Elizabeth Davis
Special to Boonville Daily News
Charles Liston was born in Arkansas sometime between 1929 and 1932. His father, Tobey Liston, was a tenant farmer and abusive alcoholic. Sources differ on the number of children in the family, but Charles was one of the last to Tobey’s second wife. He grew up working in local cotton fields until he left home in his teens.
At 16, Liston was over 6 feet tall, weighed 200 pounds, and did not get along with the local police in St. Louis. He was arrested over 20 times until, in 1950, he was convicted on two counts of robbery with a deadly weapon and two counts of larceny. He was sentenced to the Missouri State Penitentiary where he became one of the prison rehabilitation success stories.