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NEWSPAPER ITEMS FULTON COUNTY ARKANSAS GENEALOGY TRAILS ROCKPORT (INDIANA) DEMOCRAT, December 13, 1907 1912 DREW STRAWS TO NAME MURDERER Little Rock, AR, Jan. 25.--Dr. H. C. Dunavant, president of the State Board of Health, in speaking of the smallpox situation today, told of a terrible state of affairs at Salem, in Fulton county. Dr. Dunavant has just returned from that place, where he made a thorough investigation. He says that there have been at least four hundred cases of smallpox in the locality within the last two months, and a number of deaths have occurred. He found people walking about the streets of the town broken out with the disease, pockmarked and pitted, and others falling ill every day. The local physicians contended that the disease was not smallpox, and little effort had been made to check its ravages. As a result the disease has become scattered along the line of the Memphis & Fort Scott and Cotton Belt railroads, and many neighboring towns are now infected. The disease was first carried to Fulton county about two months ago by a returned soldier. --The Indiana State Journal, (Indianapolis, IN) Wed., Feb. 1, 1899; contributed by Candi Horton. December 13, 1907 Contributed by Barb Ziegenmeyer Hatfield, IN--Mr. and Mrs. John Carleton of Mammonth Springs, Ark., are visiting relatives for a few weeks at this place and at Chrisney.
1912 DREW STRAWS TO NAME MURDERER Contributed by Christi Scovel James Eliphas Davis--1912 Drew Straws to Name Murderer In Fulton Circuit Court Wed. a
continuance was granted until next term in the case
against Howard Sayers for the killing of Charles Moore
last Feb. near Mammoth Spring and Dr. H.M. Jones
was granted bail in the sum of $3,000. The
following confession and signed statement was given to
the public today by J. E. Davis who pleaded guilty
to murder in the second degree for the killing of Moore
and was sentenced to twenty-one years in the pen:
"To the public, I, J. E. Davis, make this statement
freely and of my own account without expecting any
remonstration from any source. I have entered my
plea of guilty of killing Charlie Moore have taken my
sentence to the (unreadable) for the extreme limit of the
law. During the winter of 1911 and 1912, we, H.M.
Jones and myself, incurred the displeasure and hatred of
one Charles Moore. He has sworn to kill us.
He was a dangerous man, as he had killed several men
before, and as he always went heavily armed.
Knowing this H.M. Jones, Ben Jones, his son and myself
often talked and conspired together to kill Charles
Moore. Moore had nothing against Sayers and Sayers
had nothing against Moore. Sayers was simply a tool
in the hands of Jones. On Feb. 15, 1912 at Jones's
house in Mammoth Springs, H.M. Jones framed up how we
should kill Charles Moore. After discussing the
mattter Sayers spoke up and volunteered to take part in
the killing. Straws were drawn between myself and
H. M. Jones as to which one of us should go with Sayers
to do the killing and it fell on me, and I and Sayers got
the guns that H.M. Jones furnished us to do the crime
with. We proceeded to and did kill Charles Moore,
as we planned and framed up by Jones. I was
indicted by the grand jury and placed in jail for a few
days, and on the day I employed an attorney to defend me
I was taken to the pen at Little Rock for safe
keeping. I was brought back from there on Sun.
before circuit court and had no time to prepare any
defense and my attorneys tried in every honorable way
they could to get my case continued so that the strong
feeling against me could be altered until I could get a
fair and impartial trial. They also tried to get
the venue of my case changed, and they also tried to get
even four weeks time in which to prepare my defense, but
the court fought them down at every step they took for
me. I know I did wrong in the killing of Moore, but
he made so many threats against my life that acting under
the directions of H. M. Jones I did not think it wrong to
go into the conspiracy to kill him, but I did expect to
be treated right by the court. I have no
complaint against C. E. Elmore, the prosecuting
attorney. He did simply his duty, but after I had
walked up and taken my medicine like a man making penance
for a crime I had done, I did expect the circuit judge to
put Sayers and Jones up for trial too. Mr. Elmore
tried to have this done. I wanted nothing but
fairness and had a right to expect that we would all be
treated alike. The cases of Sayers and Jones were
continued until the regular term of the court, which puts
them off for six months. The same crime remains for
the court to try them that was left and set apart by the
court to try me. Why the court did not want
to put them up against the same proposition he was
putting me up against I can not say. It remains to
be answered in a way people can only
conjecture. Had Sayers been tried at the set
term he would have been convicted. People of
Fulton, he will never be now. Look out and see if
the words do not come true. Look to the
surroundings and think it over. There was no just
cause shown to the court why we should have been
discriminated against. They are as guilty as I
am. They should suffer as I will have to
suffer." J E Davis Return to Arkansas Genealogy Trails ©2006-2009 Arkansas Genealogy Trails |