Appalachian History

An Extraordinary Story
Told by a West Virginia Girl who was Kidnapped Sunday Night

[New York Times, April 8, 1891]


Wheeling, West Va., April 7. ---Since Sunday night, about 9:30 o’clock, there has been much excitement in this city and vicinity over the sudden and mysterious disappearance of Miss Amy Morgan, niece of Henry Morgan, Assistant Cashier of the Exchange Bank of Wheeling. The family resides two miles from the river on the Ohio side, at the extreme western end of Bridgeport.

Sunday evening the young lady left home and attended a neighboring church. She was escorted home by a gentleman friend, and after chatting at the gate for a few minutes, they separated, Miss Morgan proceeding toward the house. From that moment all trace of the girl was lost until noon to-day, when she was driven home by Charles Hill, who found her at the Bridgeport station in an exhausted condition.

Miss Morgan states that when she left her friend at the gate she found that she had dropped a letter and walked back a few steps to look for it. While thus engaged she was seized by two men, who choked her and hurried her into a closed carriage, threatening her with death if she offered to scream. After turning the carriage around several times they started off and drove all night.

About daylight they stopped and one of the men got out and pounded at a door several times. He came back and said “There’s no one there, I guess the game’s up.”

Then they deliberated as to whether they should kill her or let her go, and finally fixed upon the latter course, telling the girl that if she attempted to follow them they would kill her.

After walking several miles, the girl struck the Bellaire, Zanesville and Cincinnati Railroad and followed it. She reached Kelsey Station, fourteen miles from Bellaire. There she was given food and kept last night, and to-day a ticket was purchased for Bellaire and money given her to ride from Bellaire to Bridgeport, where she was found by Hill, as stated.



crime+in+Appalachia kidnapping Wheeling+WV appalachia appalachian+history history+of+appalachia

New York Times.
September 15, 1912, Sunday

CATCH SIDNA ALLEN BY TRAILING GIRL; Wesley Edwards Also Captured at Des Moines -- His Sweetheart Gives Clue.

DES MOINES, Iowa, Sept. 14. -- With arms and feet pinioned in heavy irons and watched over by an armed guard, Sidna Allen and Wesley Edwards, members of the outlaw gang who murdered Judge Massie and others at Hillsville Court House, Va., in April last, and who were arrested here to-day, are now en route to Virginia in the custody of detectives.

Allen was arrested by Detectives W.G. Baldwin, H.H. Lucas, and William Munday of Roanoke, VA, at the Cameron boarding house at noon. Edwards, it was learned, was working with a grading gang in the western part of the city. As soon as Allen was in custody search was made for Edwards. The latter avoided discovery until this evening, when he was found on an Ingersoll Avenue car coming into the city. He dropped to his knees and tried to crawl out unnoticed, but was recognized as he reached the car door and was taken to the police station.

Allen and Edwards will not fight extradition, but express willingness to return to Virginia and face trial.
Wesley Edwards’ sweetheart, Maude Iroler of Mount Airy, NC, was the innocent cause of the arrest of the last of the clan for whom a country-wide search has been conducted. This eighteen-year old girl came all the way from her home in North Carolina with the secret of Wesley Edwards’ whereabouts. She loved him and determined to wed him despite the stain attached to his name since he fled from the courtroom in Hillsville.

Edwards lived here under the name of Joe Jackson, and Allen went under the name of Tom Sayres. The latter worked as a carpenter here, while Edwards was employed by the city with a paving gang. Not a hint of their identity was given to the members of the Cameron family.

The girl left her home last Monday, little thinking that dogging her trail were four detectives, led by W.G. Baldwin of the Baldwin Agency of Roanoke, VA. The men went on the same train that brought the girl to Des Moines. They followed her closely. She made her way where she expected to find her hunted fiancé.

She entered, telling Maude Cameron, who opened the door for her, that she had come to see Joe Jackson. A tall and powerfully built man entered the yard. A short distance off were three other men. The man who advanced to the door was Detective H.H. Lucas.

“I want to get a room,” he said to Miss Cameron.

“Set inside,” she said.

