GRAND JURY INDICTS MOSES

• Lillian Cobb

The grand jury in session here last week indicted Edgar Moses of Tait’s Gap. on a charge of being implicated in a Klan raid which resulted in the death of Lillie Cobb, a negro woman. Moses was arrested and placed under a $10,000.00 bond. He has been in a Birmingham infirmary since the shooting, suffering with an injury in the hand which is said to have been inflicted by Emery Cobb, husband of the murdered woman, with a shotgun, at the time of the raid. The following is a copy of the report of the Grand Jury: The State of Alabama, Blount County. Spring Term, 1926, of the Circuit Court in and for Blount County. To the Honorable O. A. Steele, Presiding Judge of the 16th Judicial Circuit of Alabama: The Grand Jury having been reassembled to investigate such matters as might be properly brought before it, begs leave to say that we have investigated reported crime in this community since we recessed on the 17th day of April, 1926, and we return into court one true bill. We have made the best and most painstaking investigation possible at this time, and we are ready and willing to reassemble again at any time the public welfare may require it. We stand as one man opposed to lawlessness, and if our consciences permitted it, we would be unwilling to ever appear to wink at, whitewash, or encourage in the slightest degree, murder or other crime by anybody anywhere. If one crime can be whitewashed and covered by us, so can all crime go the same way. We are not engaged in the business of covering crime committed by anybody, even upon a black man or a black woman. Trials in the night time, in the woods by unorganized tribunals, unsupported by legal evidence, unrepresented by counsel, are disgraceful to free institutions, and a menace to society and we condemn such practices, and call upon men and women everywhere in cur county to stand by organized government. We thank your Honor for the able and fearless charge delivered to us upon our reassembling, and to say to you that we are proud you not only stand privately for good government, but you are, not afraid to publicly declare yourself in favor of such government in a situation faced by the citizens of Blount County, today. At our own request and suggestion, we thank our Solicitor, M. C. Sivley for his untiring efforts in undertaking along with us to discover the guilty persons in their persistent efforts to trample upon the law of this country. We thank our Sheriff for his promptness in serving subpoenas upon witnesses, and our Bailiff, Mr. John Ketchum, for the performance of his duties as bailiff. We now ask to be recessed, W. J. Ellison, Foreman.

“Grand Jury Indicts Moses,” The Southern Democrat (Oneonta, Alabama) May 6, 1926.