Appalachian History

Wheeling Daily Register January 20, 1894 All Were Murderers Four Men Suffer the Extreme Penalty for Their Crimes John Hardy Hanged at Welch, McDowell County, for Killing Thomas Drews Last Spring… Special Telegram to the Register. WILD E, W. VA., January 19. – “John Hardy, for killing Thomas Drews, both colored, was hung at 2:09 [...]

…continued On November 11, 1926, young neighbor Manville Perry noticed the living room door of William and Sarah Stout’s farmhouse open, and was shocked by the sight he saw. He ran to a nearby coal mine and called for several miners to accompany him back to the farm. Mrs. Stout’s body lay in front of [...]

The last time she saw William Stout, the man missing, he was mending fences here at his Axtel Ridge place, Inez Palmer told the sheriff. She’d heard her boyfriend’s father had headed out west, and was acting strangely before he left Vinton County. Maude “Sheriff Maude” Collins and her deputy Ray Cox followed the trail [...]

“Some time between 1 o’clock and daybreak, Horace Devaughn will be led into the death chamber to pay the penalty for the murder of A.B. Moore and Mrs. Ruby Thornton in Birmingham last January,” reported The St. Petersburg Times on April 5, 1927. Three days later Devaughn, a black man, was executed at Kilby Prison, [...]

State’s evidence portion of ‘Beck vs. State of Georgia,’ before Judge Estes, Rabun Superior Court, September Term 1885 In this partial court transcript, Eugene W. Beck is indicted for the murder of his wife, Ella Beck. He pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. He was convicted for life at the state penitentiary, where he [...]