(Born: 7 February 1943, St. Louis, Missouri, United States; Died: 27 December 1983, St. Peters, Missouri, United States)

Bob Kuban and the In-Men

As Bob Kuban and the In-Men were preparing for a 20th anniversary reunion scheduled for June 23, 1984 at the Fox, Walter Scott mysteriously disappeared. He was last seen walking out his two story home near St. Peters at 7:05PM, December 27, 1983. On April 10, 1987, his badly decomposed, bound body was found floating face down in a cistern. Scott had been shot in the back. Scott’s second wife, JoAnn (Calceterra), pled guilty to hindering prosecution in his murder. She received a five year sentence. And JoAnn’s boyfriend (whom she married in 1986), James H.Williams Sr., was found guilty of two counts of capital murder in the deaths of his previous wife, Sharon Williams, and Walter Scott. James Williams received two life terms without the possibility of parole (affirmed by the Missouri Court of Appeals, April 4, 1995). And Walter Scott still sings, “Tough luck for the Cheater(s), Too bad for the fool-hearted clown(s).” ~ Harry Young, November 1995

Walter Scott, who fronted Bob Kuban and the In-Men, a mini-big-band (eight members) rock group from St. Louis that was started by drummer Kuban. They nearly broke into the
big time in 1966 with the hit single (here comes the irony) “The Cheater” that got to Number 12 in Billboard. 

That was all a distant memory when Scott (born Walter Notheis, Jr.) vanished two days after Christmas in 1983. His former wife had been…cheating on him with a guy she then married after divorcing Scott. The sneaky couple were charged with murder after Scott’s body was found in 1986…with a fatal bullet wound in the back. ~ Milo Miles,  Rock.com Music Editor

Walter Scott, the singer of the 1966 national hit song, “The
Cheater” was hog-tied, shot in the back, and dumped in a cistern for over three years before his body was discovered.  It was the unfaltering persistence of Walter Scott’s elderly parents that finally brought the case to trial.  People who knew
the ultimately convicted murderer, Jim Williams, described him as a congenial, generous person.  Scott’s second wife, JoAnn, who had married Williams, also faced capital murder charges, yet served only eighteen months in a Missouri correctional facility for “hindering the prosecution”.
~re-arranged from –James A. Cox, Editor The Midwest Book Review