Robert Hearin was known for his generosity. The prominent seventy-one-year-old Jackson, Mississippi, businessman was one of the wealthiest men in the Magnolia State. He and his socialite wife, seventy-two-year-old Annie, provided millions of dollars in college scholarships, community parks, medical aid for the downtrodden, and numerous other social causes.

In August 1988, Robert Hearin mailed checks totaling nearly $1 million to twelve different people. These disbursements, however, were not of his choice.

After he returned home on the afternoon of July 26, Robert found a rumpled piece of paper on the floor. Written on it was a rambling ransom note informing him that his beloved Annie had been kidnapped.

Robert complied with the letter’s vague instructions, but in the end, the multimillionaire could not save his wife. The Hearin’s forty-eight-year fairy tale life together ended in an anguishing mystery.

Annie Hearin

Robert Hearin and Annie Swaim met while they were students at the University of Alabama in the late 1930s. Both were natives of the Yellowhammer State. In 1938, actor Tyrone Power chose Annie as one of the school’s seven most beautiful students.

After graduation, the college sweethearts married and settled in Jackson, Mississippi. They soon had two children, a son, Robert, Jr. and a daughter, Laurie.

A Wedding Picture Of Robert And Annie Hearin

Robert served in the Navy during World War II. After the war, he worked for the United States Gas Company until 1955 when he went into the banking business, working for First National Bank, later renamed Trustmark National Bank. He also served as co-owner of Mississippi Gas, one of the state’s largest utilities.

A Veteran And Businessman

Robert proved a great businessman, amassing a nearly $200 million fortune, made mostly by investments in oil and gas. As he made the money, Annie devoted herself to the community. She was a patron of the Jackson Symphony, President of the Jackson Opera Guild, and Co-Chairperson of the Mississippi Arts Festival.

Though neither Hearin ever held a political office, the prominent philanthropic public servants were referred to as the “first couple of Jackson.”

Jackson’s Preeminent Couple

On July 26, 1988, Annie hosted her biweekly bridge club at her home. The card-playing began at 10:15 a.m., the last guest departed at approximately 2:30 p.m., and the Hearins’ housekeeper, Mary Weathersby, left a half-hour later, leaving Annie alone in her home.

A Typical Morning For Annie

When Robert returned home around 4:30, he saw Annie’s Cadillac parked in their driveway. When he found the house empty, he assumed she had gone out with friends. By evening, however, after Annie had still not returned home, he grew concerned.  He called Annie’s friends, but none had heard from her since the bridge game. Daughter Laurie, who also lived in Jackson, had not heard from her mom either, nor had son, Robert, Jr. who lived in New Orleans.

Growing increasingly uneasy, Robert called the police. Shortly after concluding the call, he found a crumpled piece of paper on the floor by the front door. Its author claimed Annie had been kidnapped.

The Hearin Home

The crudely typewritten ransom letter containing numerous spelling and grammatical errors was unusual in that it demanded money be paid to twelve different people, all of whom had connections to School Pictures Of Mississippi Inc., a company Robert had owned until the previous year.

The kidnapper’s demands were vague, reading in part: “Mr. Robert Herrin [sic], Put these people back in the shape they was in before they got mixed up with School Pictures. Pay them whatever damages they want and tell them all this so then can no what you are doing but dont tell them why you are doing it. Do this before ten days pass. Don’t call police.”

Robert Finds A Ransom Letter

Only after phoning the police did Robert find the letter, which appeared to have been shoved under the door after Annie was forcibly taken. It was determined to have been typed on a 1920s-vintage typewriter.

Responding officers found drops of blood on the carpet as well as small traces of blood smears on the front door of the Hearin residence. Analysis determined the blood matched Annie’s type. The height of the splatters from the ground suggested she had been struck on her head.

Front Page News

School Pictures Of Mississippi Inc. sold franchises to photographers to produce photo portraits of school children. In April 1988, three months before Annie Hearin’s apparent abduction, the company was sold to Jostens Inc., the largest publisher of school yearbooks at the time. The $25 million sale was completed in October, three months after Annie disappeared.

From 1981-83, during Robert Hearin’s ownership as majority stockholder in the company, School Pictures filed lawsuits in state court against twelve franchise owners in eight states to collect money owed to them. Those sued were the twelve people mentioned in the ransom note. The writer claimed Robert’s lawsuits had financially harmed these people.

Investigators suspected the writer was one of the twelve named people, but because the lawsuits were in the public records, he or she could have been someone not associated with the School Picture franchises.

At Robert Hearin’s request, School Pictures reviewed the transactions with the twelve named people.

School Pictures Sued Franchise Owners In The Highlighted States

Although Robert had had no involvement with School Pictures since selling the company five years earlier and did not know any of the individuals mentioned in the letter, he mailed checks totaling $931,000 to the individuals. Because the demands in the ransom note were ambiguous, he asked each sendee what they specifically wanted. Nine of the twelve people responded by returning the checks and saying they did not want anything; the three people who did not respond never cashed the checks.

Robert Mails The Checks

On August 15, twenty days after Annie’s kidnapping, Robert received a letter postmarked Atlanta, Georgia, nearly four-hundred miles from Jackson, Mississippi. He recognized the handwriting as Annie’s. She had written, “Bob, if you don’t do what these people want you to do, they are going to seal me up in the cellar of this house with only a few jugs of water. Please save me. Annie.”

