Lexington history: The unsolved murder case of Mary Cawein

Editor’s Note: As Lexington celebrates the 250th anniversary of its founding, the Herald-Leader and kentucky.com each day throughout 2025 will share interesting facts about our hometown. Compiled by Liz Carey, all are notable moments in the city’s history — some funny, some sad, others heartbreaking or celebratory, and some just downright strange.

It was a story straight out of a crime show, but it embroiled the well-to-do in Lexington at the prestigious Idle Hour Country Club.

The body of a member, Mary Marrs Cawein, was found the day after the country club’s Fourth of July party in 1965, slumped over in her bedroom chair. She’d been poisoned. The investigation into her death, with no resolution to the case, leaves it as one of Lexington’s biggest unsolved mysteries.

Mary and her husband, Madison Cawein, grew up in Lexington and were both from well-known and respected families. Her father was George Swineboard, a renowned thoroughbred auctioneer. Madison Cawein was named for his poet grandfather who was known as the “Keats of Kentucky. “

The couple met at the University of Kentucky, and by 1949 the two were married. Madison Cawein’s career as a doctor specializing in hematology would take him to Hazard, where he helped to solve the mystery of the Fugate family — also known as the Blue People of Kentucky.

By July 4, 1965, the pair had been married for 15 years. They had a house on Chinoe Road, and were enjoying the life Madison Cawein’s successful medical practice afforded them. They were close friends with Sam and Betty Strother, who lived near them.

That night, the Caweins and the Strothers went to the Idle Hour Country Club for the Fourth of July celebration.

They allegedly drank quite a bit that night, racking up a $40 bar tab (about $410 today), and left the country club around 11:30 p.m.

What happened next was unclear, as the two couples had had a lot to drink. The Strothers and Madison Cawein kept drinking, but Mary Cawein said she wasn’t feeling well and wanted to go home. Sam Strother, who was already drunk by then, drove her home and went inside with her for another drink.

Strother called for a taxi to take the babysitter home. After she left the house around 1 a.m., Sam Strother had another beer, and Mary Cawein poured herself a bourbon. The two then moved to the only room in the house with air conditioning, the master bedroom.

After a 20-minute chat, Sam Strother went home. He would later tell police that when he left the house, Mary Cawein was sitting in her bedroom chair, drinking her bourbon.

Madison Cawein, however, slept off his overindulgence at the Strother house. When Betty Strother got up to run errands the next morning, he was still asleep. She called to check on Mary Cawein but got no response.

Concerned, she stopped by to check on her friend.

When she arrived, she called for Mary Cawein, but no one answered. When she walked into the master bedroom, she found Mary Cawein — still clothed in the yellow dress she’d worn to the country club. She was in her armchair, lifeless and with her head lolled to one side.

Mary Cawein was dead.

Betty Strother called her house to rouse Madison Cawein. The doctor hurried the three blocks from the Strother house to his own and ran into the bedroom. With a cursory check of his wife, Madison Cawein declared that his wife had committed suicide.

But that wasn’t the end of the story.

An autopsy of Mary Cawein’s body found two fresh needle marks in her thighs. Her blood alcohol level was just below lethal at 0.4%. Doctors determined the cause of her death wasn’t suicide, but poisoning by carbolic acid poisoning.

Carbolic acid is also known as Phenol — a compound made from coal tar used to synthesize plastics. Exposure to phenol can cause coma or seizures within hours, and ingesting it can cause irregular heartbeat, coma and death. Investigators suspected she’d been injected with a knock-out drug and made to drink liquor spiked with phenol.

The question was, by whom?

Cops began to dig deep and uncovered some unsavory and scandalous allegations about Madison Cawein, but held those facts close to the chest in deference to Lexington’s elite.

Now, more than 50 years later, the case is still unsolved and is regarded as an instance where etiquette and fealty took precedence over the investigation.

The police were called late to the crime scene. Instead of calling them upon finding his wife, Madison Cawein called some of his doctor friends to confirm the death. When they got there, the scene was already contaminated. Several other people had entered the room, and Madison Cawein had instructed Sam Strother to dump out the glass of bourbon sitting on his wife’s nightstand.

Six weeks after her death, the coroner declared the death a homicide.

Madison Cawein had spent that time telling his own version of what had happened. Police overheard a phone call between the doctor and his mother-in-law, where he alleged his wife had probably just taken too many Alka-Seltzers and gas had built up in her system, causing a heart attack.

Police eventually charged Madison Cawein in his wife’s death.

During grand jury testimony, one witness, Dr. Emma Lappat, admitted she’d been Madison Cawein’s mistress for two years. However, she said she ended it when he had a sexual dalliance with a patient who was married to another Lexington doctor, Hershell Leapman.

Both Leapman and Lappat told Mary Cawein about the affairs. Mary Cawein’s father testified during trial that she had been considering a divorce.

All three of the doctors had the skills and the motives to kill Mary Cawein, but the grand jury did not return any indictment. It did, however, issue a statement calling out neighbors and others for being busybodies.

After that, the case disappeared into the cold case files.

Madison Cawein died in 1985, and Lexington authorities fought the release of files for years. In 2009, Lt. James Curless took interest in the case and decided to question Lappat, who was still alive. At 83, she met Curless at the door of her home, listened to his question, asked what in the world he was bringing the sordid mess up again for, and closed the door in his face.

With that, the door closed on the investigation and left Lexington with one of its biggest unsolved mysteries to date.

Have a question or story idea related to Lexington’s 250-year history? Let us know at 250LexKy@gmail.com.