Woman Killed by Negro Burglars, Who are also Slain

Source Type: Newspaper
Publisher: The Birmingham News
Place of publication: Birmingham, Alabama
Date of publication: 1909-09-13
Transcript:

Demopolis, Ala, Sept. – News of the killing of two negroes following the slaying of a white woman, was received today from Bellamy, a lumber camp about 20 miles west of here, on the Southern Railway. Two negroes, Robert Gully and John Holly, sometime during Sunday night entered the home of a man named Gray. The noise awakened Mrs. Gray, and when she failed to heed the order to stop screaming, she was shot and killed by Gully.

Gray, who occupied an adjoining room, rushed to his wife’s rescue and engaged in a death struggle with Gully. In the fight he brained the negro with an axe, but not until he was shot in the leg.

Holly made his escape from the house during the fight, but was captured this morning and made quick work of by a posse of Gray’s neighbors.