Lucas entered, and just as he reached the foot of the stairs Sidna Allen came to the top of the stairs. Allen evidently did not recognize Lucas, who started to ascend. When within a few feet of Allen the detective suddenly produced two revolvers.

“Hold up your hands,” Lucas ordered sternly.

Even with the odds against him Allen snarled angrily, but he knew that Lucas’ eye meant business. His hands went slowly up. Allen was looking for a chance to escape, but Lucas was joined a moment later by Detectives Baldwin and Munday, another member of the department. The trio closed in on Allen. One produced a pair of handcuffs. They were slapped over his wrists.

“I guess you’ve got me,” said Allen quietly as he sat down in a near-by chair.

“Where is the other man?” demanded Baldwin of the members of the frightened family, who were hovering near.
The detective was told that Edwards was at work on Thirty-eighth Street. Leaving Munday and Lucas to guard Allen, Baldwin notified the police. Chief Jenney, with Detective Badgley, responded.

Baldwin and Charles Cameron, a member of the Cameron family, leaped into an automobile and sped away for the place where Edwards was supposed to be working. They did not find him then, but captured him later on a street car.

Sidna Allen, in his cell tonight, talked freely of the events of the last few months, but declined to say anything of his movements immediately after the Court House tragedy. He and Edwards remained in the mountain country of Virginia and North Carolina for about a month, and then got over into Kentucky, going to Louisville, where they spent several days.

Their next stop was St. Louis, where they remained for a week. They had sufficient money for their needs, and traveled first class.

“I don’t know why we came to Des Moines,” said Allen, “unless it was that I thought we would be safer here. Several years ago I was in the Klondike, and I figured that the officers would think I had gone back there. So we came to Des Moines, and I got work as a carpenter, and expected to remain here until it was safe back home.

“I would have given myself up long ago if I had thought we could get a square deal, but see what they’ve done to Floyd my brother, and Claude.”


full article online at http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=9D00E6DC1F3CE633A25756C1A96F9C946396D6CF

Wheeling Daily Register
January 20, 1894

All Were Murderers

Four Men Suffer the Extreme Penalty for Their Crimes

John Hardy Hanged at Welch, McDowell County, for Killing Thomas Drews Last Spring...

Special Telegram to the Register.

WILD E, W. VA., January 19. - "John Hardy, for killing Thomas Drews, both colored, was hung at 2:09 p. m. to-day. Three thousand people witnessed his death. His neck was broken and he died in 17-1/2 minutes. He exhibited great nerve, attributed his downfall to whiskey, and said he had made peace with God. His body was cut down at 2:39, placed in a coffin, and given to the proper parties for interment. He was baptised in the river this morning.

Ten drunken and disorderly persons among the spectators were promptly arrested and jailed. Good order was preserved. Hardy killed Drews near Eckman last spring in a disagreement over a game of craps.

BOTH WERE ENAMORED

of the same woman, and the latter proving the more favored lover, incurred Hardy's envy, who seized the pretext of falling out in the game to work vengeance on Drews, who had shown himself equally expert in dice as in love, having won money from Hardy. Hardy drew his pistol, remarking he would kill him unless he refunded the money. Drews paid back part of the money, when Hardy shot, killing him. Hardy was found guilty at the October term."

-------------

"While awaiting execution in jail," says folklorist Alan Lomax in The Folk Songs of North America, "he is said to have composed this ballad, which he later sang on the scaffold. His ballad appears to have been based upon certain formulae stanzas from the Anglo-Saxon ballad stock."

Lyrics, as reported by Lomax:

John Hardy was a brave little man,
He carried two guns ev'ry day.
Killed him a man in the West Virginia land,
Oughta seen poor Johnny gettin' away, Lord, Lord,
Oughta seen poor Johnny gettin' away.

John Hardy was standin' at the barroom door,
He didn't have a hand in the game,
Up stepped his woman and threw down fifty cents,
Says, "Deal my man in the game, Lord, Lord...."

John Hardy lost that fifty cents,
It was all he had in the game,
He drew the forty-four that he carried by his side
Blowed out that poor Negro's brains, Lord, Lord....

