The St. Louis white R&B revue Bob Kuban and the In-Men had one big hit to their name: their 1966 single 'The Cheater.' A catchy, horn-driven blast of blue-eyed-soulish pop that made it to No. 12 on the charts, it featured the gruff, powerhouse lead vocals of Walter Scott, who in the band's cautionary tale warns listeners to "Look out for The Cheater/He's gonna build you up just to let you down." Little did Scott suspect that a couple of real-life cheaters, including one he shared a bed with, would be instrumental in letting him down -- into the cold, damp ground.

After his brief taste of stardom, Scott, whose real name was Walter Notheis, had settled into domestic life with his second wife, JoAnn. He had long ago departed from Kuban's combo to go solo and was still making a living of sorts singing in St. Louis-area clubs. But on December 27, 1983, Scott suddenly disappeared without a trace from his home, which was curious in itself, as he and Kuban had been planning a reunion concert for the coming year.

Approximately a year after Scott's disappearance, JoAnn Notheis, citing abandonment, filed for and received a divorce in absentia. Two years later, she got hitched to a neighbor, Jim Williams, who was also recently widowed: His wife, Sharon, had died in an auto accident around the same time that Scott went missing.

County police, egged on by Scott's suspicious parents, investigated his disappearance but could turn up nothing. But in April 1987, a gruesome discovery was made that brought life closer to art: Scott's decomposed body, with a gunshot in its back, was found floating in a cistern on Williams' property -- a cistern that, according to Jim's son, Williams had built a flower box over not long after Scott disappeared. With the finger pointing squarely at Jim and JoAnn's involvement, investigators exhumed the body of Sharon Williams and determined that she was most likely a victim of a homicide as well.

After authorities put the pieces of the case together, they charged Jim Williams with the murders of Sharon Williams and Walter Notheis, aka Walter Scott, and JoAnn Notheis Williams with the murder of Scott. A trial resulted in Jim's conviction, and he is currently serving two life terms. However, JoAnn pleaded guilty to a lesser charge and received a sentence of five years' imprisonment for her role in Scott's death.

By the time of the trial, it had become known that while they were married to their soon-to-be-murdered spouses, Jim and JoAnn were carrying on an affair behind their backs, which, of course, was motive enough to bump them off. And just as Scott had prophesied in the final verse of his hit song, The Cheater gets exposed and receives his just deserts -- well, some might say only one of them did.