Lynching In Two States Two Negroes Confess Heinous Crimes Before Ropes Are Drawn

Case(s)
Source Type: Newspaper
Author: n.a.
Publisher: The Houston Post
Place of publication: Houston, TX
Date of publication: 4/6/1908
Transcript:

MOBILE, Ala., April 5. – Walter Clayton, a negro who was serving at the stockade of the Hand Lumber company for manslaughter, late Saturday afternoon criminally assaulted Mrs. Joseph White, aged 20 years, and was lynched last night by a mob of seventy-five men outside the limits of Bay Minette.

The assault occured at the woman’s home, six miles below Moxley. Clayton entered the house, it is said, choked Mrs. White, and accomplished his purpose. The negro returned to the convict camp, where he was arrested Saturday night. The negro told the officer not to take him back to the scene of his crime as he committed it and it was not necessary to have him identified.

The officers hurried him to Bay Minette, county seat of Baldwin county. As they approached the front gate of the jail seventy-five men arose from behind a fence and took charge of the negro, dragging him and the deputy several yards before it was discovered that the men were handcuffed together. The deputy was then released and the negro carried away. Late this afternoon the sheriff was still looking for the body of the negro.

Clayton was given a fifteen years’ sentence in the Mobile courts last summer on a charge of manslaughter, it being charged that he robbed and murdered John McKenzie, an old white man, in this city on Christmas Eve, 1906. He was a model prisoner at the stockade and was made a trusty.

Citation:

“Lynching In Two States; Two Negroes Confess Heinous Crimes Before Ropes Are Drawn.” The Houston Post (Houston, TX), April 6, 1908.