The Surprisingly Dark Story Behind This 1966 Hit Saw Life Imitate Art in Harrowing Ways

Eighteen years after Walter Scott cut “The Cheater” with Bob Kuban and the In-Men, he would meet a grisly fate at the hands of a person who seemed uncannily similar to the one Scott sang about in the 1965 pop tune. The harrowing story is one of the darker instances of life imitating art, dating back to 1983 in St. Charles County, Missouri.

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Scott, Kuban, and the rest of the In-Men were in talks to get their group back together in the winter of 1983. But their plans were cut short when, two days after Christmas, Scott mysteriously disappeared. His body was discovered over three years later inside a cistern under a home in the Southeastern corner of Missouri. Upon finding Scott hog-tied and shot in the chest, police began a homicide investigation immediately.

Their search led them to James H Williams Sr., with whom Scott’s second wife, JoAnn (née Calcaterra), was having an affair around the time of Scott’s death. Police ultimately charged Williams with the murder of Scott and of Williams’ late wife, Sharon Williams. Police initially believed her 1983 death was caused by a car accident. JoAnn received a five-year prison sentence for hindering an investigation.

The Tragedy Seemed All the More Uncanny Because of “the Cheater”

James H. Williams Sr. received a life sentence in prison for the murder of his wife, Sharon, as well as the murder of Walter Scott, who was the husband of Williams’ lover, JoAnn. It was a sordid tragedy full of infidelity and betrayal and violence, and the entire situation seemed all the more uncanny within the context of the song that gave Scott his first and only Top 40 hit, “The Cheater”, in 1965.

“Haven’t you heard about the guy known as the cheater? / He’ll take your girl, and then he’ll lie, and he’ll mistreat her / It seems every day now you hear people say how / Look out for the cheater.”

Sadly, these words couldn’t have been truer for Scott, who was 40 years old when he died. Scott’s mother, Kay Notheis, spoke with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in September 2011, when her son’s killer, Williams Sr., died in prison. She told the newspaper that she suspected Williams murdered her son the day he went missing.

Scott’s mother said of Williams, who had a heart condition and died of natural causes, “I was wishing he would live longer so we have to suffer a little longer. But you don’t always get what you want.”

Photo by Nikki Kahn/The Washington Post via Getty Images