Described by friends and foes alike as “The Most Dangerous Man in America,” Huey Long was rapidly ascending the political ranks. In 1928, at age thirty-four, the lawyer from Winnfield, Louisiana, was elected Governor of the Pelican State. Four years later, he was elected to the United States Senate.

Long was the patriarch of the political family that would dominate Louisiana politics through the end of the century and continue to play a role into the twenty-first century. His relentless drive earned him the nickname “The Kingfish.”

Initially an ally of President Franklin Roosevelt, Long supported his successful bid for the Presidency in 1932. The alliance, however, did not last long, as the Senator soon turned against FDR. An outspoken populist who denounced the banks and those he viewed as the wealthy elites, Long believed FDR’s New Deal policies were not doing enough to aid the poor. Soon, the Kingfish had his eyes on the nation’s highest office and considered a run against Roosevelt in the 1936 Presidential election.

In his “Share the Wealth” program, Senator Long called for a net asset tax to redistribute people’s earnings which would, in his view, minimize the poverty of the Great Depression. Long was not the first to promote a socialist platform, but by mid-1935 he was the first such advocate who appeared to have a legitimate chance of attaining the Presidency. His popularity, coupled with his power and policies, ensured the Kingfish plenty of enemies.

On September 10, 1935, two days after being shot at the Louisiana State Capitol in Baton Rouge, Senator Huey Long died. History records Dr. Carl Austin Weiss as his assassin. Many researchers, however, believe the doctor has been unjustly vilified and that the Kingfish was accidentally killed by the people who were assigned to protect him.

 

Senator Huey Long

Huey Long had a long list of enemies, and topping the list was his most outspoken critic, Judge Henry Pavy.

The Senator had returned from Washington, D.C. to Baton Rouge to convene a special session of the Louisiana state legislature on the evening of September 8, 1935. At issue was House Bill No. 1, which would gerrymander Pavy’s district by filling it with additional Long supporters in hopes of ousting the judge in the 1936 elections. Long desperately wanted the bill passed because if Pavy were out of power, it would greatly increase his stranglehold on Louisiana politics, furthering his clout and enhancing his chances of ascending to the presidency.

The possibility of Huey Long in the White House was frightening to many. Plenty of people had a motive for wanting the rising socialist star out of the presidential picture: Judge Pavy was chief among them.

It is not the judge’s name, however, that is today inextricably linked with Huey Long’s. It is instead that of his son-in-law, whose profession was medicine, not politics.

Judge Henry Pavy

Twenty-nine-year-old Carl Weiss was married to Judge Pavy’s daughter, Yvonne. The mild-mannered Baton Rouge physician was described as a dedicated doctor who professed little interest in politics.

On the afternoon of September 8, 1935, Dr. Weiss and Yvonne, along with several other family members, ate lunch at the home of Carl’s parents in Baton Rouge. Dr. Weiss’s father, also named Carl, was a prominent eye specialist who, although he had once treated Senator, Long, despised him. Attendees at the lunch said Weiss’s father ranted about Long and his attacks on Judge Pavy. Both his son and Yvonne were said to have tried to calm the elder Weiss. After the lunch, the younger Carl made a house call on a patient, wrote a prescription, and then made a phone call. From his patient’s home, he drove, unexpectedly, to the state capitol.

Dr. Weiss’s reasons for visiting the capitol that evening are still debated. History holds that the good doctor went to shoot the Senator, but some believe the apolitical physician merely sought to speak to Senator Long about his feud with his father-in-law.

Dr. Carl Weiss

From only four feet away, Dr. Weiss is said to have shot Senator Huey Long in his torso outside of the Governor’s office at the Louisiana State Capitol at approximately 9:20 p.m. on September 8, 1935.

Long’s bodyguards responded with a hail of gunfire, killing the doctor. In total, Dr. Weiss had been shot sixty-one times by the Senator’s protectors.

Headline From the Now-Defunct The Morning Tribune

Senator Long was seriously wounded, but lucid. Surgeons began operating on him at 11:00 p.m. and determined his colon had been punctured in two places. They sewed him up and declared him cured. It was soon discovered, however, that the surgeons had overlooked a grave wound to Long’s kidney. The finding was too late the Senator died at 4:10 a.m. on September 10, thirty-one hours after having been shot.

Some doctors and historians believe Long may have survived had the surgeons noticed the kidney wound sooner.

