“Search Made for Black Trio”

SEARCH MADE FOR BLACK TRIO Posse of Citizens Looking For the Slayers of Young White Man. WAYLAID AND MURDERED Algernon Lewis While On His Way To His Home At Magnolia, Is Put To Death By Negroes With Whom He Had Trouble. SELMA, Ala., Dec. 20.—A determined posse of white men began searching the swamps and woods around Lamison, forty miles south of Selma, Sunday night for three negro brothers, Shelley, Clinton and Will Montgomery, who, Saturday evening about 6 o’clock are said to have shot to death Algernon Lewis, a young white man of Magnolia. Bloodhounds have been requested from Birmingham and it is thought if the three negroes are caught, they will receive summary punishment from the citizens of that section. The trouble which led up to the killing occurred Saturday morning as Algernon Lewis and his father, J. B. Lewis, were driving a herd of cattle from Magnolia to Gastonburg. On the road they met a one-arm negro boy, Shelley Montgomery. The boy would not get out of the road, and scattered the cattle. He was taken to task by the white men and as they continued on their way, the negro cursed J. B. Lewis in his strongest language and then ran away. Waylaid by Negroes. Young Lewis stopped at Lamison and his father drove the cattle to Gastonburg. When he returned to Magnolia Saturday afternoon young Lewis heard that the negroes intended to waylay his father as he returned home that night, so he rode back to Lamison and telephoned his father, telling him to spend the night at Gastonburg. He then started back for his home at Magnolia and had almost reach that place when the three brothers stepped from behind a tree along the road and stopped him. One of the negroes who is supposed to have been Clinton Montgomery, then raised a gun and shot the young man to death according to reports. The three negroes then cut the telephone wire to interrupt communication and to delay as long as possible the news of the murder. They made their escape into the woods. Soon after the murder became known, a posse was formed and since then the search for the three negroes has been continued.