John Hardy had ten miles to go,
And half of that he run,
He run till he come to the broad river bank,
He fell to his breast and he swum, Lord, Lord....

He swum till he came to his mother's house,
"My boy, what have you done?"
"I've killed a man in the West Virginia Land,
And I know that I have to be hung, Lord, Lord...."

He asked his mother for a fifty-cent piece,
"My son, I have no change."
"Then hand me down my old forty-four
And I'll blow out my agurvatin' [sic] brains, Lord, Lord...."

John Hardy was lyin' on the broad river bank,
As drunk as a man could be;
Up stepped the police and took him by the hand,
Sayin' "Johnny, come and go with me, Lord, Lord...."

John Hardy had a pretty little girl,
The dress she wore was blue.
She come a-skippin' through the old jail hall
Sayin', "Poppy, I'll be true to you, Lord, Lord...."

John Hardy had another little girl,
The dress that she wore was red,
She came a-skippin' through the old jail hall
Sayin' "Poppy, I'd rather be dead, Lord, Lord...."

They took John Hardy to the hangin' ground,
They hung him there to die.
The very last words that poor boy said,
"My forty gun never told a lie, Lord, Lord...."

sources: www.wvculture.org/history/crime/hardyjohn02.html
http://www.bobdylanroots.com/jhardy.html#jhardy1

When asked by Federal agent Melvin Purvis about the Kansas City Massacre, he snapped, "I won't tell you anything, you son-of-a-bitch." Depending on whose version is more accurate, these may well have been Charles Arthur Pretty Boy Floyd's last words. Today is the 75th anniversary of the shoot-out death of the career bank robber who just three months earlier had been designated "Public Enemy No. 1" by J. Edgar Hoover.

Believed to be returning to his home in the Cookson Hills of Oklahoma after years in hiding, Floyd and his partner, Adam Richetti, had attracted the attention of local police near Wellsville, OH. A guns-blazing chase ensued, resulting in Richetti's capture and Floyd's escape. Agent Purvis organized a three-day manhunt, which culminated on the Ellen Conkle farm when eight lawmen ended Floyd's life of violence.

Much of the interest in Floyd was due to a bloody rescue attempt in Kansas City in June 1933, which had resulted in the machine gun deaths of five persons, four of them police officers. Floyd, usually not shy about his exploits, denied any involvement, but without success.

Floyd went into hiding after the so-called Union Station Massacre. However, by October of the following year, he and Richetti, and two sisters whose inconvenient husbands had been eliminated by Floyd, decided to leave their hideout in Buffalo, New York, and return to Oklahoma.

The East Liverpool Historical Society website gives a dramatic blow-by-blow account of the gang's desperate final attempts to outrun the law in Ohio:

"In mid-afternoon on Monday, October 22, he emerged from the woods near an area known as Sprucevale, eight miles southeast of his last sighting, where he approached the farmhouse of Mrs. Ellen Conkle, a widow. A disheveled Floyd explained to her that he had gotten lost while hunting and had spent the previous night wandering through the woods. He was hungry, and Mrs. Conkle prepared a meal of spareribs, potatoes, rice pudding, and pumpkin pie, which Pretty Boy consumed rapidly and termed 'fit for a king'. He offered Mrs. Conkle a dollar for her trouble and asked to see any recent newspapers.

Ellen Conkle, with the dishes used by Floyd in what turned out to be his last meal.

"Unknown to Floyd, he had been observed walking in the area by a farmer who telephoned township Constable Clyde Birch who, in turn, relayed the report to the East Liverpool City Police. Acting on the tip, one of several already received, East Liverpool Police Chief High J. McDermott rounded up Patrolmen Chester C. Smith, Glenn Montgomery, and Herman Roth and set out. Purvis and four agents followed in a second vehicle.

"Meanwhile, having concluded his review of the papers, which detailed the capture of Richetti and the ongoing manhunt, Floyd asked for Mrs. Conkle's assistance in getting to Youngstown. She suggested that Floyd wait until her brother, Stewart Dyke, finished his work in the fields. Floyd sat in the front seat of Dyke's Model A until his return.

