HauntBound archive · catalog record
Reported phenomena — as catalogued
Twin Falls cemetery holding the grave of Lyda Southard, 'Lady Bluebeard,' Idaho's first known female serial killer, buried in 1958 under an alias.
2296 Kimberly Rd, Twin Falls, ID 83301
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Public cemetery; no admission fee. Visit respectfully during posted daylight hours.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Flat, maintained cemetery grounds with paved drives and grass sections.
Equipment
Photos OK
Burial place of Lyda Southard ('Lady Bluebeard'), often called Idaho's first known female serial killer · Grave marked under the alias 'Anna E. Shaw' · Associated with a 1920s arsenic-poisoning case and the Old Idaho Penitentiary · A recognized true-crime and dark-tourism stop in the Magic Valley
Lyda Southard, born Lyda Trueblood in 1892, became known across Idaho as 'Lady Bluebeard' and is often described as the state's first known female serial killer. Between roughly 1915 and 1920, a cluster of deaths surrounded her: her young daughter Lorraine, a brother-in-law, and several husbands, among them Robert Dooley, William G. McHaffie, Harlan C. Lewis, and Edward F. Meyer. Many of the deaths were initially attributed to typhoid or influenza, which were common at the time.
Suspicion grew because Southard collected on life-insurance policies after the deaths. A chemist named Earl Dooley investigated, exhumations were ordered, and tests pointed to arsenic. Investigators concluded the poison had been extracted from flypaper. Southard was convicted of second-degree murder in the death of Edward Meyer and sentenced to a term at the Old Idaho Penitentiary in Boise. She escaped in 1931, was recaptured in 1932, was paroled in 1941, and later received a pardon.
Southard died of a heart attack on February 5, 1958, in Salt Lake City. Her body was brought back to Twin Falls and buried at Sunset Memorial Park in a quiet, early-morning service. Her sisters chose to mark the grave 'Anna E. Shaw' rather than her own name, and the flat stone in the Pinehurst Gardens section sits across Kimberly Road from the graves of her parents, her daughter, and two of her husbands.
Her case was the subject of William C. Anderson's 1994 book 'Lady Bluebeard,' and it remains one of the most discussed crimes in Magic Valley history.
Sources
The draw at Sunset Memorial Park is historical, not a catalog of ghost sightings. Lyda Southard's grave has become a point of interest for people studying true-crime history and dark tourism in southern Idaho, partly because the marker hides her identity behind the name 'Anna E. Shaw' and partly because her case is so unsettling on its own terms.
Visitors who find the stone sometimes describe a heavy or uneasy feeling standing near it, the kind of reaction that attaches to a grave once people know whose it is. There is no body of documented paranormal activity at the cemetery, and no investigation tradition like the ones at theaters or hotels in the region.
The more durable 'haunting' here is the story itself: deaths written off as illness, insurance money quietly collected, and arsenic traced back through exhumations to a single person. Out of respect, the people who died are named as victims and not described in graphic terms. Sunset Memorial Park remains a working cemetery, and visitors are asked to keep that in mind when they come to see one notorious stone among thousands of ordinary ones.
Notable Entities
Media Appearances
Sunset Memorial Park is a working public cemetery on Kimberly Road. The grave most often sought by true-crime visitors is a flat stone in the southern (Pinehurst Gardens) section marked 'Anna E. Shaw,' the alias under which Lyda Southard was buried. Visit quietly and treat surrounding graves with respect.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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