Southern Evil: Tales of Revenge, Greed, Lust, and Racism from the Heart of Dixie

By Alan G Gauthreaux

Southern Evil: Tales of Revenge, Greed, Lust, and Racism From the Heart of Dixie is a compilation of historical crime profiles written in a popular history form for the true (historical) crime genre. Written by experienced historian and author, Alan G. Gauthreaux, Southern Evil offers more than just documentation; the manuscript maintains an historical as well as societal record of the more notorious murders and murderers from the southern United States. The author composed this manuscript with the mission to maintain the dignity of the victims, as well as those who may, or may not, have been falsely accused.

• Language: English
• Publisher: TouchPoint Press
• Release date: Oct 31, 2022
• ISBN: 1956851496

Book preview

SOUTHERN

EVIL

Tales of Revenge, Greed,

Lust, and Racism from the

Heart of Dixie

Alan G. Gauthreaux

Author of Dark Bayou: Infamous Louisiana Homicides and

Bloodstained Louisiana: Twelve Murder Cases, 1896-1934

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Relax. Read. Repeat.

SOUTHERN EVIL:

Tales of Revenge, Greed, Lust, and Racism from the Heart of Dixie

By Alan G. Gauthreaux

Published by TouchPoint Press

Brookland, AR 72417

www.touchpointpress.com

Copyright © 2022 Alan G. Gauthreaux

All rights reserved.

eBook Edition

PAPERBACK ISBN: 978-1-956851-49-6

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Editor: Liam Lassiter

Cover Design: David Ter-Avanesyan/Ter33Design

Cover Image: Avenue of oaks in American South by Wollwerth Imagery (Adobe Stock)

First Edition

Dedication

To Richard Jay Gauthreaux (1961-2021)

Birth made us brothers, but love and time made us friends.

I miss you dearly, Butch.

To Darlene Passalaqua Schexnaydre (1955-2018)

To my beautiful friend, the world was a much better place with you here.

To William Bill Heidingsfelder (1946-2018)

We were neighbors for a long time and I always

looked forward to our conversations.

I miss your jovial disposition.

To James Alphonse Daigle (1932-2017)

Although I never had the distinguished

honor of meeting you, I admire your legacy above all others.

To Jacinda and Rhonda

I owe you more than I can ever repay. Your friendships have

been undeserved gifts bestowed upon me without equal.

To Marlene B.

My friend, counselor, and balance.

Table of Images

Image 1: Mattie Woolfolk

Image 2: Little Mattie Woolfolk

Image 3: Richard Woolfolk

Image 4: Pearl Woolfolk

Image 5: Dick Woolfolk

Image 6: Thomas Woolfolk

Image 7: Carrollton Courthouse

Image 8: Woolfolk Gallows

Image 9: Woolfolk Residence

Image 10: Richard Dick Hawes

Image 11: Emma Hawes

Image 12: May Hawes Death Photo

Image 13: Hawes Jury

Image 14: Newspaper Article - Winterstein

Image 15: Luciano Crime Scene

Image 16:Anthony Luciano Family

Image 17: Ferrari Crime Scene

Image 18: Samuel Sam Aspara

Image 19: Point of Entry - Maggio Residence

Image 20: Joseph Risetto

Image 21: Mrs. Joseph Risetto

Image 22: Joseph Davi

Image 23: Davi Residence

Image 24: Daguenno & Pizzo

Image 25: Anthony Sciambra

Image 26: Mrs. Anthony Sciambra

Image 27: Baby Sciambra

Image 28: Andollini Brothers

Image 29: Charles and Rose Cortimiglia

Image 30: Cortimiglia Crime Scene

Image 31: Maggio Crime Scene

Image 32: Axman's Jazz Sheet Music Cover

Image 33: Mike and Esther Pepitone

Image 34: Newspaper Article 1 - Esther Albano

Image 35: Newspaper Article 2 - Esther Albano

Image 36: Young Louise Peete (Preslar)