"When Pretty Boy explained that he wanted transportation to Youngstown or the nearest bus line, Dyke promised to take him part of the way, and they started to pull out of the farmyard. At that crucial moment, two cars came speeding down the Sprucevale Road toward the Conkle farm. Floyd, sensing danger, ordered Dyke to pull the car behind an adjacent corncrib, and saw a pair of blue-trousered legs get out of the car. As the police and federal agents approached the corncrib, Floyd made a break for the woods, holding a Colt automatic in his right hand.

"Nine officers, variously armed with pistols, rifles, and shotguns, blazed away as Floyd zigzagged across the field. Ninety-three shots were directed at the outlaw; for once, he did not shoot back. Hit, Floyd fell to his knees, then got up and continued his race for life. A second bullet knocked him down to stay.

"Not surprisingly, the accounts of the participants differ widely. Purvis later claimed that Floyd was hit by an agent armed with a Tommy gun. Patrolman Chester Smith asserted that it was his shots with a .32-20 Winchester that had dropped Floyd and, further, that the federal agents were armed only with pistols and 'couldn't have hit anything at that distance with their handguns.'

Floyd's body at the Sturgis Funeral Home morgue - note bullet wound in left torso.

"Floyd was alive when the lawmen came up to where he lay. The Colt was removed from his right hand, which had been paralyzed by a wound. A backup gun was found in the waistband of his trousers.

"When Purvis asked the criminal if he was Pretty Boy Floyd, he received the curt response, ‘I'm Floyd’. He then asked the police, 'Where's Etti?' --- presumably a reference to his captured associate. The three Liverpool patrolmen carried him to the shelter of a large apple tree where Public Enemy No. 1 died."


source: www.eastliverpoolhistoricalsociety.org/pbfloyd1.htm

"Some time between 1 o'clock and daybreak, Horace Devaughn will be led into the death chamber to pay the penalty for the murder of A.B. Moore and Mrs. Ruby Thornton in Birmingham last January," reported The St. Petersburg Times on April 5, 1927. Three days later Devaughn, a black man, was executed at Kilby Prison, marking Alabama's first use of the electric chair. Two weeks later, Virgil Murphy, a veteran of World War I who was convicted in Houston County of murdering his wife, became the first white man electrocuted in the chair.

In 1923, legislation had provided for state-performed executions to be carried out by electrocution. Prior to 1923, executions were the responsibility of the counties, and in Alabama, that generally meant hanging.

The electric chair was first used in 1890. The execution box consisted of a simple electrical panel with three buttons: an orange power button, a red stop button and a solemnly black execute button. The chair was subsequently used by more than 25 states throughout the 20th century, acquiring nicknames such as Sizzlin’ Sally, Old Smokey, Old Sparky, and Gruesome Gertie.

Alabamans referred to their electric chair as Yellow Mama; the chair acquired its yellow color from a contribution of highway line paint from the adjacent State Highway Department lab. It was built by a British inmate in 1927.

Yellow Mama now sits unused, inside the execution chamber at the Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, Alabama. The last execution to occur in the chair was that of Lynda Lyon Block on May 10, 2002. Following her execution, a bill was passed that would allow for execution by either lethal injection or electrocution.


sources: www.patrickcrusade.org/YELLOW_MAMA_RETIRES.html
www.spiritus-temporis.com/yellow-mama/

...continued

On November 11, 1926, young neighbor Manville Perry noticed the living room door of William and Sarah Stout's farmhouse open, and was shocked by the sight he saw. He ran to a nearby coal mine and called for several miners to accompany him back to the farm.

Mrs. Stout's body lay in front of the living room stove. Her face, neck and portions of her body were burnt and charred beyond recognition. One arm was extended on the floor in front of her and was not burnt, suggesting that she had not tried to extinguish the flames of the fire. All her hair was burned off except where her head came in contact with the floor.

