Mayor Baxter was the long-time Mayor of Baxterville. He was a handsome man with dark hair and a lined face. His son Biff had been a schoolmate of Dick Tracy.
Mayor Baxter was married several times. His wives died under mysterious circumstances. The Mayor used his influence to prevent these deaths from being investigated, and they were all classified as "natural causes".
After Mayor Baxter's son Biff was divorced by his wife Betsy, the Mayor married Betsy. Betsy later died. Dick Tracy (who had been Betsy's boyfriend in high school) decided to investigate. Tracy suspected that the Mayor had been responsible for Betsy's death, and also the deaths of his other wives as well.
Tracy recruited his friend Jenny Saisquoi to start a romance with the Mayor. The Mayor became attracted to Jenny, and Tracy alerted the Mayor's current wife Sally that he was a philanderer. Sally agreed to help Tracy trap the Mayor.
Sally pretended to be asleep in in bed while Tracy monitored the Baxter house from outside. He observed the Mayor entering the house, then heard a cry from upstairs. Tracy arrived to find Biff Baxter struggling with his mother Gloria, who had been attempting to smother Sally to death with a pillow.
It was eventually discovered that all of Mayor Baxter's wives had been killed by Gloria. Sally still objected to the Mayor's relationship with Jenny and stated her intention to divorce him. The Mayor announced his plan to resign from his office, and Tracy hoped that he would mend his relationship with Biff.
Notes[]
- An early scene in the Baxterville storyline shows Mayor Baxter's son Biff at the graves of his mother and step-mother. Their names are clearly visible on the headstones (Gloria and Helen). Later, Dick Tracy reads a newspaper article that lists Mayor Baxter's wives as Jane, Eunice, Betsy, and Sally. Tracy identifies Sally (the Mayor's current wife) as wife number four. This is apparently a continuity error.
- At the end of the Baxterville storyline, the Mayor's current wife hostilely addresses him as "Baxter". This may indicate that "Baxter" was also his first name, but it is also possible that she was addressing him by his surname due to anger.