Three Murders in One Week is Record for Tuscaloosa

Tuscaloosa is coming to the front very fast as a bad county, judging from the number of killings that have taken place during the past week.

        Out at Holt a negro girl killed a negro man by… liams, it being a case of the green-eyed monster.

        Ben Williams, a returned soldier, was shot and clubbed with a hammer at his place of business down near Big Sandy, in the Hull neighborhood.

        On Thursday night a son of Sam Cage, in the Ralph neighborhoos, was found cut to pieces, being killed by parties unknown, on account of his actions toward a young lady of the neighborhood, when he attempted to pull her from her horse.

        The latter murder is the only one of the three that seems to have an excuse for its perpetration, for it is the unwritten law of this land for a man to be killed who dares put his hands on a lady.

        In speaking of the crime that has been committed here and in Birmingham of late, Judge Henry B. Foster, judge of the sixth judicial circuit, says that he has kept up with crime in all parts of the state and it is young men who are committing it, boys from fifteen to twenty-two.

        It looks like the Judge has diagnosed the situation correctly, for the Holt murder was committed by a young woman, the returned soldier at Hull was killed by a couple of negro boys, sixteen and eighteen respectively, while the son of Sam Cage found cut to pieces out at Ralph was a young negro. It is rather a strange coincidence that all of the parties were negroes and all young.

1919, March 16. Three Murders in One Week is Record for Tuscaloosa. None of These Offenses Were Committed Within City Limits of Tuscaloosa. The Tuscaloosa News.