It was obvious to the gathered group that the body had been placed in front of the stove. Local Prosecuting Attorney Blake was called in, and he and Dr. O. S. Cox and Dr. A. E. James studied the scene. Their post mortem concluded that Mrs. Stout died of strangulation, not burns. The body was then covered with kerosene and set fire, they declared.

Sarah Stout was last seen alive in McArthur, two days prior, when she had sworn out a warrant against Arthur Stout, her stepson. The adultery charge cited his illicit relationship with one Inez Palmer, who had been co-habiting with him for three years on his family farm about three miles east of Sarah & William’s farm. It was rumored that Inez and Arthur had had a child since they had been living together.

The young Stout had been bailed out of jail by his father. Mrs. Stout feared that Arthur would kill her on account of her actions, Stout neighbor Mrs. Lucy Gibbs later testified.

Sarah, age 60, and her husband, age 65, were recently wed and were respected, well-to-do farmers in the county. We don’t know Sarah’s exact motive for turning in her stepson, especially if she realized it would be a life-threatening move.

One view is that for her to allow the situation to fester would undoubtedly have tarnished her and her new husband’s reputations and thereby threatened her future security. Another view is that she was a gold digger, looking to eliminate any competition for the old boy’s money. We just don’t know.

William Stout immediately called for the arrest of his son. "I shall demand his punishment," he said. "It was an awful thing to do, to murder the woman who had raised him even if she was only his step-mother." Interestingly, before his own death William Stout hired the law firm of Woolley and Rowland to defend his son.

Bloodhounds followed the trail of the murdered woman's stepson from a wagon he had unhitched in the yard to the room in which Sarah Stout was slain, which in turn led to Arthur Stout’s arrest. In early February 1927 a Grand Jury indicted him for first degree murder.

When Stout was taken to jail, Palmer became a housekeeper for the elder Stout. So apparently William didn’t suspect her of any wrongdoing. Or maybe he did and wanted to keep close tabs on her!

Here’s where the Athens Messenger account becomes confusing: "Coming from Bellaire several years ago, Inez Palmer first took care of Mrs. Arthur [sic] Stout. Mrs. Stout had been ill for some time. There she met Arthur Stout." So far so good. "Mrs. Stout died and William Stout remarried." Now wait a minute! We’re not told why the death of his daughter-in-law coincided with William Stout remarrying. But the red flag here is that the elder Stout said he was angered that his son murdered the woman who RAISED him. The newspaper accounts shed no light on this inconsistency.

So to recap, at the time of her own arrest in mid-March 1927, Inez Palmer was in the Stout farmhouse with Artie and William Stout, Arthur Stout’s sons, who’d been living with their grandfather for some time, while Arthur was behind bars.

Inez Palmer didn't say anything about Sarah Stout's death when she was first arrested. She did confess that she killed William Stout because he made advances toward her. She explained that she attempted to cover up the crime by putting on a pair of her victim's shoes and had made footprints near the repaired fences. And yes, she said that she'd forgest the will placed it in the dinner pail under a tree.

When Arthur Stout learned of Palmer's confession, he confirmed her story, and furthermore declared that she had killed Sarah Stout. Palmer had instructed him to burn the body, he said.

Arthur Stout and Inez Palmer were tried for the murders. On the stand, Arthur Stout, Jr. informed the prosecutor that his father was the person who proposed the idea of murdering Sarah Stout, because she’d had him arrested for living with Inez Palmer without the benefit of marriage.

Arthur Stout was found guilty of second degree murder and Inez Palmer with first degree murder in April of 1927. They both were sentenced to life terms.


Sources: Athens [OH] Messenger, 11/18/26, 11/19/26, 3/14/27, 3/18/27, 5/1/27 issues
www.geocities.com/Athens/Olympus/5870/mc.html
Profiles of Ohio Women, 1803-2003, by Jacqueline Jones Royster, Ohio University Press, 2003
Vinton County, Oh, by Family Heritage (Firm), Turner Publishing Company, 1996



Vinton+County+OH Vinton+County+double+murders crime+in+Appalachia appalachia appalachian+history appalachian+mountains+history

The last time she saw William Stout, the man missing, he was mending fences here at his Axtel Ridge place, Inez Palmer told the sheriff. She’d heard her boyfriend’s father had headed out west, and was acting strangely before he left Vinton County.