Image 37: Jacob C. Denton

Image 38: Thomas Woolwine

Image 39: Louise Peete Goes to Arraignment

Image 40: Louise Peete Court Appearance

Image 41: Nancy Hazel Nannie Doss

Image 42: Doss on her way to court

Image 43: Doss on her way to penitentiary

Image 44: Rhonda Belle Martin prior to execution

Image 45: Victims of Rhonda Belle Martin

Table of Contents

Dedication

Table of Images

Preface

Acknowledgements

When Mississippi Burned (1876-1886)

Georgia’s Trial of the Nineteenth Century (1887)

Dick Hawes Meets the Devil (1888)

Awful Tragedies (1900)

The Never-Ending Vendetta (1902-1905)

A Message from the Angel of Death (1910-1919)

The Dark Witch of Bienville Parish (1920)

The Self-Made Widow (1927-1955)

A Study in Psychopathy (1937-1956)

Bibliography

Index

Preface

In Southern Evil: Tales of Revenge, Greed, Lust, and Racism from the Heart of Dixie, I displayed my interest with the continuing cycle of evil as a seasoned researcher and historian. The crimes covered in this work are truly the dastardliest, and some unnecessarily grotesque, but the one theme running through every crime is the lack of conscience exhibited by the perpetrator. It seems that our hunger for these types of stories never ceases to be satisfied, no matter how vehement or horrendous the nature of the offense. With television programs, videos on social media, and books on the subject of historical crime, one never runs out of witnessing the morbid facets of human behavior and desensitizes one to the atrocious activities of our fellow beings.

In Southern Evil, the events and personalities profiled lead the reader on a journey through not only time, but through the recesses of diabolical and heinous behavior that causes a normal human being to shudder. There are not many happy endings and the perpetrator does not always get their just reward. But what we do glean from this work is an understanding that even the basest motives do not justify the taking of a human life.

As an educator, I always hope that my students walk away from each class meeting with some information that they either found interesting or that they could use at a later time. The same goes for my writing as well; I hope that the reader will gain an understanding from these pages on the dark nature of historical crime.

Alan G. Gauthreaux

August 2019

Acknowledgements

Southern Evil: Tales of Revenge, Greed, Lust, and Racism from the Heart of Dixie would not have been possible without the kind assistance of the following individuals or institutions:

Lisa Gauthreaux, my wife, and Mia Gauthreaux, my daughter, for allowing me the endless absences to research and analyze important historical material; Jacinda and Rhonda, always faithful and always supportive; Kevin E. Sheehan and Melanie Elwell, for your continued support and valuable friendship; New Orleans Public Library/Special Collections Division, Yvonne Loiselle, Archivist, for your dedicated assistance with a number of the autopsy reports, police reports, and court records from the early twentieth century history of New Orleans; Alysson Vaughn, from the Oklahoma State Archives, for your assistance with the records regarding Nannie Doss and her time incarcerated within the State Penitentiary; Petrina Imbraguglio, superfan and great supporter who is no longer with us; and Stephanie (Stevie) Soirez Baker, for her continued support and caring.

When Mississippi Burned (1876-1886)

The Carrollton affair was not a race trouble according to all accounts, nor has it a political origin, but was simply the result of the lawless recklessness of a mob who stand before the civilized world without excuse.

—Editorial, Vicksburg Post

March 23, 1886¹

Mississippi. The Magnolia State. A southern paradise with billowing fields of cotton, corn, and winding country roads lined with pine trees that lead either to a former example of southern grandeur or nowhere, depending which way you travel. The ever-present smell of magnolias in the air welcomes even the most unconvinced visitor. The summers are hot and the evenings not so cool, but the hospitality is always friendly and the people there are extremely proud of their heritage and the legacies of their surnames. Although this is all tourism information, there is really not much difference between the Mississippi of today and that of yesterday with one exception. In the late nineteenth century, for a very tumultuous period, Mississippi exploded into a critical mass of racial violence that threatened the very fabric of freedom and bordered on anarchy. Even though citizens of that state deeply cherish most aspects of their heritage as told to them by their elders, most of the instances have been all but forgotten. The animus towards black people in post-Civil War Mississippi proved furious and unabashed as the blame for a destructive and divisive war. Those repercussions still produce highly emotional responses to the present day with racial, historical, and cultural ramifications.

