Seven Men Arrested In Alabama Killings: Members of Family Sought by Posses Surrender to Authorities

Source Type: Newspaper
Publisher: The New York Amsterdam News
Place of publication: New York
Date of publication: July 16, 1930
Transcript:

Seven men sought as participants in a disturbance at Emelle, Ala., July 4, as a result of which six people were killed, were in Kelby Prison here Thursday.

Jacob Robertson, whose twin brother, Esau, was lynched Friday night, was brought here Monday night and the other six were brought here Tues-day and Wednesday night by officers, who kept their arrival a secret until Thursday.

Officers who took the men into custody said they surrendered volun-tarily after hiding in a corn field near Emelle since the previous Friday night without food or water. They were in a state of exhaustion.

In addition to Jacob, Jordan Rob-ertson, J.W. Robertson, James Rob-ertson, Elbert Robertson, Andrew Robertson, and Frank Robertson now are in the prison here. No charges as yet have been preferred against them.

The disorder started when Grover Boyd, a white merchant, was shot in a dispute over the payment of a stor-age battery.

In addition to Boyd, another white man, Charlie Marrs, was killed. Marrs, however, is believed to have been shot by a stray bullet fired by a member of the crowd besieging the home of John Newton Robertson, an uncle of Esau. John Newton Robertson was killed and his home burned when he resisted efforts to search it for his brother Tom and his three sons, sought in connection with the murder of  Boyd and an attack on his nephew, Clarence Boyd.

The other two who died during the disorders were killed Saturday night by posses roaming the section adja-cent to the Mississippi line in search of Tom Robertson and his sons. One, an unidentified man, was killed after he had fired on a member of the posse that found him in a railway station in Marchetta, Miss., and sought to search him. The other was a woman, the wife of James Eyer, who was shot when the posse fired after her husband had failed to obey a command to halt.