MONDAY MORNING MAYHEM IN MONTROSE

The Nightmare Before Christmas

When three chronic criminals invaded the town of Montrose eighty three years ago looking for some extra spending money for the holidays, they didn't find what they looking for.  What they did find was not what they expected to find in the vault of an isolated rural bank.  Despite their repeated efforts to pick up some cold Christmas cash, the yuletide yeggmen were frustrated at every turn.

On a warm early December Monday morning of December 21, 1931, the mayhem in Montrose was about ready to begin.  Town Marshal L.G. English had gone to a room over the depot of the Macon, Dublin and Savannah Railroad to spend the rest of the evening when he heard the sound of a truck outside.  Thinking it was a little unusual, Marshal English went outside where he found three men getting out of their truck near the bank.   

The trio asked the marshal for some water to put in their truck's radiator.  Just then, one of them grabbed him in a stronghold from the rear.   English struggled and managed to pull his pistol from its holster.  Firing two shots into the ground, the marshal hoped that the reports of the gunfire would alert several allies nearby.

The captors grabbed his gun, watch and some of his pocket change before tying English up with a heavy cotton window sash cord.  English was carried to a swamp and dumped on the rain-soaked ground, his feet bound together with his hands tied behind his back and tied to a tree.  One bandit remained to watch English while the other two thieves  raced back to town to blow the bank's safe with no fear of any interference by law enforcement officers.

Little did the burglars know that the Montrose Banking Company was undergoing a voluntary liquidation by agreement of the stockholders during the deep and darkest days of the Great Depression. 

The two burglars broke into the bank through a side window and immediately set out to blow open the vault.  The criminals beat, burned and blew off the outer vault door.   Several holes were drilled with an acetylene torch, stolen from Schofield & Sons in Macon two weeks prior.   The inner door  presented a major obstacle, one that the criminals could not manage to crack open despite the pressure of intense heat which left the metal door red hot several hours later.   The combination lock on the safe was so badly damaged that neither the thieves nor bank officials could open it. A Macon lock smith had to be brought in confirm that the $300.00 inside was still there according to Special Deputy M.V. Pickron.   Disappointed in not being able to get into the main vault, every desk, drawer and cabinet was looted.  The total take, approximately $4.00 in silver coins, foiled the villains, who took off back to the swamp.

When the two main miscreants returned to pick up the guard, English, once again, began to struggle, managing to get off a couple of shots.  Threatened with the loss of life if he continued to resist, Marshal English kept quiet until his captors were out of sight. He finally wiggled free from his bands and walked a two-mile trek back into town in the pitch-black, pre-dawn darkness.  English's shots were heard by several persons, who quickly dismissed the noises as pre-Christmas revelry. 

The suspects, W.S. Elliottt, Grady St. Clair and W.C. Carr, took off toward Macon in a truck which was reported stolen in that city earlier in the evening.   Twiggs County Sheriff Samuel Kitchens enlisted the aid of four Macon city detectives, who were familiar with the trio of thieves.  Before their return to Macon, the trio of crooks, dumped their equipment into a creek after one of tires on their stolen truck went flat. 

Marshall English was of very little help, only being able to identify his guard as a tall thin man.  Bank President W.G. Thompson surveyed the damage and sighed in relief that the bank had  not lost a significant sum of money. Montrose merchant Clint Wade scoured the stores of the town to look for additional burglaries, failing to find any.  Ironically, within a year, Montrose postmaster Wade accidentally took his own life when a gun he placed in his vehicle inadvertently went off and killed him. 

Within two weeks of the Montrose Robbery, a similar string of burglaries took place in Macon.  Macon Police Chief Ben T. Watkins began to suspect the three Montrose suspects.  Based on information obtained in the Macon case, police officials were able to obtain an arrest warrant for Elliott St. Clair, W.C. Carr, Loren Carr and one Grady Sinclair, all of Macon.  Marshal English was able to positively identify Sinclair as one of the three men who attacked him, testifying that it was Sinclair who said, "I reckon you will know me when I see you again!" 

Before the end of January 1932, St. Clair was found guilty of a robbery in Houston County, just as the Laurens County Grand Jury began listening to evidence against him and the others in the bank burglary and the kidnaping of Marshal English.  Within a few weeks, St. Clair found himself on trial in Bibb County and yet again in March. 

Loren Carr was found not guilty in a Bibb County trial of stealing a car used in the theft at Montrose.  W.S. Elliott, who entered a Kentucky reform school at the age of 9, had a twenty year criminal career,  turned state's evidence against Grady Sinclair, admitting to the Bibb County crimes and the Montrose caper.  He admitted that it was the first time that Elliott, who was sentenced to 13-15 years in prison,  and Sinclair had conspired to commit a crime.

J.L. Carr offered to plead guilty to Laurens County Solicitor General Fred Kea by agreeing to two consecutive, five-year prison terms.  The remaining cases against W. S.  Elliott, Grady Sinclair and W.C. Carr, who confessed their crimes,  were dead docketed as all three were already serving substantial sentences in Georgia prisons and headed for the chain gang in White County, Georgia. 

Just a day after Carr was sentenced and the case was closed, Walter Wilson was found dead shot in the heart with a shot gun on yet another Monday mayhem in Montrose.

By the beginning of World War II, W.C. Carr was back in a Bibb County jail on charges of theft.  In late August of 1966, Grady St. Clair, part of a large organized gang of thieves,  committed his last burglary when he was shot by Warner Robins policemen in a burglary of a food store. 

And as Santa's stockings were hung by the chimneys of Montrose with care on , a cool, clear and Christmas night, all was silent and bright in the town of Montrose with no mayhem in sight.