Maude "Sheriff Maude" Collins and her deputy Ray Cox followed the trail of patched fences. Two and a half miles from the house they found a lunch pail under a tree. The pail contained a handwritten will, in which William Stout cut off his other two sons, Noah and Burn, and named Palmer’s boyfriend Arthur as the sole heir. The document was not signed by any witnesses.

Sheriff Maude examined the footprints leading to and from the dinner bucket. She returned to William Stout's farmhouse and retrieved a pair of his shoes. The shoes fit exactly to the footprints, but Sheriff Maude noticed that the footprints were not as deep in the soil as those of Deputy Cox, a man about the same stature as Stout.

Sheriff Maude Collins, Vinton County, OH.

The sheriff dropped the Stout shoes to the ground and slipped them on. She walked up and down beside the original set of footprints. Her own fresh footprints were about the same depth. Sheriff Maude concluded that a person much closer to her weight made the prints, not William Stout.

The two law officers proceeded to the missing man’s home and examined the contents of the house. It was obvious that William Stout never took any of his belongings. They went back into McArthur and presented the will to the cashier at Vinton County National Bank, where Mr. Stout maintained his account. Sheriff Maude compared the handwriting of the will to that of his canceled checks. No match.

Sheriff Maude and Deputy Cox returned to Axtel Ridge the next morning to search the Stout's farm for any trace of William Stout’s body. Once there, they conversed with the missing man's two young grandsons.

Arthur’s sons Artie and William innocently provided the missing clue that solved the case. In the course of questioning, they informed the two law officers that Inez Palmer had told them the water behind the Stout house was not fit for consumption and they’d best just stay clear of the well.

Sheriff Maude and deputy Cox promptly arrested Inez Palmer, who’d been living at the house, as a suspect, so they could search the premises without interference.

Sure enough, they discovered William Stout’s body in the well behind the house. Stout had suffered severe head trauma caused by a blunt instrument.

Why was Inez Palmer staying at the house? And where was Arthur, the boyfriend, during all this? Did William have a wife at the farm? There’s more, far more, to this Ohio murder story. Stay tuned!

Part two tomorrow...


Sources: Athens [OH] Messenger, 11/18/26, 11/19/26, 3/14/27, 3/18/27, 5/1/27 issues
www.geocities.com/Athens/Olympus/5870/mc.html
Profiles of Ohio Women, 1803-2003, by Jacqueline Jones Royster, Ohio University Press, 2003
Vinton County, Oh, by Family Heritage (Firm), Turner Publishing Company, 1996



Vinton+County+OH Vinton+County+double+murders crime+in+Appalachia appalachia appalachian+history appalachian+mountains+history

The Roanoke [VA] Times, Thursday Morning, December 19, 1929--

Body of Floyd County Girl Is Found On Bent Mountain; Disappeared Last Thursday

Extensive Search Had Been Made for Freeda Bolt, 18,
of Near Willis--Sheriff Locates Body
on Information Reported Given Him By Buren Harmon,
Held at Floyd in Connection With Case.

The body of Freeda Bolt, 18, of near Willis, Floyd County, who disappeared last Thursday night, was found at ten o'clock last night on Bent Mountain, eighteen miles south of Roanoke.

Discovery of the body was made by Sheriff Hilton, of Floyd, and two deputies who, acting on the reported statements of Buren Harmon, of Floyd county, who has been held since the girl's disappearance, that the body would be found beneath several logs, about thirty yards from the highway, where the highway makes a bend on the mountain.

DISCOVERED BODY.
Sheriff Hilton discovered the body about ten o'clock, and communicated with Roanoke county officers, who departed at eleven o'clock for the scene.

The body, fully clothed, was found in a secluded spot in the woods, and was in a fair state of preservation, Dr. G. A. L. Kolmer, Roanoke county coroner, said at 1:30 o'clock this morning, in a telephonic communication.

