With Eyes Wide Open: The Execution of Quentin Marshall

By John W. Roberts

With Eyes Wide Open is the story of Quentin Marshall, an African American man falsely charged with raping and murdering Carley Andrews, a young White woman. The action unfolds in a fictional town in the state of South Carolina in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Despite his protestations of innocence, Quentin is quickly tried, found guilty, and sentenced to death in the electric chair. With Eyes Wide Open, however, is not just another story about the wrongful conviction of an innocent Black man. It is a cautionary tale about the corrosive effects of systemic racism on the actions, beliefs, and decisions of oftentimes well-intentioned people. In the case of Quentin, it facilitates the transformation of an innocent Black man into a guilty rapist/murderer.

The story is told through a series of overlapping monologues delivered by individuals who report on the action as it unfolds. Some of the narrators are individuals who actively participate in the process of victimizing Quentin while others are passive victims whose lives are impacted by what happens to him. Collectively their points of view provide glimpses into the motivations of the different actors who either actively participate, vehemently oppose, or passively stand by with eyes wide open as an innocent man fights for his life within a system indifferent to his existence.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Newman Springs Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Jan 18, 2023
• ISBN: 9798887631820

Book preview

1

DEPUTY BRIAN EUBANKS

I’m Deputy Brian Eubanks of the Dillard County Sheriff’s Department. I was on dispatch duty when the call came in around 2:30 a.m., Saturday, April 19, 1958. It had been a usual Friday night with all our cars out responding to incidents that typically occur only on weekends. I was left alone to man the station. Things had been quiet for the past hour, leaving me fighting to keep my eyes open. So when the phone rang, I answered it immediately, greeting the caller in my most professional voice.

This is the county sheriff’s office. How can I help you? I asked while scrambling to find a pad to write on if necessary.

I want to report the murder of a White woman. I don’t know for sure, but I think she might’ve been raped too.

The caller spoke in an abnormally deep voice, leading me to believe that the caller was a young male trying to sound older.

When and where did all of this happen, sir?

I don’t know. I just know her body is lying in the woods in the White Cross Creek area, offered the voice on the other end of the phone.

He seemed agitated by my question, which caused his voice to rise a couple of octaves, revealing a more youthful-sounding voice. I could not help but think I possibly had a prankster on the phone.

By the way, sir, may I have your name for the record?

If this was a prank call, I figured he would hang up if I pushed him to identify himself.

No, I ain’t gonna give you my name, but I can tell you that I am telling you the honest-to-God truth. You can find her body right out there in the woods if you go look for it before the animals git to it, the voice responded.

In his panic, the caller was starting to drop all pretense of being an adult and sound more like the teenager that I suspected he was. Despite his age, I knew I had to be careful in dealing with him. The guy seemed too sincere to let him hang up by pushing too hard.

Okay! I replied. If you won’t tell me your name, would you please tell me how you know where the body was dumped?

’Cause I seen him dump her body in the woods like a sack of taters, the caller blurted out.

He who! I responded, suddenly excited by this detail that the caller had just added.

I don’t know for sure who he was. He was a big nigger—I mean, Colored man—what stood over six feet tall with lots of muscles, look like. I might’ve seen him before, but I couldn’t make him out in the dark, he said.

Did you notice anything else about him? I asked.

No, not really. He just seemed scared when he saw my car pull up. He sorta turned away, and I only got a quick peek at him. The voice on the other end seemed a bit hesitant to add anything else to his description so far.

What about his car? I asked, anxious to get as many details as possible.

He wasn’t driving no car. He had a truck. You know, if I didn’t know any better… The caller then hesitated. After a brief pause, he continued his thought, Well, anyway, I thought that it was Mr. James Arnette’s truck when I first drove up. It sure looked like it, and there ain’t too many trucks around like that one, the caller said.

What’s so special about Mr. Arnette’s truck? I continued questioning, trying to sound as casual as possible so that he would stay on the phone. I knew that the vehicle could potentially be an important piece of evidence if this call turned out to be legit.

Well, you know that truck is a green color that I ain’t never seen on no pickup, and it got mud flaps on the back and the front. And then there’s that gun rack in the back window. I could see it even without much light out there. And Mr. Arnette always has his gun hanging there. That’s about all I can say about that, but it sure looked like his truck.