The antebellum South exhibited all the magnificence of a cotton empire, yet beneath the wealthy exterior of plantations and thriving businesses, the not-so-secretive institution of human bondage held sway over the southern states. Although many compromises materialized over the course of the nation’s history regarding that peculiar institution, the people of Mississippi seceded with nine other states in 1861. Thus, the great calamity began. Little did the people of Mississippi know, nor did they ever dream that their domain would be invaded, much less laid waste by Union forces, and that more than eighty thousand of their menfolk volunteered for military service to the Confederate States of America; the majority of those never returned from war. Contrary to many historical beliefs and assertions, slavery has been substantially counted as the main cause for secession. However, after the conclusion of the war, bitterness and hatred was justification for violence against black and non-white people as well, intensified to dangerous levels.

After the Civil War in 1865, Mississippi, along with the other southern states, struggled to recover economically from the devastation. The Reconstruction period, for anyone who has studied American history, stands as one of the most turbulent periods in our nation’s history from several different standpoints that all converge under the racial focus, specifically in the South. Newly freed black people’s desperate attempts to achieve equality seemed a distance dream. Laws passed in Washington, D.C. seemed all but ignored by southern states and gave credence to the historically standing adage, The North won the war, but the South won the peace. This proved true when black people confronted the blind lady of justice.

The hatred that whites exhibited against blacks in Mississippi at the time extended well beyond the social and cultural, seething into courts of law and even some extra-legal justice. Black men and women accused of even the most miniscule of crimes found themselves adjudged guilty before any testimony or evidence saw the inside of a courtroom, and thus black people suffered from the bloodthirsty whims of a maddened mob often whipped into a diabolical fury rather than standing in judgment in a court of law. One credible advocate of black rights at the time, W.E.B. DuBois, stated that, the ignorant southerner hates the Negro, the workingmen fears his competition, the moneymakers wish to use him as a laborer, [and] some of the educated see a menace in his upward development. DuBois substantiated the belief of white people who desired those black political rights disappear, and when laws passed in faraway Washington, D.C. sought to protect those rights, southern legislatures merely ignored their enactment. White people reacted violently when DuBois characterized their behavior as easily aroused to lynch and abuse any black man. In Mississippi, white people made the subjugation and elimination of black people a question of honor and isolated incidents of lynching occurred immediately after the ceasing of hostilities in 1865. In one eleven-year period, 1875 to 1886, the murder of black people occurred wholesale with the identities of the assailants well-known and, in most cases, condoned or ignored by law enforcement. This is the story of that period.²

During the Reconstruction period in Mississippi, whites struggled with the loss of loved ones in a war that took a devastating toll on families and the economy. With the newfound freedom of abolition, black people found themselves more than ever in all arenas of society, thanks to the Thirteenth Amendment to the US Constitution. This included politics. In an effort to stem the tide of what white people believed to be the perceived indiscriminate takeover of their state, despite black persistence and the white advocacy for black inclusion through the Republican Party, steadfast white people instituted a martial dictum known as the white line campaign, where white supremacy asserted itself more than before. Paramilitary groups such as the Red Shirts armed themselves and terrorized black people all over Mississippi. So-called White Men’s Clubs sprang up all over the state with the same mission: make sure that black people remained subjugated to white people in whatever realm they found themselves within the state. From 1874 until well into 1875, the Red Shirts coerced whites to join the Democratic party in Mississippi, with an aim toward systematic prevention of blacks to stay away from polling places on election days, ensuring that white Democratic politicians occupied well-placed offices. White people deemed, "Mississppi is a white man’s country, and the Eternal God, we will rule it!"³ (White people even used the Bible as validation for their self-ordained mission of eradication.) White racial determination proved very strong after that point and provided justification for the hatred against black people.