A heavy cord had been tied tightly around the victim's neck, but whether or not this had been used for the purpose of strangulation or to drag the body from the road to its hiding place, Dr. Kolmer and Deputy Sheriff J. L. Richardson were unable to say. Only a cursory examination was made this morning before the body was removed to the home of J. D. Willett, half a mile from the scene.

REMOVE BODY TO SALEM.
Arrangements were being made to remove the body to Salem, where an autopsy will be held today, Dr. Kolmer said. Whether or not Harmon will be turned over to Roanoke county authorities has not been determined, Deputy Sheriff Richardson said, since it has not been established just where the young girl met her death.

The girl, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. J. K. Bolt, who reside about seven mile from Willis, had been boarding in Willis, while attending school. Telling friends she was going to be married, she left her boarding house last Thursday night and, according to her father's report to police here, she was later seen in company with Harmon, apparently headed toward Roanoke.

SEEN IN FLOYD FRIDAY.
Harmon was seen in Floyd Friday morning, the father stated, but denied having seen the girl on the previous night. He admitted, it was said, that he had an appointment with her that night, but contended that the meeting never took place.

Since that time, Mr. Bolt had asked the aid of police in the principal cities of the State in helping to locate his daughter. It was at first thought that she probably had come to Roanoke, since Harmon had friends here. Search, however, was extended to Richmond and other cities.

Deputy Sheriff J. L. Richardson, accompanied by Dr. G. A. L. Kolmer, county coroner, and R. T. Hubard, commonwealth's attorney, of Salem, went to the scene, arriving there shortly after midnight.

source: www.blueridgeinstitute.org/ballads/fboltnews.html


Freeda+Bolt Roanoke+VA crime+in+Appalachia appalachian+history appalachian+mountains+history appalachia

Was Charged With Killing John Stinson on Laurel Creek Sunday, June 30th

November 22, 1935 --

The jury returned a verdict of guilty late Wednesday afternoon and fixed Ed Nelson's punishment at twenty years in the Virginia penitentiary. Two full days were consumed in Judge Buchanan's Circuit Court this week in the trial of Ed Nelson for the murder of John Stinson, on Laurel Creek on June 30th. A large array of witnesses were present, many of whom were present at the killing.

Character witnesses to support the testimony of the witnesses for the Commonwealth were also introduced. According to H. H. Johnson, of Richlands, two car loads and one truck load of people left Richlands on the Sunday of the murder, to spend the day with relatives of Johnson and the Stinsons. Johnson was leading the procession and when he reached a point near the residence of Wm. Vandyke, just over the brow of a hill, he discovered that the road was blocked by a Ford car.

He requested that the road be cleared, and violent objection to moving the car was raised by Ed Nelson, according to Mr. Johnson, who stated that Nelson threatened to shoot any who tried to move the car. Johnson's statement was emphatically denied by other witnesses. Johnson also stated that Ed Nelson came down the road from the Vandyke yard, pushing a pistol in the stomach of Doc Stinson, father of the man who was killed, and turned loose a volume of profanity.

At this point in the proceedings, according to Johnson, Doc Stinson's son, John Stinson, came up behind Nelson and struck him on the side of the head, whereupon Nelson is said to have turned and shot John Stinson, both he and Stinson falling into a creek, on the edge of which the difficulty having occurred. Other witnesses stated that both Stinsons seized Nelson, that the shooting didn't occur until they had reached the creek bed in the shuffle, and that Nelson shot in self defense.

There was evidence introduced to show that Nelson and other associates were drunk. Nelson is alleged to have run, according to Mr. Johnson, from the scene of the crime. Commonwealth's Attorney Jos. S. Gillespie was assisted in the prosecution by Commonwealth's Attorney Fuller, of Russell, Bruce Johnson, and son H. H. Johnson, of Richlands. R.O. Crockett represented Nelson.

Clinch Valley News Folder
Tazewell County, Virginia

source: www.rootsweb.com/~vatazewe/CVN/1935.htm

related post: "One of the oldest Confederate Veterans"


Tazewell+County+VA crime+in+Appalachia appalachia appalachia+history appalachian+mountains+history