REAL ESTATE TO DIE FOR

An Altering Altercation


For thousands of years men have fought and died for real estate, the right to live on it, the right to own it and the right to control it.  A century ago one such battle took place. It was all over the right to own six hundred acres of land valued at a mere three dollars an acre. This is a story of one such fight, which resulted in two deaths and the alteration of a county line.

J. Letcher Tyre was a prominent Laurens County timberman and saw mill operator. Herschel Tarbutton, Gus Tarbutton and Joe Fluker were all prominent young men in Washington County and were well known in Johnson County, which upon his creation divided Laurens and Washington counties.

During the early decades of the 20th Century, prime timberlands were much in demand, especially tracts with a mixture of hardwoods and pines.  Letcher Tyre had contracted with a Mr. Young to purchase a six hundred acre tract at the far limits of the northern end of Laurens County on the eastern side of the Oconee River.  Tyre executed what was once called a "bond for title," whereby he would pay Young on an installment basis and take fee simple title only upon the completion of all payments due.    According to Young, Tyre defaulted in the payment schedule.  Owing to his desire to remove to South Georgia, Young sought out another buyer, one Herschel Tarbutton of Washington County.
That's when the trouble began.

Tyre maintained that he had a superior right to ownership and possession of the land and  proceeded to conduct logging operations. He hired a crew of hands to erect a saw mill on the site.  Gus Tarbutton had three of Tyre's men arrested for trespassing.   The trial was continued until the November term of court.   Tyre set out to do a little squirrel hunting on a fair skied cool November Saturday morning.

A Mr. Waters' son rode to Joe Fluker's house and told Fluker that Tyre and his men were building shacks on the land and were going to move in a boiler later in the day.  Tarbutton called for his brother Gus and brother-in-law Fluker to ride out to investigate the goings on.  When the trio arrived on the scene, Lee Woodum, one of Tyre's saw mill hands, was sent to find Tyre.  Tyre rushed back to the saw mill site and promptly asked the horsemen, "What can I do for you?"   According to some  witnesses, Herschel Tarbutton began to move around Tyre in a counterclockwise direction, while Gus and Joe moved clockwise to Tyre's right.   "I would not do that on my own premises," Tyre warned.  "That's a damned lie!  You are not on your own place," Herschel Tarbutton retorted.   Tarbutton pulled his .44 caliber pistol and fired it directly into Tyre's abdomen.  Gus Tarbutton got down off his horse.  Some of those present testified that both Gus and Joe fired.  But, it was Herschel's shot that hit the mark, entering his stomach and traveling completely through Tyre's body.  Tyre managed to grab his squirrel gun and get off one shot, a direct hit in Herschel Tarbutton's right eye.  Gus Tarbutton ran off into the woods.

Letcher Tyre, with the aid of his crew, struggled and made it to the neighboring Waters' house, while Gus and Joe begged Tyre's men to take their wounded comrade to a doctor.  Tyre's brother, J.B. Tyre, was summoned to his brother's side.  He found his dying brother in a conscious condition.  Letcher began to speak to those around.  Realizing that his death was eminent, Tyre issued a dying declaration that the Tarbuttons and Fluker refused his demands for mercy and instead showed absolute determination to kill him.  Tyre died later in the evening. His body lies buried in the old section of the cemetery at Bethlehem Baptist Church.

Herschel Tarbutton was carried to the sanitarium of Dr. Rawlings in Sandersville, where he died the next day.  Tarbutton also told his doctors and interrogators that he was the first to be shot.  In the midst of the excitement following the incident, many Laurens Countians believed that Tarbutton had not actually died.  Rumor had it that a dummy was inserted into his coffin and that Tarbutton was secreted to a hiding place.  To contradict the rampant rumors, Sandersville police chief L.J. Blount issued a sworn statement in the presence of Laurens County Judge of the Court of Ordinary W.A. Wood declaring that he had observed Tarbutton's death, helped to dress his body and watched as it was buried in the Sandersville cemetery.  Other reputable Sandersville citizens came forward to sustain Blount's statement, including two physicians, the chief nurse of the hospital, both the Baptist and Methodist ministers, the clerk of court and the postmaster.

News of the affair spread rapidly throughout the home counties of the participants. Laurens County Sheriff John D. Prince rode over to Sandersville to arrest Gus Tarbutton and Joe Fluker.  The two surrendered and were taken back to Laurens County to stand trial.

With the aid of C.G. Rawlings, Tarbutton and Fluker assembled perhaps the greatest league of defense attorneys ever to appear in a Laurens County courtroom.  His leading attorneys were A.F. Daley and J.L. Kent of Wrightsville, both of whom would become judges of the Dublin Judicial Circuit.  G.H. Howard and J.E. Hyman of Sandersville were also brought in on the case.  T.L. Griner and J.S. Adams of Dublin joined the defense team to handle matters in the courts in Dublin.  The heaviest hitter of all was Thomas W. Hardwick.  Hardwick was serving in the United States Congress and was one of Georgia's most popular young politicians.  Hardwick later went on to become a United States Senator and Governor of Georgia.  He lived for a few short years in Dublin, where he owned and edited the Dublin Courier Herald.   Representing the State of Georgia was a smaller, but equally impressive lineup of barristers.  Led by solicitor-general Joseph Pottle, the prosecution team was led by Thomas E. Watson, former Populist congressman and future Democratic Senator from Georgia, along with Peyton Wade, future Chief Justice of the Georgia Court of Appeals and J.B. Hicks of Dublin.  The chief assistant defense counsel in the early stages of the court proceedings was Kenrick J. Hawkins, of Dublin.  Seven years later Hawkins became the first judge of the Dublin Judicial Circuit.