The Senator Succumbs to His Wounds

The focal point of the investigation into the shooting of Senator Huey Long was not whether the shooting had been an accident but whether Dr. Weiss had been part of a conspiracy. After no such evidence was found, a formal inquest declared the late doctor the sole killer of the Senator.

Dr. Weiss owned a .32 caliber gun which he kept in the glove compartment of his car; it was found lying next to him after he had been shot dead. Several of Dr. Weiss’s friends saw him lingering in the capitol building that evening. When some spoke to him, he told them he was waiting to talk to the Senator about his father-in-law. Dr. Weiss was seen approaching Senator Long at least three different times that evening, only to be turned away each time.

With each brush off, the doctor’s frustration grew greater. The official conclusion was that Dr. Weiss, angered at Long’s personal and political attacks on his father-in-law, and feeling disrespected at repeatedly being brushed off by the Senator, shot him to death in a fit of rage.

Testing the Doctor’s Patience

The official version of the shooting states no bullets were recovered from Senator Long’s body. Historian Ed Reed, however, says a relative of one of the surgeons claims a doctor who operated on Long told him a .38 caliber bullet was pulled from the Senator’s body. Dr. Weiss did not own a .38 caliber gun, but some of Long’s bodyguards used such firearms.

A second bullet was also allegedly found while Long’s body was being prepared for an autopsy. Reed says Dr. Clarence Lauriel, a close friend of the Senator, approached the mortician, Merle Welsh, and ordered him to step away from the body as he pulled another bullet out of Long’s body.

Dr. Lauriel allegedly told his friend it was a .45 caliber bullet, consistent with guns used by other bodyguards.

Dr. Clarence Lauriel 

Ed Reed believes ample evidence suggests Dr. Weiss did not shoot the Senator but instead was killed by Long’s overzealous bodyguards. He believes a comment made by Long himself shortly before he was put under for surgery may be indicative of Weiss’s innocence.

When a surgeon noticed Long’s lip was bleeding, the Senator is said to have told him “that’s where he hit me.” In a 1935 affidavit, Jewel O’Neal, one of the nurses involved in preparing Long for surgery, stated the Senator had a bruised lip. This statement was confirmed by a second nurse. If Weiss punched Long, Reed believes, he would likely not have had time to pull out a gun and shoot him before he himself was bombarded with bullets.

Reed concurs with witness accounts that Dr. Weiss grew increasingly frustrated with each brushoff by Long. After being ignored for the fourth time, however, Reed believes the doctor struck at Long in frustration, not with a gun but with his fist. Long’s bodyguards, overanxious and untrained in security measures, then unleashed the array of bullets that killed Dr. Weiss. Reed believes that several of the bodyguards’ bullets also struck and ultimately killed the Senator.

Reed offers one other indicator that Dr. Weiss was not an assassin. Earlier that evening, after Long exited Governor Oscar Allen’s office, several people recalled seeing Dr. Weiss trying to approach the Senator. Witnesses reported at that time Long’s security was lax and the Senator had his back to Dr. Weiss, giving him a perfect opportunity to shoot him and likely escape the capitol.

Life Magazine Painting of the Shooting

Carl Weiss’ brother Tom and his cousin Jim Weiss rushed to the capitol after hearing of the shooting and the doctor’s suspected involvement but not yet knowing that he had been killed. They found the doctor’s car in the front parking lot of the capitol. Inside, they saw his medical bag packed in its typical orderly fashion.

Because the vehicle was locked, Tom and Jim went to the doctor’s home to retrieve the spare keys. By the time they returned to the capitol, the car had been moved to the parking lot behind the building. When they unlocked the car, they found Dr. Weiss’ gun missing and the contents of his instrument bag scattered across the floor and seats.

Car Moved and Tampered

Ed Reed believes Dr. Weiss would not have been able to enter the capitol building with a gun as extra security measures had been taken due to the threats on Senator Long’s life.

Elois Sahuk, a security guard at the capitol that evening, told him he believed that after learning Weiss’ identity, one of Long’s bodyguards retrieved the gun from the doctor’s car and placed it next to his body.

Elois Sahuk

The investigative files into the death of Senator Huey Long, along with Dr. Weiss’ gun, a 1910 Belgian-Browning FN Model, disappeared in 1940.

The items’ whereabouts remained unknown for over a half-century.

Dr. Weiss’ Gun

In 1987, using public records, researchers found the will of Louis Guerre, the head of the Louisiana Criminal Bureau of Investigation at time of Long’s death. The document contained information from several reports of his investigations, one of which mentioned Dr. Carl Weiss’ gun.