No further contact was received from Annie or her kidnappers.

A Letter From Annie

In March 1989, St. Petersburg, Florida, civil attorney Alfred Winn was arrested on charges related to the kidnapping of Annie Hearin eight months earlier. He had held a Florida School Pictures franchise in the early 1980s and had been ordered to pay the company $153,883 in 1984.

Winn was one of the twelve people mentioned in the ransom note and also one of the people who had returned the check, totaling $145,000, mailed to him by Robert Hearin.

In the days preceding and on the morning of Annie’s kidnapping, a white van with Florida license plates was seen parked along the street of the Hearin residence. Less than one month earlier, Winn had purchased a van matching the description and the Hearin’s neighbors identified him as the occupant seen staring at the home. In addition, the ransom letter was determined to have been written on a 1920s-vintage typewriter to which Winn had access.

Alfred Winn

Two people received immunity in return for their testimony against Alfred Winn. A man who had once worked as his paralegal testified he had lied to a grand jury in providing him an alibi for the day of Annie’s disappearance. The other, Marilyn Phillips, was Winn’s onetime lover who told investigators he had paid her $500 to fly to Atlanta where she had mailed a letter for him on August 11, sixteen days after Annie’s kidnapping. Phillips testified Winn gave her a manila envelope containing a letter wrapped in a gray linen napkin. She says Winn instructed her not to look at or touch the letter but that as she dropped the letter into the mail slot, she saw the envelope and its writing.

She identified the letter Robert Hearin received from Annie as the one Winn had paid her to mail in Atlanta.

Winn’s Shenanigans Are Revealed

In February 1990, Alfred Winn was convicted of conspiracy to kidnap, extortion, and perjury. He was sentenced to nineteen years and seven months in prison. He was released in 2006 and maintained his innocence until his death in 2012.

Winn’s claims of innocence are rejected by authorities, but it is cloudy as to whether or not he committed the actual kidnapping of Annie Hearin. Some investigators believe he did so while others believe unknown accomplices carried out the actual act.

As Winn returned the $145,000 check mailed to him from Robert Hearin, his motive for the crime is unclear.

Winn Loses

Robert Hearin died at age seventy-three in November 1990, nearly two-and-a-half years after Annie’s kidnapping. His cause of death was a heart attack, but friends and family say he really died from the proverbial broken heart.

All of his money could not bring his beloved Annie home.

Broken Bob

Annie Hearin was declared legally dead in 1991. Police believe she died shortly after she was kidnapped, either killed by her captors or of natural causes. She suffered from ileitis, an intestinal disorder requiring daily medication, and her medicine sat on the counter when Robert returned home on the day of the kidnapping. She likely could not have survived more than a couple of months without it.

Annie’s remains have not been found. Police say they have information suggesting she may have been disposed of along either the Mississippi/Louisiana border or in the Texas panhandle.

Annie Is Not Found

Annie Laurie Hearin was abducted from her Jackson, Mississippi, home on July 26, 1988. At the time, she was seventy-two-years-old, five-feet-four-inches tall, and weighed one-hundred-twenty pounds. Her eyes and hair were brown and her ears were pierced.

Annie’s physical health was frail. In addition to her ileitis, she suffered from scoliosis and arthritis which caused her to walk in a stooped manner.

If you have information relating to the disappearance of Annie Hearin or to the location of her remains, please contact the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) Jackson, Mississippi, Division at 601-948-5000.

Still An Open Case

On July 26, 1988, the same day the wealthy Annie Hearin was kidnapped, a seven-year-old Jackson, Mississippi, girl from a poor family also vanished. Like Annie, seven-year-old Daffnay Tullos has not been found.

Daffnay lived with her grandparents. She was last seen playing outside of their home between 7:00 and 8:00 p.m. Her mother, Robbie, passed a polygraph test, as did Robbie’s former husband, Daffnay’s father. Grandparents were also cleared of involvement.

At the time she vanished, Robbie’s boyfriend, Ernest Epps, the father of Daffnay’s two-year-old twin half-brothers, was charged with having sexually abused Daffnay. She had said the alleged incident occurred while she was sleeping on June 29, four weeks earlier.

Following Epps’ arrest, his family offered the Tullos $175 to drop the charges; they refused. Epps was released on bail on the morning of July 26; Daffnay vanished that evening.

Epps proclaimed his innocence and passed a polygraph test. Police found nothing connecting him to Daffnay’s disappearance, and he was never subsequently prosecuted for the alleged sexual assault. He is now deceased.

Daffany Tullos

Like Annie Laurie Hearin, Daphne Sherika Tullos was last seen In Jackson, Mississippi on July 26, 1988. At the time of her disappearance, she was seven-years-old, three-feet-seven-inches tall, and weighed fifty-five pounds. She had brown eyes and black medium-length hair. Both of her ears were pierced. Her blue and white striped shirtsleeves and shorts were labeled with her name.

Also like Annie Hearin, Daphne did not have her needed medication when she vanished. An epileptic, she required daily medication to control her seizures and headaches.

If you have any information on the disappearance of Daphne Tullos, please contact the Jackson, Mississippi, Police Department at 601-960-1234 of the FBI at 202-324-3000.

Computer-Aged Image of Daffnay Tullos

SOURCES:

• The Charley Project
• Clarion-Ledger (Jackson Mississippi)
• The Doe Network
• FBI Files
• Los Angeles Times
• Unsolved Mysteries