Tarbutton and Fluker's initial court appearance came before Dublin District Justice of the Peace, Judge John B. Wolfe.  The defense attorneys objected to the case being heard by Judge Wolfe, who was deferred to a three-justice panel composed of Nathan Gilbert (Burgamy District), P.E. Grinstead (Reedy Springs District) and John S. Drew, Jr. (Oconee District).  With an army of lawyers in place, the legal wrangling began.

Part 2 of 2

On November 26, a commitment trial was held in the Laurens County Courthouse. Dr. W.R. Brigham took the stand first and testified that the fatal shot was fired from an elevated position.  The justices found there was sufficient evidence to bind Messers Tarbutton and Fluker over for a trial on murder charges.  T.L. Griner attempted to discredit Lee Woodum's testimony concerning the Tarbutton's instigation of the violence by showing that B.B. Linder, the deceased brother-in-law, gave Woodum a script to testify from.  The attorneys clashed in a bitter battle over the issue of whether or not Tyre's field hand's testimony had been rehearsed or even paid for.

From the very beginning, defense attorneys attempted to show that the venue of the trial should not be in Laurens County, but in Johnson County where the crime actually happened.  W.D. Howell testified that he had lived in the Kittrell community for forty years and Tyre was indeed shot in Laurens County.    J.B. Tyre took the stand next and testified that his brother told him that the defendants had killed him.  Defense attorney Griner was able to get Tyre to admit that Dr. Brigham was not present and that he was alone at the time of his accusation.  He concluded his testimony by relating what his brother told him about the events of that fateful afternoon.  He told the justices that his brother told his antagonists that they could settle the matter without trouble.   Tyre, under an intense cross-examination, finally admitted that his brother never told him that Gus or Joe shot him. C.S. Pope's testimony of a conspiracy was ruled inadmissable.

After the prosecution rested, Gus Tarbutton took the stand in his own defense. He testified that as he and Herschel  rode up, Tyre, with his shotgun in his hand, declared, "Who do you want to see?"  Gus told the justices that Tyre fired at him, striking his horse.  He went on to say that Tyre then fired six or seven shots at his brother Herschel, eventually striking him.  He said that Herschel moved back behind them and the gut shot Tyre asked him for a drink of water.  Gus said that he told Tyre if he would put down his gun that he would get him something to drink.  He then said that his uncle Joe told him that "your brother is shot all to pieces."  Joe Fluker repeated, almost exactly, the testimony of his nephew Gus.  After the Tarbutton's left the scene, Fluker told the court that he went back and retrieved Herschel's bloodstained hat, which he described as having twenty shot holes in it.

J.J. Lord rebutted Tarbutton and Fluker's testimony by stating that he heard two or three pistol shots and then the report of a shotgun, followed by ten to twelve more pistol shots from his position about a half mile away.  He continued to state that he rode to the site of the shooting on Sunday morning and found multiple bullets all over the place and only two empty shot gun shells.  On cross examination Lord admitted he found only one empty pistol shell and the two shot gun shells he found were loaded.  Lord's brother, H.H. Lord, repeated his testimony.  James Brown told the justices that he was a mile away and heard two pistol shots, then a shot gun blast and then seven or eight more shots.

Believing that the justices would grant them bail, they never introduced any evidence on their part.  The justices denied a bond for bail.  On the following Monday, Judge Lewis granted a bond of twenty thousand dollars, which was immediately posted by a group of their friends with a combined net worth of more than a million dollars.  The freed men took the first train out of town to Wrightsville.

A trial was set for February 4, 1907.  Defense attorneys moved for a continuance on multiple grounds.  It was asserted that E.P. Woods could testify that it was only Herschel Tarbutton who fired the fatal shot. The defense lawyers maintained they could not locate a crucial prosecution witness, Lee Woodum.  The state's attorneys maintained that he was available and had been in the presence of the parties just days before the trial.  With such a large number of attorneys involved in the case, their entire presence was almost impossible.   Congressman T.W. Hardwick was in attendance of a session of Congress. A.F. Daley maintained he had a severe cold and could not last a day, much less the length of an entire trial.  The court granted the delay based on the continuance more on the fact that there was a reasonable ground to allow the defense to move forward with its contention that the killing actually occurred in Johnson County.

Governor Joseph M. Terrell appointed L.W. Roberts, an Atlanta Civil Engineer, who was hired to determine the true location of the line dividing Laurens and Johnson counties.  With very scant evidence at hand, Roberts, considered one of the best surveyors in Georgia, set out to mark the line which had been established by the Georgia legislature in 1857, some fifty years earlier.  The act creating Johnson County provided that the county line would begin on the eastern bank of the Oconee River, opposite the mouth of Big Sandy Creek and then in an easterly direction to the ford at Fort's Creek on the Buckeye Road. From that point the line was to turn in a southeasterly direction to a point a mile south of Snell's Bridge on the Little Ohoopee River.  The initial map of Johnson County was of no value.  The official map of Laurens County was not much better.    Roberts did manage to locate seventy-year-old J.F. Mixon of Johnson County, who was one of the men who carried the surveyor's chains back in 1857.  Mixon accompanied him to the area and pointed out the old lines.

In mid July, Georgia Secretary of State Phil Cook upheld Robert's report.  Roberts calculated that the line in the Kittrell community was a little further south than where it was thought to have been and consequently, Tyre was shot in Johnson, and not Laurens County.  But more changes were found.  When all was said and done, Johnson County gained eight hundred acres and lost three hundred acres and ten families to Laurens County for a net gain of five hundred acres.    Laurens County hired attorney M.H. Blackshear to  protest the surveyor's findings, but to no avail.    Ironically, questions over the true location of the county line continued for at least six more decades.

