard stories of what he did to her, Billy Woodward; that people would see her around town with a black eye, with her jaw wired shut. And so she shot him."

Little-known story

The Shooting of the Century is a story unknown these days to most Long Islanders.

As Chris Kretz, head of engagement for the Stony Brook University libraries and co-host and producer of the Long Island History Project podcast said this week: "There's a level of history that gets washed from public memory. There's the initial headlines, maybe it gets talked about on the 10th anniversary, the 20th anniversary and then it's gone until it gets a boost — a novel, a movie — and it gets translated to the next generation.

"The story's always there, but it's sunk to the bottom of our consciousness."  

And Montillo, who lives in Medford, Massachusetts, said: "My mom has cousins on Long Island, and I went there to do research, and I was shocked there were so few people who knew about the Woodwards, who knew the ties to Truman Capote and his book, Answered Prayers."

"It was very notable at the time," von Scholz said, "but for whatever reason history has buried it. Or, maybe society did."