Why'd they go and kill Jewell Langford, theTenneesee spa owner here in Montreal?

A guy named Rodney Nichols, now aged 81, allegedly killed Jewell Langford in 1975 and dumped her body into the South Nation River west of Montreal.

 

Recent pic of Rodney Nichols

Nicholas lives in Florida and now faces extradition to face charges here in Montreal after DNA apparently pointed to him as the killer in the 48-year old slaying. 

   Jewell Langford taught at Baptist Church and participated in American Busienss Womens Association meetings

  She ran a business with her husband Atlas at 444 E Main in Jackson Tennessee. It was some sort of fitness centre called the Slenderette (for women) and the Jackson Health Club for men. They opened it in about 1961. She apparently started in the field of fitness in 1955 and Atlas did the same a few years earlier. Their operation offered steam baths, vibrating tables, calf shaping machines, etc.

Places like that often went out of business because yeah, those slimming treatments were debunked around that same time. You need exercise to get fit. But they got a good price for it nonetheless.

  Below are some photos of murder victim Jewell Langford from various Tennesee newpaper articles from the early 1970s. There's a photo of the building where he business was located as well. There is also a reacreated image of the person whose body was found and proven to be Jewell Langford. It does not look anything like her. 

In March 1975 Jewell Langford and her husband Atlas Langford sold their business in Jackson, Tennesee, a mid-sized city between Memphis and Nashville.

 Her spa was also called Imperial Health Spa and they had beren running it since about 1961. They were given $300,000 with a promissary note for $125,000 to each of them. The buyer, a company known as Cosmopolitan, gave Atlas some cash as well. 

 On April 22, 1975 Jewell Langford left Tennesee for Canada. She drove up in her late model 1974 car. She brought the promissary note but neve cashed it because Cosmopolitan had not made payment on the note. 

  The purpose of Jewell's 20-hour drive visit north to Canada is unknown. One might assume that she was there to spend time with Rodney Nichols who she somehow was acqutainted with. I don't know who Rodney Nichols was but I'm asking around. He would have been aged about 33 at the time. He lived in Montreal.

   Jewell was reportedly aged 48 at the time. She and Rodney were not necessarily in a romantic relationship, given the fact that she was 15 years his senior. 

  One might guess that Jewell and Atlas were splitting up and that's why they sold their business.  Jewell was maybe going to move in with Nichols, so that's whjy she came here. Who knows? 

  Nichols' motivation for killing her? Maybe because he thought she had come into money but was disappointed to learn that she had not.

 Jewell disappeared but her car and other personal items were found. Jewell's mother Eglah Mae Wilson launched an intensive search for her missing daugther.

   Police found a body of an unidentified woman in the Nation River south of Ottawa but never knew who it was until now that the DNA tests confrmed it to be Langflord. 

   Jewell's mom Eglah Mae Wilson, who was already aged 67, had a pretty good idea that her daughter Jewell had died. 

   Eglah tried super diligently to find out what became of her daughter and did loads of legal stuff to try to recover her daughter's assets but it appears that those were all futile. 

 Eglah filed to have her daughter declared dead in October 1975 and sued Cosmopolitan in December 1975. By December 1983 Eglah's lawyer was asking for $215,000 through her lawyer Larry Butler. 

   Atlas remarried a few years later.  Jewell's mom and brother, six years her junior, are now also both dead. We don't know if Jewell had kids but we don't think so.