The caller sounded as if he was getting tired of talking about all this. So I realized that I needed to speed up the questioning.

How do you know it was a White woman if you couldn’t see that clear? I asked, still trying to fill in details while I had this guy on the phone.

Well, when I saw what was going on back there in them woods, I put my car in reverse and got the hell out of there. When we got back on the main road, my girlfriend was so scared she could hardly breathe. So I pulled over to let her get out and get some air. While we were sitting there waiting for her to calm down, we see that truck come flying out onto the main highway. My girl said we ought to go back and see if we could help that woman. So we did. When we got there, sure enough, the truck wasn’t there. So we got out the car and walked over to where she was. I could see clear as day that she was White with kinda dirty-blond hair. Her eyes was wide open, so we knowed she was dead. We got outa there as fast as we could.

Didn’t you say she had been raped? How could you tell? I asked.

Well, I don’t know that for sure. She was only half-dressed, and that’s what niggers like that do to White women. Don’t they? Why else would he kill her like that? the caller offered.

Was she shot or something?

I don’t know. I didn’t see no blood or nothing, the caller said.

Now exactly where did you say you saw this all happen? I asked again just to see what the caller would say.

In the White Cross Creek area, the caller repeated his earlier statement.

That’s a pretty big area. Can you narrow it down a bit?

Well, sir, all that I can tell you is that it’s off a old dirt road that runs off of the number 9 highway just before you git to the White Cross Creek Store going north. The road don’t lead to nowhere, so ain’t but a few folks what know anything about it, the caller said.

How do you know about it?

Well, me and my girlfriend drive back there sometimes when we wanna be alone with each other, if you know what I mean. That’s why we was back there tonight. We sometimes see other cars back there, but this was sure different, the caller said, sounding a little embarrassed.

We really appreciate when citizens like you step up and report what you see, but it would really be helpful if you could give us your name and some way of reaching you if we have more questions. It sounds like to me that you may have stumbled onto something that we need to investigate, and you are an eyewitness that could sure help us out a lot, I pleaded with the caller.

I feel like I done did my part by calling you. I don’t want to git any more mixed up in this than I already got myself. If I change my mind, I’ll let you know, but don’t count on it, the caller said, hanging up the phone before I had a chance to continue my plea.

I hung up the phone after the caller hung up on me, refusing to give his name. I started reviewing my notes, trying to decide what I should do next. I had been on the force less than a year and had never had to deal with anything like this. My biggest concern was still that the call could be the work of some high school students. It wouldn’t be the first time a call turned out to be the work of a prankster. These kids just loved fooling adults, and law enforcement is a favorite target.

In this case, however, the more times I went over my notes, the more convinced I was that this was more than likely a credible report. The caller simply had too many details to have made up this whole thing. Still, I didn’t want to make a mistake. I thought about calling the sheriff at home but decided against it. If I turned out to be wrong about this whole thing, that could very well be the end of my job. At the same time, if the caller was telling the truth, it would be essential to move quickly. Like he said, the wild animals out there could be destroying evidence as well as that poor woman’s body at this minute. More important than that, the killer could already be on the run, and the longer we waited, the more time he has to get away.

It suddenly occurred to me that there was one other simple step that I could take to justify making a big deal out of this. So I quickly located the file containing recent complaints filed with our office. I wanted to see if anybody had reported a missing female in the last few days. After carefully going through the reports in the folder, I found nothing about a missing person. So I called the Dillard City police to see if they had anything. Obviously they should have already shared that information with us if they had it, but that don’t always happen.

Hello, this is Deputy Eubanks over in the sheriff’s office. I am calling to see if y’all have any reports of missing White women, oh say, within the last three or four days, I asked.

Give me a minute, and I will be right back with you, said a groggy voice on the other end of the phone. Deputy Eubanks, the groggy voice was back in a few minutes.

Yes, sir, I jumped in, deliberating trying to sound alert.

No, we ain’t had no missing person reports at all within the last few weeks. Sorry, I could not be of more assistance to you, he said.

No problem. That could be good news, I said before thanking him.