The case was removed to Johnson County for trial. But with a more sympathetic Solicitor General, no trial of Gus Tarbutton or Joe Fluker ever took place.  Nearly two decades later, an interesting postscript took place in Johnson County.   On February 17, 1925, Gus Tarbutton was walking through the woods along the Oconee River, not too far from the location where he, his brother and his uncle had confronted Letcher Tyre.  In his company was one J.J. Tanner, the overseer of Mr. C.G. Rawlings.   Tarbutton and Rawlings were business partners in a mineral rights venture in the area. Each took out life insurance policies on their partner's lives.  Based primarily on the testimony of my great-great uncle Noah Covington, Jr., Tanner was convicted of killing Tarbutton.  His conviction was upheld and Tanner was sentenced to life in prison.  In a sense, Letcher Tyre reached out of his grave and got the revenge his brother so desperately sought.  This time a man had to die over money, albeit the massive sum of two hundred thousand dollars.   The Apostle Paul was right, "the love of money is the root of all evil."

FUGITIVES FROM A GEORGIA CHAINGANG

The Wyatts Return to Justice

If you were a convict in the first half of the Twentieth Century, you would not want to be sentenced to hard labor in a chain gang.  They were designed that way.  The sometimes atrocious, often brutal and to many deserved punishment tactics were intended as a deterrent to men behaving badly.   But when passion and greed swell in the minds of men, thoughts of punishment for their acts is all but forgotten.  This is the story of two men, convicted of a heinous crime in lower Laurens County, who were  sent to a chain gang, only to escape, and as they began to grow old, surrendered themselves to face the punishment they so richly deserved.

It was around the end of June 1918, when Frank Wyatt, Mitch Wyatt and Jim Fulford, with killing on their minds, set out to find their victim .  The three Wheeler County men, forcefully enlisted the aid of three Negro accomplices as they sought out one Howard  Snell, a man of limited mental ability,  had just moved to Wheeler County and lived below Glenwood.  From time to time, he did some work for the twenty-four year old Fulford.   The Wyatts and Fulford drove their car to Snell’s house, where they duped him out of his house and then forcibly kidnaped him.  The culprits drove under the cover of darkness to the sparsely populated lower edge of Laurens County before performing their despicable deed.

The assailants drove off the main road and made their way to a small swamp near Ed Evans’ store.  Snell’s hands were bound, probably by the unwilling members of the party.  Snell, knowing that his mortal fate was eminent, begged for permission to pray.  As he knelt down, Snell placed his head on a fallen log and committed his soul to his Savior.  Suddenly, the base of his skull was smashed and Snell rolled over.  Not satisfied with such a vicious blow, another of the assailants placed a gun to the dead, or dying, man’s head and pulled the trigger sending the bullet clean through the victim’s skull.  The corpse was dragged into a creek and left to the scavengers of the swamp.

Several days later a trusty convict working with a road crew found the grossly decomposed remains.   Investigators could not determine the identity of the victim, but were able to find a lodge card on his body.  They traced the card to a fraternal lodge in Waycross.  Lodge officials told the lawmen that Snell had recently moved to Glenwood.  Snell’s wife was contacted and confirmed that her husband had been missing for some time.  Eventually one of the accomplices was arrested.   Upon an intense interrogation, the man revealed that it was Frank and Mitch Wyatt along with Fulford who were the main participants in the murder.

Laurens County coroner J.C. Donaldson held an inquest to the determine the circumstances of death of Howard Snell.    The jury found that Snell had met death at the hands of Frank Wyatt, Mitch Wyatt and Jim Fulford.  The trio was brought before Judge Jule B. Greene for a commitment trial.  Judge Greene bound them over for trial along with two of their Negro accessories George Royal and George Wyatt.    When a turmoil began to arise a week before the trial, the men were taken to the jail in Macon for safekeeping.  

A the trial on August 31, 1918, the Negroes confessed and became the state’s prime witnesses against the three white defendants.   In what was described as “one of the most sensational cases in Laurens County history,” the defendants were convicted by the all white male jury.  Their life in prison convictions were upheld by the Supreme Court without a formal opinion on their attorney’s  enumerations of error on the part of the trial court.  The Wyatts and Fulford were sent back to their home county and placed in the hands of the Wheeler County convict camp.

Nearly two years after the murder on June 17, 1920, the convicted felons managed to procure some files and filed off their chains.  Once they were free to move about normally, they stole the convict boss’s clothes, grabbed some rifles and ammunition and vanished into the night.    A large posse was formed, but no trace of the fugitives was ever found, that is until seventeen years later.

Jim Fulford, aka Jim Tompkins,  met his mortal fate in 1923, when he was killed, allegedly by Frank Wyatt, aka Frank Jackson,  in Louisiana. After three bitterly contested trials, Wyatt was found not guilty of killing one of his coconspirators.   Prosecutors in Louisiana had no knowledge that Wyatt and the victim were fugitives from Georgia. Wyatt was released to resume a normal life as a carpenter.  

By 1937 Frank Wyatt was seventy three years old.   With his conscience tormenting his mind, the elder Wyatt surrendered to the Monroe sheriff.  The younger Wyatt, resisting a voluntary confession, had to be forcibly arrested.  Eventually both men expressed their willingness to return to Georgia to prove their innocence.  The men maintained they were framed by “a Negro moonshiner and a white man” for the crime and that it was actually Fulford who did the killing. 

Laurens County sheriff I.F. Coleman was in his office when a long distance phone call came in on July 18, 1937.  It was the sheriff in Monroe, Louisiana telling the startled lawman that he had two of his  fugitives in his jail.  Sheriff Coleman contacted the governor’s office to initiate extradition proceedings.  The Wyatts assented to the request and hired an attorney to prove their innocence.   

But too much time had elapsed and the fugitives were never able to prove their innocence.  The duo spent the rest of their lives in the penal system, paying the price for their crimes.