In some instances, though, black people openly participated in the lynching of other blacks so that white retribution would not visit them. In Patterson, Mississippi, for example, located in the northeast part of the state, a young black man suffered viciously at the hands of a black mob on or about December 8, 1875. After capturing the suspected murderer, the mob undoubtedly tortured the helpless young man and after exacting a confession, the mob adjudged (him) guilty by the large number of negroes living on the place where the bloody deed was committed the night before. His body, when next seen, was in a state of suspension.⁴ After an extended period of slow, agonizing anguish, the young men confessed to anything to alleviate his suffering. Early the next year, on January 14, 1876, at Friar’s Point, Mississippi, in Coahoma County on the Mississippi River, at approximately 2:00

am

, twenty to thirty masked men entered the county jail (it later turned out that the mob was composed of black men.) The phantom executioners searched for and subsequently found four black men who stood accused of gin and house burning, robbery and marauding. The masked men made their way into the jail quietly without alerting the sheriff and deputies on duty that night. They overcame the sheriff and he begged that none of the other prisoners be harmed. The mob then secured their prey for the night, four black men accused of the assorted crimes, Jim Stokes, Bob Young, Cary Irvin, and Tom Pugh, and led them out of the jail. After traveling approximately three-quarters of a mile away from the jail, the four men admitted to participating in everything from gin and house burning to robbery, committing divers and murders, to rape. The masked men then shot all four of the men dead. One local newspaper commented that, It seems to be conceded, on all hands, that if there ever was a clear case for the disposition for the interposition of Lynch law, this is one. In further justification for the mob’s actions, the newspaper continued in stating that the community suffered quite enough at the hands of Stokes, Young, Irvin, and Pugh, and it seemed as though the only remedy to the nuisances materialized as extra-legal justice.⁵

Later in the afternoon of January 14, 1876, after attempting to locate a fourteen-year-old white boy named Thomas Rembert, a small search party set out to find him near the small town of Wesson, in Copiah County. The searchers finally located the boy, barely clinging to life, with his head crushed with some heavy instrument. Even though young Thomas suffered a mortal wound that could have been treated rapidly, the searchers who found his body determined that the assailant may return to dispose of the body in a different area. Their supposition proved fruitful, in one way, as a young black boy named Allen returned to where young Thomas Rembert lay Immediately upon confrontation, Allen confessed that he shot young Thomas’s dog. Thomas related to Allen that his father, George Rembert, would see to it that Allen would suffer for the travesty. Fearing that Thomas’s would exact innumerable revenge for the killing of his son’s dog, chose to murder Thomas instead of facing the wrath of Mr. Rembert. The searchers took Allen to a nearby residence until they decided what course of action to take. After several hours of debate, the course of action determined lynching Allen. Accordingly, a rope was procured, according to one account, then he was made to stand on a horse, the rope tied, one to his neck and the other to a limb, the horse was driven out, and the negro choked to death. The lynching occurred on Monday of that week and by Thursday, Allen’s body still swung gently in the Mississippi breeze.⁶

Even though the lynching of Allen demonstrated that citizens remained unhesitant in hanging for a suspected crime and an obviously coerced confession, the white crowds remained steadfast in their objectives, despite black people seeking to fend off any white retaliation. This does not qualify as justice, for this meant that no one was safe from the clutches of this murderous ferocity. Furthermore, it seemed that when black people took it upon themselves to act as the arbiters between their white tormenters and their fellow citizens, they only executed the inevitable should the black accused fall into the hands of vengeful whites and that death may have seemed more merciful in context.

Nothing more horrendous, in the minds of whites, could compare to when a black man stood accused of violating a white woman. Ida B. Wells, the staunch anti-lynching advocate, put forth:

While the master was away fighting to forge the fetters upon the slave, he left his wife and children with no protectors save the Negroes themselves. And yet during those years of trust and peril, no Negro proved recreant to his trust and no white man returned to have had been despoiled.⁷

However, after the war, history records that many black men stood accused of the crime and many executed without the benefit of a trial with just the scantest of evidence that a violation even occurred. Yet, white men stood at the ready to execute any black man at the hint of even disrespecting a white woman. With this type of confusion, it is for history to judge whether they were actually guilty. In examining these cases over one hundred years later, unless the records make abundantly clear some exculpatory evidence definitively establishing the guilt of the accused, there is no way to discern whether innocent men died as a result of the accusations. Instead, we are left with the biased ranting of the people who perpetrated the crimes as recorded by the local media of the day; a form of information dissemination that held prejudices of their own. The following are exemplary historical illustrations of the most extreme lynchings to occur in Mississippi during a relative short period of time. These events culminated into one of the most blatant, racially motivated massacres in American history.