In 1991, investigators traced the gun to a safety deposit box in New Orleans, where it was in the possession of Guerre’s daughter, who had inherited it from her father’s estate. Guerre, who died in 1966, had also given his daughter his long-lost report on the death of Senator Huey Long.

A court order was granted to search the safety deposit box. Along with the gun, several unused .32 caliber bullets and a spent .32 slug were in the lock box. Investigators assumed the slug was from the bullet that killed Senator Long, but ballistics tests determined the slug had not come from Dr. Weiss’ gun.

In reading Guerre’s six-hundred-page report on Long’s death, modern police concluded Guerre, known to be a Long crony, had almost single-handedly conducted the investigation into the Senator’s death. In addition, Guerre was found to have conducted confidential off-the-record interviews with Long’s bodyguards.

Despite the findings, however, the Louisiana State Police determined nothing in Guerre’s files warranted changing the official ruling of Dr. Carl Weiss as Senator Huey Long’s assassin.

Louis Guerre

In 1992, fifty-seven years after Huey Long’s death, Francis Grevemberg, Superintendent of the Louisiana State Police in the early 1950s, came forward supporting Ed Reed’s belief that the Senator had been accidentally shot to death by two of his bodyguards, Joe Messina and Murphy Roden, who had both since died. Grevemberg said two eyewitness state troopers told him Dr. Weiss was unarmed when Long was shot and that they later saw a bodyguard plant a gun near the bullet-ridden deceased doctor.

Grevemberg claimed he did not come forward earlier because, until the early 1990s, the Louisiana state legislature was filled with pro-Long family politicians who would not believe the story or support an inquiry. Grevemberg twice ran unsuccessfully for Governor of Louisiana, including once against Huey Long’s younger brother Earl.

Grevemberg died in 2008. Despite the claims of one of their own, the Louisiana State Police again refused to change their official position that Dr. Weiss was the killer of Senator Long.

Francis Grevemberg

One final piece of evidence suggests Huey Long’s death may have been an accidental shooting.

Records uncovered in the 1990s showed the Senator had a $20,000 life insurance policy with a double indemnity clause, paying twice as much if his death were an accident. Records show payment was awarded by Mutual Life Insurance to Long’s family in the amount of $40,000, the equivalent of nearly $750,000 today.

Insurance Clause Paid

An autopsy was not initially performed on Dr. Weiss. Due to the evidence suggesting the possibility of an accidental shooting, his body was exhumed in 1992. After examination, renowned pathologist Dr. James Starrs concluded “. . . there is significant scientific evidence to establish grave and persuasive doubts that Carl Austin Weiss was the person who killed Sen. Huey P. Long.” Dr. Starrs, however, also emphasized the examination of evidence could not conclusively prove the doctor did not shoot Long.

Senator Long’s body was buried deeply under a monument on the Capitol grounds and could not be exhumed.

Dr. Weiss’ Body is Exhumed

Robert Penn Warren’s 1947 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel All the King’s Men and the 1949 Academy Award-winning film of the same name were based on the exploits of Senator Huey Long. The main character Willie Stark is a political boss largely modeled on Long while the character of Adam Stanton, the distraught young doctor who shoots Stark at the end of the book, is partially based on Dr. Carl Weiss.

Broderick Crawford won the Best Actor Oscar for his portrayal of Willie Stark in the 1949 film.

Novel and Movie

The books The Day Huey Long Was Shot, by David Zinman and Accident and Deception: The Huey Long Shooting, by Donald Pavy, support the claims that Huey Long was killed by his bodyguards rather than Dr. Weiss. Donald Pavy is a descendant of Judge Henry Pavy and, through him, a distant in-law of Dr. Weiss.

Most historians dismiss these books as revisionist history.

Books Disputing the Official Ruling

Three months old when his dad was killed, Carl Weiss, Jr. followed in his father’s footsteps as a medical doctor, not as an official killer.

Dr. Carl Weiss, Jr. died on August 1, 2019 at age eighty-four. To the end, he fought to clear his father’s name.

Dr. Carl Weiss, Jr.

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/640/huey-long

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/7062654/carl-austin-weiss

 

SOURCES:

• The Advocate (Baton Rouge, LA.)
• The Daily Beast
• New Orleans Times-Picayune
• New York Times
• Unsolved Mysteries
• Washington Post