AND TEARS ARE HEARD WITHIN THE HARP I TOUCH

The Murder of James Sheffield

IRWINTON: April 28, 1888: Mr. James Arthur  Sheffield was taking a pleasant stroll down the street near Irwinton's Academy on a warm, fair  Saturday night one hundred and twenty five years ago.  A waning gibbous moon was just coming up in the East casting a pale white glow on  just another peaceful spring  night in the capital of Wilkinson County.  

At the appointed closing time of 8:00 p.m.,  Sheffield, accompanied by Messers Rutland,  shut and locked tight his store doors and set out for home.  The men parted at the fork in the road,  just as they usually did.

  

Shortly thereafter, the 46-year-old Sheffield left the town's business district. As he was within hailing distance of his home, where his wife Winnie and daughter Minnie were near their front door awaiting his arrival, a shot gun blast rang out in the near darkness. The Rutlands saw the bright flash and heard the loud report of gunfire.  Not hearing any fatal screams, the Rutlands thought not too much of the commotion and went on to their homes in preparation for the upcoming Sabbath. 

The murderer rifled through Sheffield's pockets, grabbed his loot and dashed off into the darkness, crossing the split rail fence at the school house yard and leaving blood stains to mark his incriminating trail.

The murderer rapidly ran across the abandoned campus for nearly 150 yards before stopping to rip open Sheffield's satchel to look for folding money and silver coins - Sheffield's usual cargo on his evening  strolls home.  The gunman sprinted across a pasture to the northwestern corner of town.  Across a freshly plowed oat field, the distinctive footprints  of the killer marked his westward escape route.    

Just as the town's clocks were striking nine o'clock, an older black man and a young white boy came upon Sheffield's bloody, lifeless body.  At first, the pedestrians thought that the man lying in the road was simply intoxicated from an excessive bit of Saturday night revelry. Upon further examination, a fatal, massive wound was found in the back of Sheffield's head.  The boy quickly raced to the nearest home to report the matter.

It was said that early on Sunday morning every male inhabitant of Irwinton joined a posse formed by Sheriff I. J. Fountain.  That may or not be true, but it reasonable to believe that the justice seeking squad was quite large and doggedly determined to find their man, whoever he was.

The posse moved out from the resting place of the abandoned satchel, cut open by a somewhat dull knife, with their eyes focused on the ground and looking for any sign of footprints and blood drops. Sheriff Fountain's deputies followed the trail up to the home of one Martha Collins.  Inquiring of the whereabouts of her son Will Collins, Mrs. Collins, a colored woman not suspected of any complicity  in the matter,  responded that her son had gone up to the home of Shade Coates. 

The posse followed that same trail three quarters of a mile up to Coates home, where they found the barefooted, capitulant twenty-year-old Will Collins. When the lawmen burst into the room, they found Collins sitting on a bed playing his harp as if he had not a care in the world. 

Sheriff Fountain questioned Collins as to his whereabouts at the time of his murder. Collins responded that he had gone to bed early, but after being awakened, he went to the home of Coates.

A search of the Collins' pockets revealed just more than twenty one dollars in cash, over half of it in "V" nickels and silver Liberty dimes - an agglomeration that a retail merchant would be carrying home with him after closing his store.

The investigators found a double barreled shot gun, one of its barrels having been recently fired.  Inside the other unfired barrel were tiny scraps of  newspaper wadding - in particular, fragments from the February 8, 1888 edition of the Wrightsville Headlight.  Bits and pieces of the same issue  were found at the murder scene.   It was surmised that the blood got on Collins' gun when the killer reached inside the clothing and the bag of the victim to retrieve the missing money. A small blood stain was also  found on the Collins' vest. The blood evidence was sent to Dr. Clifton, a renowned microscopist, for analysis.  

Collins explained how he came upon such an unusually large sum of money, at least for him,  by stating that an unknown man approached him and offered to pay him $20.00 for the use of his gun and his shoes for an hour.   His account changed when he claimed that he borrowed $25.00 from his uncle to help him out of a financial "scrape."   That claim was discounted by the uncle, who told law enforcement officers that he could barely put together $2.00 to lend. More seemingly ad-libbed and totally contrary  accounts followed. 

Highly damning evidence came from eyewitnesses who saw Collins in town during the hours following the murder.  Shade Coates, a shoe maker in Sheffield's store, was initially arrested as an accomplice because of his ability to provide the killer (his friend Collins) with inside information and the testimony of witnesses who saw Coates at the Collins home the night of the murder.  

Will Collins was taken to a Macon jail for his own safety.  While there, witnesses said that he was always at ease, describing the prisoner as "the gayest of the gay."  Not a bit of trouble was brought the way of his captors, who stated that he played sports with his fellow prisoners without a single indication of the villainous crime he was charged with. 

A trial was held in the first week of October 1888.  With no direct evidence to prove Collins' guilt, prosecutors put together a solid, logically connected case of circumstantial evidence sufficient to establish the defendant's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

After listening to all of the evidence, the jury carefully deliberated and pronounced a verdict of guilty with a recommendation of life in prison, a sentence which began with hard labor in the coal mines of Dade County, Georgia. When Collins, who was constantly complaining of chest pains,  left his prison cell, he was described as "a living skeleton." 

   

To the unanimous jurors, their decision was solely based on a series of circumstances.  Many of them firmly believed that new evidence would surface to implicate the true killer.  But in the end, none of the twelve  white men wanted to allow Collins to get off scot free and to strike his harp and ignore the trickling tears of little Minnie.

D.C. BLACK

The Great Escapee



D.C. Black couldn’t stay in one place for very long, especially behind the iron bars of a cramped, dank and dark jail cell. So from the very first moment he was captured by Laurens County authorities, D.C. Black began to plot his escape from the Laurens County jail. Sure enough, just as he had done many times before, this fleeing felon escaped his captors in short order. This time, his freedom was ephemeral when he was recaptured by two state patrolmen and a Georgia National Guard colonel.