On or about May 30, 1876, a black man named Levi Grant stood accused of accosting a white woman in Claiborne County, near Vicksburg, Mississippi. A mob of mostly white men and women took Grant out and hanged him without the least scintilla of evidence to prove his guilt. A local newspaper (with the historically usual biases of a white-run newspaper) stated that Grant committed a crime of such a horrid nature that the citizens saw no other alternative but to summarily execute the man. White people in the area issued a warning to black men of their impending punishment should they choose to follow their savage nature. The bestial and animal propensities of depraved man, one person opined, should be restrained by the knowledge that the perpetrator of such crime be hunted down with no mercy than is shown to a mad dog.⁸

Subsequent to Grant’s murder, on or about July 12, 1876, Edmund Orange, a freed black man from Holmes County, Mississippi, suffered the fate of extra-legal justice, but this time a deputy sheriff lost his life in a skirmish with Orange over the collection of delinquent taxes. A Captain Hoskins, the sheriff of Holmes County, attempted to reason a large crowd gathered demanding law enforcement turn Orange over to them. This large group of predominantly white men nabbed Orange from the jail and hanged him with all speed. Again, even though the men in the mob appeared to be local, they could not even be identified by the sheriff who stood not five feet from the mob when he attempted to keep them from raiding the jail. Another case of murdered by person or persons unknown.

On or about January 11, 1877, Mr. John Perry, a white man who resided near Eureka, Mississippi, who at first thought to have initially been accidentally killed, after a verdict of a coroner’s inquest and further investigation into his demise, authorities then believed Perry to have been the victim of foul play. The coroner determined that Perry suffered from a gunshot wound to the neck that caused immediate death. Police summarily suspected three black teenagers of the crime: Ben Mims, Jack Hardy, and Bob Sparks. After a citizen’s arrest executed at the hands of a sixteen-year-old white boy, the three black teens stood before a magistrate in Eureka, Mississippi, where one of the young men confessed to Perry’s murder and subsequent robbery. The citizenry of Eureka demonstrated, great indignation as felt by the friends and relatives of the murdered man, recorded one observer, and gathered with determination of lynching the murderers. In an effort to keep the mob at bay, law enforcement in the small Mississippi town failed to protect one of the young black men, allegedly the one that confessed to the crime, and the crowd murdered him outright. The other two escaped without any harm from the crowd.⁹

On or about July 4, 1877, two black men in Yazoo City, Mississippi, located in the middle of the state, faced extra-legal justice after their indictment for burning a stable belonging to a Mr. A.N. Smith, along with nine mules, and a quantity of provender, and other property, and whose cases were dismissed for want of sufficient evidence. The murder of the two men occurred between the hours of midnight and dawn with an estimated fifteen lynchers securing the two from the local jail. One observer reasoned, Guilty or not, no good citizens can do otherwise than deprecate this resort to violence and thus taking the law into one’s own hands. The evil of the thing frequently reaches out and contaminates other interests, as well as tending to demoralize society and the law and order of society. Despite the reasoning and criticism of fellow citizenry, the practice continues and obviously no words of purpose or logic could dissuade those who practiced, and continued to practice, the barbarity that continued to further stain Mississippi’s historical legacy.