I hung up the phone. Once again, I was unsure what my next move should be. I wanted to make sure that my next step did not make me look inept, as the sheriff had described me after the last time I acted too quick on something important. So I sat back down at the desk and decided to wait until one of the more experienced deputies returned to the station. I couldn’t imagine that another few minutes would make that much of a difference. I got lucky. Minutes after I sat down, Deputies Brown and Clark returned. They went directly into the duty room to file reports, which took only a few minutes. I then rushed in and asked if I could talk to them about a call I had received. After I told them what the caller had said, it was clear from their faces that they were far more certain about what to do than I was.

Eubanks, it seems to me like you got a live one there. I don’t understand why you haven’t sent somebody out there to check this out or, at least, called the sheriff in on this, Clark said in his usually boisterous way.

I agree with Clark, Deputy Brown chimed in. But I also understand why you would want a second opinion before calling the sheriff. You said the caller sounded like a kid, and we all know that these kids are always trying to make us look foolish. With more folks around here getting telephones these days, more and more of these kids are out there acting like they got a brand-new toy, Officer Brown said. That doesn’t mean that we ain’t already lost good time if this turns out to be true.

So you guys think I should call the sheriff in on this one? I asked.

You damn skippy! Deputy Clark spoke up quickly.

In the meantime, would you guys consider running out there and seeing if you can find this place? It might help my case with the sheriff if I can tell him that y’all on your way to check out the kid’s story.

Man, I was counting on kicking up my heels with a cup of coffee until my shift is over, said Clark.

Git your ass up and let’s move, said Brown. I wouldn’t wanna be us if this is for real when the sheriff finds out we failed to follow up on a call like that.

I hesitantly dialed the sheriff’s home number as I watched the deputies get into their car and pull off.

Hello, came the whispery voice of the sheriff.

Good morning, Sheriff Carter, I said. This is Deputy Eubanks down at the station. I recently received a call that I think you would want to know about right away.

Hold on, Eubanks. Let me take this call into the other room so I don’t wake my wife. The sheriff then said after a few seconds of silence on his end, Now what is this about a call that I should know about? And, Eubanks, you know this better be good, right?

Yes, sir, I said. I received a call about an hour ago from a young man who reported seeing a Colored man dumping the dead body of a White woman in the woods. He sounded convincing to me, so I asked Deputies Brown and Clark to see if they could find the place where he claims the body was dumped. I’m still waiting to hear back from them, I said.

Well, you right, Eubanks. You shoulda called me right away if we got a nigger dumping dead White women in the woods in Dillard County. But you still coulda waited until you had checked this out. I need my damn sleep too! Anyway, I’m gonna come on down to the station just in case you got this right, Eubanks, the sheriff said. This could be big! And if it ain’t, you could be out of a job.

After speaking with the sheriff, I started hoping he would take his time getting into the office. If I was lucky, my shift would be over before he got here. However, I had no such luck. He arrived a little before 6:00 a.m. and came straight to dispatch, where I was still waiting to hear from Brown and Clark. Just as he entered the area, I got a call from the deputies on the radio.

Eubanks, you there? I heard Clark’s voice loud and clear.

I’m here with the sheriff, I said. I could hear a gurgling sound in the background.

Oh my God, man. This is an awful scene out here. A half-naked woman just left lying out here in the woods dead. Brown done ’n’ lost it. He can’t stop puking. Y’all need to git somebody out here to go over the scene and to pick up this body right away, he said.

Clark! This is the sheriff. I want y’all to hang in there until I can git hold of the coroner to check out the body and some more of our people out there to secure that scene. You hear me?

Yes, sir, Sheriff Carter, I hear you, Clark said.

Where are you located? Will the coroner have trouble finding you? the sheriff asked.

Probably! It ain’t easy to find if you don’t know this area. But the entrance is a straight shot off highway number 9, about a mile south of the White Cross Creek Store. The problem is that it ain’t a county road. It’s one of those old logging trails that’s grown over a bit. I’ll send Deputy Brown back out to the highway with the car. They can look for his lights, and he’ll guide them in. I’ll stay with the body, Clark said.

Okay! As soon as I get everything arranged, I’ll be headed that way myself, the sheriff said.

Over the next hour or so, I spent my time making arrangements with the coroner and funeral home to get out to the scene. As in most small towns, we use several different local doctors to serve as coroners and local funeral homes to transport corpses. Unfortunately, it is not always easy to find a doctor who will admit to being available for this sort of duty.