D.C. Black, already known as an “elusive escapee,” participated in a mass unauthorized exodus of at least twenty-eight others from the state prison near Reidsville on April 16, 1943. Black joined his compatriot and fellow escape artist, Leland Harvey, on a crime rampage. Within ten days, all but four of the escaped prisoners had been recaptured. Black and Harvey, two of the most illustrious felons anywhere in Georgia, were captured in Arkwright, near Macon, on April 25. Both men were asleep in their car and did not resist their arrest.

Just two days later, Black, who was serving one to twenty years on robbery charges, was on the lamb again. Harvey and Black, dressed in civilian clothes, easily overwhelmed a Bibb County deputy, calmly took the elevator down from the fifth story jail in the courthouse, quietly stole a car, and westwardly raced at speeds of more than 85 mph toward Vineville. Black and Harvey’s easy escape was blamed on woefully ineffective and possibly corrupt Bibb County deputies.

On May 12, the skipping scoundrel was encountered by a pair of Atlanta detectives who sprayed his path with warning rounds toward the back of the barn where he was hiding just outside of Morrow, Georgia. Not chancing another escape from a less than secure county jail, Black was returned to the state penitentiary in Reidsville for a long tenure on the chain gang.

Black was serving a 41 to 45-year sentence in a Ware prison, when he staged yet another in a long string of escapes. Black attempted to rob a hotel in Macon on Thursday, May 10, 1956. Within a few hours, he was spotted by six alert Dublinites, who recognized the tag number while they were returning from work at Warner Robins Air Force Base. One of the men called the State Patrol. Meanwhile the others tailed the suspect until patrolmen arrested him, but not before Black attempted to wreck their cars. A shootout took place behind the Shamrock Court Motel, which was situated across Highway 80 from the Dublin VA Center.

After an intense interrogation, Black finally admitted that his name was not A.J. Allen and that he was wanted on outstanding robbery charges. Almost proud of his crimes, the running rascal admitted that he stole a few items on his flight from Macon.

Just about eight o’clock on Saturday morning, county jailer Art Sapp went into the cell area and opened the door. Suddenly, the strongly built Black grabbed Sapp and wrested his gun away and forced the jailer into the cell. Black ran behind the Speed Oil Company and then across East Jackson Street. After stealing Carl Allen’s 1954 Chevrolet with a quarter of tank of gas in it, Black headed west along Highway 80 before turning southeast through a maze of dirt roads. The car took the skipping scoundrel as far as a wooded area northeast of Rentz, where it was reported found by Highway Patrol Sergeant, B.A. Snipes. Then the departing dastard set out on foot.

Sheriff Carlus Gay issued an order for a countywide man hunt by sheriff’s deputies, Dublin and East Dublin police, State Patrol officers, and GBI agents, which totaled more than one hundred men. Governor Marvin Griffin called in the National Guard for help.

While running through the woods, the vanishing villain got a whiff of Mrs. Millard Coleman’s cooking. After identifying himself as a wanted man, Black demanded that Mrs. Coleman cook him a meal and fix himself some sandwiches in exchange for not hurting her. After Black skedaddled, Mrs. Coleman called family friend and attorney Bill White, who alerted Sheriff Gay.

By the late hours of Monday evening, a pack of bloodhounds and their handlers arrived from Milledgeville to join in the chase. The hunt continued until Tuesday morning when Black was spotted by National Guardsmen Donald Maddox, Pete Wicker, H.T. Lindsey, and Bobby Ennis.

Just before dawn on Tuesday the exhausted escapee, bruised and scraped, fell to the ground. He begged his captors, Corporal W.B. Garr, Trooper J.T. Cauthen, and Col. W.B. Crowley, not to shoot him, indicating that Jailer Sapp’s gun was in his hip pocket of the overalls he had stolen earlier in the day some two and one half miles from the Coleman home. Although his skin was scratched and his clothes torn by briars and brambles, Black was closely shaven, his stolen razor still in his pocket.

Black, always the deserting degenerate, was shackled and brought back to the county jail on the southeast corner of the courthouse square. To make sure Black’s stay was a longer and uneventful one, Sheriff Gay placed the frequent fugitive in the “death cell.”

Black commented on his failed escape by stating that the next time he escaped, he would get a taxi and get a hotel room. He told reporters that the officers were so close to him several times that he could hear transmissions over their walkie-talkies. When asked by a Courier Herald reporter how it felt to be hunted for three days, Black responded, “It is about like a rabbit being hunted.”

To make things worse for the Sheriff’s deputies while the search for Black was intensifying, nine prisoners escaped from the Public Works Camp on Sunday night and set out on a mass string of robberies and thefts. With little sleep after an all night manhunt, deputies answered a call about a cracker salesman who was robbed in Orianna by persons fitting the description of the escaped prisoners.

Warden Coleman said the nine men simply vanished without a trace. The escapees scattered in all directions and stole cars, one belonging to Dr. Nelson Carswell and another to O.L. Colter. Within four days, more than half of the men were recaptured at various points around the state.

Additional charges of attempted robbery, automobile theft, escape, and breaking and entering were issued against Black. It wouldn’t be the last time Black, alias Allen John Billingsley, would escape. He ran his total escapes to seventeen, including possibly his last one in 1975 , when and his old escaping ally, Leland Harvey, both near the age of seventy, walked out of a correctional facility up the road in Hardwick, Georgia, one designed for aged and infirmed criminals. The duo was caught in Mississippi when Black’s stolen Cadillac sideswiped a bridge railing and crashed. But it was here, a mile east of Rentz, Georgia that D.C. Black, the disappearing desperado, saw the end to one of his last great escapes.

