#HOUSTON SOCIALITE EVENTS FULL#

I’d called Parish in 2017 after reading a couple of old newspaper articles about the murder. You could have knocked River Oaks over with a feather.” And then the police announced that she and her lover-boy nephew were cold-blooded killers. She had everything she could possibly want. “It was like a great trashy novel had come to life,” Betsy Parish, a former society columnist for the Houston Post, told me. They’d had trysts at the mansion, the family’s ranch just southwest of Houston, and the Mosslers’ Galveston beach house.Īnd at some point, the detectives concluded, Candace and Mel had devised a plan to do away with Jacques so they could get hold of his multimillion-dollar fortune. He and Candace had written each other impassioned love letters.

He had high cheekbones, dark eyes, and a head of coal-black hair. Mel was six foot four and built like a linebacker. For nearly two years, she’d been carrying on an affair with her nephew, a 22-year-old mobile home salesman named Melvin Powers. Within days, however, detectives discovered that Candace had been leading a clandestine life of her own. From TM Classics: The Man Who Built River Oaks Candace said that during the week she and the children had spent on Key Biscayne, her husband had received phone calls from a man who spoke in “feminine tones.” Candace told detectives she suspected Jacques had been living a closeted life and that he’d been murdered by one of his lovers. What’s more, she revealed, she’d been told that during his trips to Florida, Jacques sometimes invited young men he’d met on the beach to his apartment. Because Candace claimed that Jacques’s wallet had been emptied and that several hundred-dollar bills were missing from the bathroom counter, along with her gold-and-diamond wristwatch, detectives from the Dade County Sheriff’s Department initially speculated that Jacques had been killed by a burglar.īut Candace also suggested to them that her husband had made plenty of enemies over the years, from rival bankers to disgruntled ex-employees and resentful customers who’d had vehicles or appliances repossessed by his companies.

“Millionaire Banker Slain on Key Biscayne,” trumpeted the Miami News. “Houston Millionaire Stabbed to Death” was the headline in the Houston Chronicle. The murder was front-page news in both Miami and Houston. She’d tell stories about her six children and her husband Jacques, a wealthy financier who had controlling interests in banks, loan companies, and insurance firms. “Bless your heart, thank you so much for coming,” she’d say while mingling with her guests. She liked to wear high-heeled pumps, diamond jewelry, and elegant designer dresses that stopped just above her knees. Want True Crime stories like this on your Facebook feed? Like Texas Monthly on Facebook.Ĭandace always made grand entrances at her soirees, gliding down the circular staircase after everyone had arrived. Famous musicians such as Chuck Berry would sometimes perform on a stage erected on her back lawn, next to the tennis court and steam-heated swimming pool. There, she threw lavish fundraisers for local charities and arts organizations. Her three-story mansion, which was reported to have 28 rooms, was located in River Oaks, the city’s richest neighborhood. She had an easy smile and a soft, breathy voice.

#HOUSTON SOCIALITE EVENTS FULL#

She was in her forties, vivacious and full of charm, with wavy blond hair, deep-blue eyes, and a surgically enhanced figure that was often remarked upon in the many newspaper columns written about her. In the mid-sixties, Candace Mossler was one of the most widely known socialites in Houston.

Houston socialite events