Media Mayhem & Domestic Disputes
- Lydia Seaton
- Jun 17
- 7 min read
Our last blog post touched on “The Wickedest Man in the World,” Ben Hogan and the alluring, mysterious French Kate. This week, our staff wanted to discuss another notable woman from Venango County named Lydia Dean. Originally from the Philippines, Lydia went to trial when she was arrested for murdering her husband. The case became an international sensation, which threw Venango County into the center of the world news cycle and communist propaganda.
The Incident
On December 7, 1957, Lydia Dean, a 21 year old Filipino “war bride” was arrested for allegedly shooting her husband in Pleasantville, PA. Lydia’s husband, Technical Searant Ronald Dean, was a 26 year old Air Force airman. Lydia was 17 when she met Ronald, who had been aged 21 and stationed in Southeast Asia. The pair dated for one year before marrying and appeared to enjoy each others company.
A few years into their marriage, Ronald was assigned to be stationed in the United Kingdom for eighteen months. Lydia was allegedly asked to come with Ronald but she declined. Instead, she stayed in a Pleasantville apartment with their infant daughter, Phyllis. The pair began the deployment with writing each other faithfulling, however their enthusiasm gradually diminished. In the final three months of Ronald’s deployment, he and Lydia allegedly did not speak at all, and when Lydia made attempts to call the Air Force base, she was told Ronald was unavailable. During this deployment, Lydia was reportedly homesick and lonely. After her arrest, she told The Derrick, “I had been waiting for eighteen months for Ron to return. I had taught Phyllis what to say to her Daddy and to run and hug and kiss him when he got here.”
Upon his return, Lydia said: “When I saw him [at home], I ran to him to kiss him and he pushed me away. I didn’t know what to think.” She continued: “I was so proud of him. He was all I had.”
Upon Ronald’s return, he informed Lydia that he was in love with an English woman who was expecting his baby and was filing for divorce. He told Mrs. Dean said that he wanted her to return to the Philippines with their three year old daughter so his lover could come to the United States. However, he did not have the money to send Lydia back and explained that she would need to wait with their child in America until he had the appropriate funds.
Upon his return home, Ronald was given an assignment at the Shaw Air Force Base in South Carolina. He was set to leave on January 2, 1958. He had no intention to take Lydia with him, which came as a surprise to Lydia. In an attempt to change Ronald’s mind, Lydia was especially loving, doting, and affectionate towards him. This, however, only appeared to anger Ronald, who would allegedly say: “I’ll kill you if you don’t stop following me.”
On Friday, December 6, 1957, Ronald and his family went out for the evening, leaving Lydia at home with baby Phyllis. When her husband returned later that evening, Lydia and Ronald entered an argument which left Lydia with bruising on her hip. She claims that her husband threatened with a hammer and “flung” her across the bed. He allegedly said to her, “Don’t you know when you’re not wanted?”
Later into the night, Lydia claims that Ronald was accidentally shot while he was on the couch. She claimed that her memory was spotty, and she struggled to remember anything from the incident except the noise of the gun. She also said she struggled to comprehend that it was her husband who had been killed. Immediately after the shooting, she fled with her father-in-law's car, only making it to Tionesta before stopping to ask Mr. and Mrs. Fred Kline for assistance. When she began speaking to the couple, she broke down and explained. the incident. They promptly called the state police.
Lydia was taken into custody for the murder of her husband. She was charged with first degree murder, second degree murder, and involuntary manslaughter. The trial began on January 27, 1958 and lasted for a total of eight days and ended with her acquittal due to the ruling of the shooting being accidental.
Those residing in Venango County experienced a frenzy of international attention due to the trial.
“Never before had the residents of the county seen so many reporters, photographers, TV and radio people concentrated together [...]”
The Media
The murder of Ronald Dean became international news quickly after the story broke. In communist and Southeastern Asian countries, Lydia Dean’s situation was often used as propaganda. Those countries took the situation and described that Lydia Dean would never get a fair trial in the United States since she was a non-white person. These attitudes not only highlight the racial attitudes of the time, but also the pro- and anti-communist movements which were emerging from the Cold War.
Such news outlets as The London Daily Mail, The Associated Press, and Time Magazine all expressed a great deal of interest in the case. The London Daily Mail reached out to The Derrick for news coverage, and The Associated Press installed photo transmitters in the newsroom of The Derrick for the instant transmission of new photographs nationally (and internationally).
The desire for news coverage, fresh photos, and up-to-date information became so hectic that Judge Lee McCracken, the Oil City native who was presiding over the case, banned photographs from his courtroom during the trial and made the rule that photos could only be taken outside.
Mrs. Eugenia de Deen, Lydia’s mother, began her journey to Venango County from the Philippines immediately after the arrest. When she landed in San Francisco for her layover, she was met with hordes of reporters and camera men. Venango County was swept into an international storm of media frenzy over this case.
The Verdict
Immediately after her arrest, Lydia Dean did an interview with The Derrick, which generated a great deal of sympathy for her case and a campaign was created for a defense fund led by the Oil City Optimist Club. A goal of $2,000 was set and reached
just over a month after Lydia’s arrest on January 15th, 1958.
With this defense fund, Lydia and her supporters employed J. Gerald McGill, a local
lawyer. McGill was assisted in his defense by Estanislao Fernandez, one of the top criminal defense lawyers in Manila. At the time of the trial, Fernandez had actually been the vice president of the bar association in Manila.
When Lydia was acquitted, the Communist propaganda that had been exploiting the circumstances of the case folded due to her winning. In Manila, bands “marches in the streets” while “the verdict was announced repeatedly over loudspeakers.”
J. Gerald McGill’s name became well known throughout the Philippines, and the Philippine senate passed a resolution to commend the “American brand of justice.” Estanislao Fernandez returned to the Philippines and was elected to the Philippine Supreme Court.
The Doubt
Not everyone celebrated the aquittal, however. Ronald Dean’s family claimed that the attack was more premeditated than what Lydia described. Ronald’s father, Ira, says that the telephone was torn off the wall in the home. He also said that of the three cars on the property, all were in an unusable condition. One had been stolen, one had the wiring tampered with, and one had the keys taken. Without the cars and the phone available, immediate help was out of reach. Ronald’s father told officers that he had to walk to the home of a neighbor a quarter of a mile away for help.
By Lydia’s own admission, she said that she loaded her child into the care before shooting her husband and had the car running for when she had finished in the home. Based on these details, the District Attorney, Robert T. Grannis said that the murder was of the first degree.
Grannis said, “The act was deliberate because, by admission of the defendant, she deliberately loaded the gun, deliberately pointed it at his head, and deliberately pulled the trigger, causing his death.” Grannis also claimed that Lydia bought cartridges in advance for the gun.
Lydia's counter to these claims was that she had taken the rifle and told her husband to shoot her in an attempt to prove her love. However, hearing Phyllis cry, she ran with the gun still in her hand, tripped, and accidentally fired a shot at her husband. She said that she had only taken the phone off the wall so that Ronald couldn’t call his girlfriend in England. She also claimed that she had cut the wires on her husband's car and preemptively placed Phyllis in another car so that Ronald was unable to drive away without her. Her story, which remained consistent throughout the trial, was the one the jury - and the world - sided with.
Lydia and Phyllis remained in the area after the trial finished for a short time. Eventually, the mother and daughter duo moved south to Florida for a fresh start. She remarried and resided outside of Miami with her new husband, who was an Air Force man.
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