P.S. I wasn't able to find a picture of D.C. Black.  Apparently, he never stood still long enough to have one made.

OTHO AND HAROLD

Two Bright Spots In the Nighttime

There was a time long ago in the days of Jim Crow when evil men pulled robes over their heads and skulked through the darkness with meanness on their minds. Such was the case on a frosty Thursday evening in the Mount Airy Community of Dodge County on March 2, 1950. Out of the brilliance of a near full moon lit night appeared two shining stars of good and right, who liberated an innocent man from the wrongful vengeance of a miscreant mob.

Flogging of both black and white people had been on the rise in the early months of 1950. Johnny Graham, white, and Riley Dykes, black, were beaten by persons unknown. Little or no efforts were made by local law enforcement to apprehend the perpetrators.

Sixteen-year-old Harold Barrentine, (Above left)  who later would become a Dublin accountant and businessman, was on his way to a party near his home. He had heard the rumors about floggings, but paid no mind to them as he had more important thoughts like any sixteen- year-old boy would. While he was attending the party, Harold fortunately noticed a caravan of vehicles carrying some twenty-five or more hooded men who were headed toward the farm house of Jesse Lee Goodman, a farm hand who worked for Otho Wiggins. Harold ran as fast as he could to warn Mr. Wiggins of his fears about Jesse Lee.

Meanwhile, a hooded squad of scoundrels forced open the lock on the front door of the Goodman home and burst into the first bedroom, where they found Clydie Mae Goodman and her two children shivering in fear for their lives. Then the horde descended upon another bedroom where they found Goodman and another child asleep. Allowing Goodman to put on only a few clothes, the fiendish throng drug him into the wintry woods.

Goodman remembered the leader, whom he called "the King." "He had a large red shoulder patch and a big cross or star on his sleeve," Goodman testified. "He was the boss. He gave the orders," Jesse Lee told law enforcement officers. Jesse went on to tell how the leader asked about some oil he had. Goodman told his captors that he had gotten the oil from his boss, Mr. Otho Wiggins. Without any regard for the truthfulness of Goodman's statements, the assaulters began to mercilessly beat and flog ol' Jesse. After a momentary pause, the whipping was about to resume.

That's when Otho Wiggins showed up.

Otho loaded his .22 caliber rifle, dismounted his truck, and focused his spotlight on the source of the commotion. Seeing cars and some people he thought he recognized and with full comprehension of what was unfolding before his eyes, Wiggins opened fire and kept on discharging his rifle until its chamber was empty. He reloaded and began firing again, some sixteen shots in all. Cowering behind Fords and Chevrolets, a few poltroons fired back without hitting their marks.

"When Mr. Otho started shootin' the man next to me shoved me in a car and jumped in on top of me," Goodman recalled. "Then he made me get in the seat and stay down low," Jesse stated before his antagonists dumped him out of the car and fled the scene. Goodman told authorities that his captors promised that they would seek revenge against Wiggins.

Wiggins would later say, "When I began firing, both men and cars took off in every direction."

N.A. Barrentine, Harold's father, accompanied Wiggins to report the incident to Dodge County Sheriff, O.B. Peacock. Apparently afraid of the Klan's retribution against himself, Sheriff Peacock stated the matter was none of his business and that they should report the case to the F.B.I. Peacock later jokingly told the editor of the Eastman Times-Journal, "I don't want the Klan getting after me. Otho didn't ask me to go. He just told me about it."

Editor Edwin T. Methvin, a long time opponent of the Ku Klux Klan, blasted Sheriff Peacock for his apathetic handling of the matter. Methvin, in cooperation with the F.B.I., launched a personal crusade to rid the county of the barbarian organization. Methvin did praise Wiggins in an editorial by stating, "We regret the marksmanship of Otho Wiggins was not better and that he succeeded in only dispersing the mob of hooded and robed men that attacked his Negro farm hand in Dodge County the other night. Mr. Wiggins made a gallant try, though, he deserves congratulations."

Also incensed with the violent acts was Superior Court Judge Eschol Graham, who called the Grand Jury into a special session to deal with the Klan, bootlegging and some problems with the local school board, the former two not being related to the latter. Wiggins, Goodman, and Barrentine all testified about what they saw and heard that night.

Harold Barrentine in identifying a 1939 Chevrolet belonging to Alfred Crumbley testified, "I see those cars almost every day and I would know them anywhere." Jesse Lee identified a 1949 pickup owned by Theo Lewis. Otho Wiggins confirmed the testimony of Barrentine and Goodman that the culprits were Klansmen by saying, "We saw the white robes and they had hoods over their heads." Their testimony led to the arrest of Crumbley, Lewis and a third suspect, one F.M. Smith.

Overnight, Otho Wiggins and Harold Barrentine became heroes to many. Sadly, they became scoundrels to others. Their fear of reprisals was real and warranted.

Otho Wiggins, who never had a single moment of remorse for his actions, wrote a letter to editor Methvin, which he promptly published to bolster his crusade. In thanking the members of the hooded order Wiggins wrote, "Since you have become the ones who have taken the law into your own hands, I don't suppose your wives and children will suffer nervousness or loss of sleep from such an occurrence." Otho sarcastically complimented the bravery of a mob of white men who would go into a person's house, regardless of race or creed, and drag him from his bed and beat him. Wiggins concluded his mocking missive by apologizing, "I extend to you loyal members of the hooded brotherhood my humble apology for being such a poor shot with my rifle. Hope to see you soon. Signed Your neighbor, Otho Wiggins."

It was on that cold, cold night more than sixty years ago when Jim Crow flew away into the starry skies where Otho Wiggins and Harold Barrentine shined as the brightest spots of mercy and kindness in the Dodge County nighttime.