For months in the summer of 1877, regional authorities tracked and made several failed attempts to capture a known outlaw, a horse thief and assassin to be precise, named Ira D. Robbins. Robbins admitted to several people, even bragged, that he murdered and stole for the sake of making himself famous and being known as an individual who blatantly defied the law. That defiance cost Robbins not only his freedom, but his life as well. On the morning of August 24, 1877, an estimated 600 men from Covington County made their way to the jail in the small city of Westville, in Simpson County, where authorities held Robbins as he awaited arraignment. The sheriff of Simpson County, a name lost to history, felt ill the whole week prior and laid in bed battling a fever. When confronted with a committee sent to his residence, the sheriff steadfastly refused to relinquish the keys to the jail; a very daunting task in his condition. The committee then returned to the awaiting crowd outside of the jail and reported their failure to obtain the keys. Other men in the crowd then stated they procured a sledgehammer and chisel with which to destroy the lock on the cell holding Robbins and secure the prisoner. The move proved successful and the mob removed Robbins from the jail, placed a noose around his neck and dragged him to the edge of town to the awaiting tree. Given a chance to confess his crimes, the inquisitioners concerned themselves with the murder of one of the town’s prominent citizens, P.N. Dickerson. Faced with the moment of truth, Robbins stated that he hired one man to kill Dickerson and that go-between hired another man who then murdered the intended target. Even Robbins confession could not contain the bloodthirst of the crowd. Several men from the mob placed the suspect upon a horse, the noose thrown over one of the limbs of the tree, and when word came from the mob, someone slapped the back hind of the horse that bolted and left Robbins hanging there, slowly choking to death. Subsequent to his hanging, the crowd dispersed rather quickly, believing they carried out what would have been the sentence of a court had Robbins stood trial for his many crimes. Observers at the time reasoned, and quite understandably, Robbins had been a criminal of quite renown who had evaded justice for such a long time that the lynching proved a welcome execution of justice. However, the justification, the hanging of an individual before proper adjudication of an indictment amounted to wholesale murder and nothing less. Nevertheless, this mindset prevailed and perpetuated the myth that law enforcement and the justice system further condoned such methods within the state of Mississippi.¹⁰

On or about October 9, 1877, a small mob took two black men, one named Moore and the other named Shelton, from the city jail of LeFlore County, and hanged them. The mob suspected that one of the men committed murder and the other was a highwayman who did not hesitate to take human life when it was necessary to secure the money and valuables of the victim. One informant to the event believed the two men murdered deserved their punishment, but although he believed that the justice system of LeFlore County perfectly capable of administering justice in a fair and impartial manner, this same informant truly advocated the deaths of Moore and Shelton as he doubted that the courts would have pronounced the sentences they received for the crimes they allegedly committed. Conversely, the informant who provided this contradiction also stated that the persons responsible for Moore and Shelton’s deaths proved very blameable. They have violated the laws and corrupted society for no good purpose, and they have added a crime to their names when there was not even a decent excuse. One must question the motives behind such confusing diatribe.¹¹

Although smaller towns exhibited the same facets of extra-legal justice, these events rarely appeared in the media, but may have been locked into the minds of the people who witnessed such events. Generally, these incidents occurred the same way: accusations leveled against someone who was not that popular in the community; threats surface as to the taking justice through hanging or shooting; the suspect is arrested; a mob gathers at the local jail and demands the release of the accused; they storm the jail after frenzied discussion and inflammatory rhetoric incites the crowd to a bloodthirsty level where the prisoner is kidnapped from the jail to be hanged or murdered in some incongruous way. When reporting of such incidents occurred, their mention received mere minor passing in the media, or investigations failed to discover the identity, or identities, of the persons responsible for the slaughter. Although some of the victims may have been responsible for the acts which they stood accused, it did not matter to the vicious machinations of a racist crowd; justice was exacted either way in service to the community, period!

Examination of the reports of lynchings during this period documented a sort of pattern in the frequency. For months on end no one who picked up a newspaper got away from lynchings not only in Mississippi, but the rest of the United States as well. Then, a short respite from the violence occurred that promoted white supremacy when black people followed the former black codes that determined their associations, their ability to move freely in a free society—black people followed a clandestine code that forbade them from associating with whites, especially any type of relationships with white women in Mississippi society. Subsequently, even though white people may have been lulled into a false sense of accomplishment, the lynchings continued.

According to the media, unless one paid attention to the small towns within Mississippi, lynchings became commonplace and therefore publicizing them brought the pallor of disgust from other parts of the country. Therefore, many lynchings went unreported, or underreported. On April 24, 1879, lynchings documentation occurred but that historical documentation has been lost to time. In Starkville, Mississippi, located near the northeastern section of the state, a large barn that belonged to Starkville citizen Jordan Moore burned