By BIRIDIANA LOPEZ-RODRIGUEZ
Staff Writer
It all starts in a small town called GibsonVille in Florida in the 1900s. This place was known for freak show performers, but it was popular through these performers only because it was a very kind and friendly area. A family named the Stiles family moved there in the late 1900s, and they were also known as the “Lobster Family”. Grady Franklin Stiles Jr. was the fifth descendant of a long line of lobster boys (his father and his grandfather had the same condition). He was born on June 26, 1937, and the condition affected all four limbs. At first he would move around in a wheelchair, but he soon found a way to maneuver his way around on his arms. He also had two sisters. One didn’t have the condition, and the other had it only in her foot (but her parents decided to amputate it and get a prosthetic). Grady’s father (Grady’s father was also named Grady) also had it to where it only affected his hands. Worried about his son’s quality of life, he decided to join a freakshow with his son Grady (age 7 when he joined). Not long after, he became a celebrity in the area and was happier. He also got a lot of attention from girls. While in the circus, many of the other performers taught him how to write, hold a pen, shoot a gun, etc. He had a lot of upper body strength. While in his late teens, another worker joined the circus. Seventeen year old Mary Terza had run away to join the circus to get away from her abusive stepfather. She wasn’t a performer, but she did jobs such as ticket sales. She would spend some time around Grady, which soon made her fall for him. At first he didn’t like her and didn’t pay much attention to her, but then she wore him down and he started falling for her as well. When they were in their relationship, he helped her climb her way up so she was a magician’s assistant. They both got married in 1958, but soon Grady started drinking and became an alcoholic.
When he was drunk, he was a completely different person; he was violent, aggressive, mean, and angry. Since he had crazy upper body strength, his beating towards Mary was ten times worse (would also strangle her). They soon had a child, a baby girl, but she sadly died of pneumonia not long after. They tried again and had a son, but as before, the child died of pneumonia. Their third child, Donna, would be the first to survive and not have any kind of deformities. They had another child named Kathy, and she had ectrodactyly. After 15 years in the marriage, Mary finally had the courage to leave him and take the children with her, but she didn’t get custody because she didn’t show up to the court hearing. He remarried a woman named Barbara. They both had a son together, also named Grady. He had ectrodactyly affecting all 4 limbs. Grady soon had an idea of taking his 2 children who had ectrodactyly and making them a part of his act. He forced them to wear gloves in public because he wanted people to pay to see them. In Grady’s late 30’s and early 40’s, he retired. His children still performed. Donna ran away at the age of 15 to get away from her abusive father. She had also met an 18 year old boy, and they both fell in love and wanted to be together. She had been gone for 2 years, and at the age of 17, she was engaged to her boyfriend. She went back to get her father’s approval. One day Donna, her siblings, and her stepmother were together in one room, while Grady and Donna’s boyfriend ended up away from the group. He was most likely having a conversation with him, when all the sudden, Donna heard loud bangs from where the two were. She panicked because her boyfriend was alone with her violent father, so she ran towards him and saw her boyfriend on the floor in a pool of his own blood. She then noticed that he had gunshot wounds in his chest; she knew he was dead and looked at her father who had a gun in his hand. He looked at her daughter, who was witnessing her boyfriend’s death, and said, “Better him than me”. He said it was for self-defense, and he blamed it on his disability in court. He was found guilty of 3rd-degree murder, and he was supposed to serve life in prison. However, he never spent a day in prison. Instead, he was under house arrest for 15 years. Since he thought he could get away with anything, he was ten times more confident.
Many years passed, and Grady’s wife, Barbara, divorced him. He tried to start his own freak show, but it failed. He moved back to Gibsonton where he met up with his first wife and started a relationship again. They remarried, and Mary thought things would be better this time, but they were worse than they were before. He would beat Mary, his children, and his grandchildren. He once told Marry, “I’ve killed once, I can do it again”. Grady was in the middle of beating Mary when Kathy got in between them. She was 7 months pregnant and still tried to protect her mother, but Grady didn’t care and began beating Kathy. The trauma from the beating brought on early labor. In November of 1992, an event happened that made Mary want to stop it all. One night, she was getting ready to fall asleep when Grady opened the door, crawled onto the bed, straddled her, and put a knife to her neck. He told her one day he was going to kill her. Mary knew this wasn’t an empty threat and called her son, Harry, to tell him what had happened. Harry felt that he had a solution, so on November 30th 1992, in the early hours of the morning, police were called to the Stiles family mobile home. As soon as the police walked in, they saw a man sitting down in the living room, and he was covered in blood. It was 55 year old Grady Stiles, who had been murdered. He was sitting in his armchair in just his underwear with 3 gunshot wounds to the head. Police thought it was a robbery gone wrong, and Grady’s family didn’t seem to be sad over his death. Police questioned Mary and Harry. They both took a polygraph test, and Harry failed. He then told the police everything. He confessed that his mother told him that Grady threatened her and that the only way to save her from her abusive husband was to kill him first. He hired another circus worker, 17 year old Chris Wyant. He was a runaway and needed the money. He also was already involved in crimes. Both Mary and Harry gathered up the money and asked Chris if he was willing to kill someone. Chris didn’t try to hide the fact that he killed Grady, and he was found guilty of 2nd degree murder. The kids all defended Mary in court, telling them that Grady was bound to kill her one day. They told them about all the horrible things he had done.
The court asked her why she didn’t just divorce him like she did all those years ago. Mary claimed that he would come after her, and if she did take all the children, he would find her easily. The court found her guilty of manslaughter and sentenced her to 12 years in prison. Harry was seen as the mastermind and was sentenced to life in prison for 1st degree murder. Harry died in prison in 2014, Chris was let out of prison in 2009, and Mary was let out in the year 2000. She moved back to Gibsonton, but she wasn’t welcomed with open arms. Many didn’t like her or didn’t believe that she was abused. Others knew she was being abused and turned a blind eye since they liked Grady so much. His funeral was pathetic because no one wanted to carry his coffin, there were very few people who attended it, and only a couple of flowers were placed on his grave. This was the true crime case of The Lobster Boy Killer.