Word: sheriffs
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...Door Was Open. The sheriff explained later: "The trouble was a report had got around that the Negro had killed me. The men were pretty riled up and when they didn't find me at home, they thought maybe I was dead...
...started Sunday night, when Sheriff George C. Hatcher was waked by a Negro. He was bleeding across the chest. "Picky Pie Hill done did me over at the New Harlem Club in Mclntyre," he said. The sheriff jumped into his car and headed for the tin-roofed Negro juke joint four miles away...
Bare bulbs glared through the smoky, crowded room. Caleb ("Picky Pie") Hill, a husky, 28-year-old Negro, was drunk, but the sheriff got handcuffs on him, and began to question witnesses. Suddenly, the sheriff felt his pistol pulled from the holster, turned to find Picky Pie aiming at his head. Hatcher ducked and the bullet went into the ceiling. In the scuffle, the sheriff's pistol got lost. The sheriff took his prisoner back to town and put him in a cell with another Negro in the jail on the second floor of the sheriff's house...
While he was gone, two men walked into the sheriff's house. They had no trouble. The keys to the jail were on a cabinet in the living room, where the sheriff had left them, and the front door was open-"if I lock it the lock sticks," explained the sheriff. The men calmly picked up the keys and went upstairs to the cell. "Come on, Picky Pie, let's go," one said. Without a protest, Picky Pie walked out with them. Mrs. Hatcher, asleep downstairs, heard no commotion...
Next morning two young farmers found Hill's body, face downward in the sandy Georgia roadside, near Big Sandy Creek. He had been shot through the head and body. Roused, Sheriff Hatcher was amazed: "I thought, could it be they'd come and got my prisoner? I ran upstairs and sure enough, Hill was gone...