Riddled With Bullets

• Scipio Atchison

News Bit- from Selma. The Story of a Mysterious Murder – The I. O. B. B. in Session. Selma, May 12– Mr. Davis McGhee reached the city last evening from the vicinity of Dixie, a little town up on the E. T. V. & G, R. R., and from him your correspondent learned the particulars of a mysterious murder, which came to light in a forest between Dixie and Staunton on Sunday last. A negro woman, the wife of Scipio Atchison, went to- Dixie Sunday afternoon and begged Dr. T. M. Collier to go with her to a forest near by and assist her in a search lor the remains of her husband, saying that she knew he had been killed; that he left home on Saturday to be gone a short while and had not returned; that she heard the report of a gun in the forest soon after her husband left the house, and that she could not persuade any of the negroes in the neighborhood to accompany her and make an investigation. Dr. Collier accompanied the distressed woman to the forest and found the body of Scipio Atchison a ghastly corpse with the life all fled from it. It was evident from the. riddled remains that the dead man had been killed with a charge of buckshot. Scipio Atchison, the murdered man, was the father of a young negro scoundrel who brutally outraged the person of a white lady in the vicinity about two weeks since and boasted that she was his fifth victim. After committing the dastardly crime he fled. A band or resolute white men pursued him hotly, but all efforts at capture proved fruitless. Since that time Scipio, the father, is said to have made murderous threats and sworn vengeance against the white people of the community. He said that charges against his son were false and that the white women circulated the reports maliciously and with develish motives. He openly threatened death to the white people who had endeavored to bring his son to a just punishment. The neighborhood, already indignant at the outrage committed by the son, is supposed to have been embittered and exasperated by the father’s threats; and this is the accepted explanation of the finding of the dead body in the forest. The dead man had fallen on the bank of a small creek, and it is presumed that the fatal shot was fired upon him just as he stepped upon the foot-log crossing. Who did the killing the public does not know; cannot even surmise. The affire has raised a big excitement in the community.

“Riddled With Bullets.” The Weekly Advertiser (Montgomery, AL), May 19, 1885.