JAMES JACKSON RUNS AMUCK

James Jackson Runs Amuck

COCHRAN, GA. - July 14, 1915 - No one alive knows why James Jackson ran amuck and killed a deputy, an overseer, and a young farmer. Those who did know what happened, could not or would not tell the whole story of James Jackson and why he killed three men and then was shot at and later blown up by a staggering posse.

The sun was scorching the fields of W.O. Peacock in Bleckley County, some three statute miles from the county seat of Cochran. James Jackson got on the very bad side of his field boss, Mr. Lem W. Sanders. Boss Sanders reprimanded Jackson and sent him back to his quarters in not too good of a mood. Hearsay repeaters swore that Sanders told Jackson that he would have to start working or quit his job on the farm. The rumor mongers consistently maintained that Sanders slapped Jackson, who stomped off in a huff. Some say he went back to get a gun, but the pervasive account is somewhat different.

It was nearly pitch dark when Sanders went to the Negro quarters to deliver some medicine to one of his sick workers. Sanders just happened to pass by Jackson's shack. After a long hard day in the hot fields, Sanders took a seat on the side of Jackson's front porch. Sitting with his back toward Jackson, Sanders' pistol was visible in his back hip pocket in the dim porch light.

Suddenly, and with no warning, Jackson sprang from his seat, grabbed his boss's gun, and pointed it point blank at his antagonist. Sanders, according to Hollis Blackshear, an occupant of the house, begged Jackson not to shoot him. Jackson grabbed Sanders by the arm and held him with one hand. And, with two shots into his heart, killed Lem Sanders dead with the other. Noticing that Blackshear had witnessed the murder, Jackson turned toward the trembling Blackshear and pulled his pistol trigger three times, all misfires. Jackson then fled to the home of one Peter Fambrough.

Fambrough took Jackson to the home of Jackson's brother, who lived near about three crow fly miles from Hawkinsville. When word got out that overseer Sanders had been shot, a small, but highly incensed, posse was organized by night marshal, W. Sumpter "Sump" Hogg. Oscar Lawson, a young farmer, went along with Sump Hogg up to the house to convince Jackson to give himself up.

Marshal Hogg approached a window of the shack and demanded the fleeing felon give himself up. Oscar Lawson went around to the back of the house. Jackson fired an instantly mortal rifle shot straight into the marshal's chest. Jackson walked across the interior of the house and fired a second mortal shot into an eye of Oscar Lawson, who never knew what killed him. Another member of the posse returned fire and temporarily disabled Jackson.

It was about that time when Bleckley County Sheriffs J.A. Floyd and Pulaski County Sheriff J. R. Rogers arrived with a very large posse of law enforcement officers and ordinary citizens. One of the officers grabbed Peter Fambrough and through the most persuasive acts of coercion, forced the terrified accomplice to go to the house and remove the corpses of Jackson's victims. All the while, Jackson kept up his fire from the inside of the embattled abode.

After dragging the dead men out of the line of fire, Fambrough was compelled to crawl under the house with a bundle of dynamite, which had been rushed in from a Hawkinsville store. When it appeared that Jackson was never going to give himself up voluntarily, the dynamite was ignited and Jackson's fortress was blown into various sized smithereens. The posse swarmed the shattered shanty, firing as thy approached. The point men found Jackson dead. Despite reports to the contrary, the Cochran Journal reported that James Jackson's death came at the hands of legally authorized law enforcement authors and not a lynch mob. Some reports suggested that Jackson was dragged from the splintered ruins of the flattened fortress and strung up in a tree by a vengeful mob of as many as six hundred men.

In the passion of the moment, Peter Fambrough and Jackson's brother were also killed when they resisted arrest. One published report maintained that the men had a shot gun, a pistol, and plenty of ammunition.

Lem Sanders, W.O. Peacock's 42-year-old trusted overseer, was buried with honors by the Woodmen of the World the next afternoon. Young Lawson was laid to rest in the cemetery at Antioch Church the next morning. Sump Hogg was known as one of the best officers of Bleckley County, whose sole fault was that he was too careless with his own safety. Mrs. Ludie Hogg and her three children sobbed as her husband was buried in the Weeping Pine Cemetery that afternoon.

Reports of the tragic events were often contradictory. Names of the principals were often misspelled or interchanged. One thing was for certain. Six men were dead. And, many Bleckley Countians were grieving as they closed their business houses for the three funerals.

Although there appeared to be no connection to the killings, the Bleckley County Sheriff announced his resignation within days after Marshal Hogg was killed. Sheriff Floyd stated that he could no longer perform his duties because he was unable to stand the financial strain. "During my first term, I wore out a good horse and buggy and a good automobile in the service of the county, and so far as I could determine, without any adequate financial return," the sheriff wrote.

Floyd maintained that his fees were based on sixty year old costs of operating the jail. He enjoyed his term as sheriff but urged the county to develop a more equitable form of salaries for sheriffs.

The exploding of a desperado by Bleckley County lawmen wasn't confined to James Jackson. Just four days before Christmas, some two and one half years later, Frank Hall was killed by Pomp Wiley. Hall reportedly attempted to break up a fight between Wiley and another man. Enraged at Hall's interference with his business, Wiley fired three true pistol shots into Hall's heart, killing him instantly.

Sheriff Jones and a band of fifty citizens located the accused felon, who had barricaded himself in the home of his brother-in-law. As soon as the posse came into the range of his weapon, Wiley opened fire, striking and wounding Vicar Meadows and Dewitt Morris.

While the main force kept a steady fire in Wiley's direction, a small group of men snuck around to the rear of the house. Sheriff Jones directed the men to place a charge of dynamite under the house just as his predecessor had done to keep James Jackson from killing any more people. And, not surprisingly, the plan worked with similar results - Pomp Wiley was blown up and would never, ever kill again.