In the meantime, the sheriff got a couple of deputies and state police to meet him at the scene to see if they could piece together what happened. Sheriff Carter also arranged with the state police to send a helicopter to fly over the area around the crime scene at daybreak. Despite what the caller had reported, the sheriff was concerned that the killer might still be in the area and possibly on foot. It was almost 7:00 a.m. before the sheriff was prepared to head down to the site and gave me permission to go home. As I reached for the doorknob to leave, the sheriff congratulated me on doing a good job for the first time since I started working for the department. It felt good.

2

QUENTIN MARSHALL

I woke up to the lingering odor of side meat that I knew Willie Mae had sizzled to a crispy light brown in the old iron skillet. I could hear her still moving about in the kitchen humming her favorite hymn, probably while cleaning everything in sight. Even with an extra hour or so of sleep, I still felt tired and groggy from the liquor I drunk last night, on top of everything else I did. Since it was Saturday, we had planned to work only a half day in the fields. I promised to take Willie Mae into town after that to pick up some cloth she wanted for a dress or something she making for the girls. I know I made her that promise, but I might just put that off and spend the whole day getting those tobacco plants in the ground. Since we got the children to help out today and the planting’s been going so good, I don’t want to waste this chance to git ahead. I can’t wait to see this crop growing ’cause it sure been feeling good planting tobacco in some of the richest bottom soil I’ve ever seen. I don’t know much about this part of the county, but I believe that this whole area was a swamp before it got cleared for farming. One thing that I can say for sure is that this land beats the hell out of the sandy land where I tried to farm tobacco before I moved here back in the fall. And everybody knows that tobacco don’t grow worth a hill of beans in sandy places, except for that dumb White man that owned the land I left to come here.

When I talked to Mr. Arnette about moving here, he promised me that I wouldn’t regret it if I came to sharecrop with him. If the land I been working this week is a sample of how good he gonna be in keeping his word, I think I made a smart move this time around. You can never tell, though. My move to Mr. Arnette’s place was the fourth that I made in the last twelve years, and I want it to be the last I make for at least another twelve. My children gitting too old for all this moving. It has got so they don’t even know which school they supposed to go to from one year to the next. And Lord knows they needs to go to school and git their education if they gonna make it in this world. If I ain’t teach them nothing else, I hope I done learn them that education is their ticket to a better life than what me and their mama got ’cause one thing is for sure—sharecropping ain’t no way to make a living.

By the time I got dressed and walked down to the kitchen, Willie Mae had already ate and fed the children and was already through cleaning the breakfast dishes. She had fixed me a plate she took out of the warmer on the stove when she saw me coming. I thanked her for my breakfast, and she gave me that smile that always warmed my heart. I don’t know how she handles everything with such grace. Ever since we got married, she been working right alongside me all day in the fields. After working under that hot sun all day, she always head straight home, cook supper, and, most of the time, clean the kitchen herself. Between all that, she manage to git them children washed up and in bed before slowing down for the night. I guess what they say ’bout woman’s work is true. All I can say is that you can’t find a better wife for a dirt farmer like me and a mother for our seven children in all of Dillard County than Willie Mae.

I see you decided to sleep in this morning, Willie Mae said, almost spooking me. After you stay up half the night, I ain’t surprise you don’t feel like gittin’ up. What happen to you last night? she asked, stopping what she was doing to make sure she got the answer she wanted to hear.

I just got up to go git a drinka water, I said.

It ain’t take you that long to git no drinka water. I didn’t hear you leave, but I know how long I lay there waiting on you to git back before I fell back to sleep, she said.

Well, after I got to the kitchen, I realized that I needed to use the outhouse, so I went out there. My stomach seem to be a little tore up. I don’t know why it messed up like that, but I stayed out there until it felt more settled. I didn’t want to keep jumping up disturbing your rest, I said.

I sure hope it won’t nothing I fixed for you to eat, Willie Mae said. But I sure thought I heard a car in the yard just before you come back to bed.

You musta been hearing things. Let me finish this good breakfast you done fixed. I got time to make up out there in them fields.

All right, she said with a little salt sprinkled on top. I gotta make sure them children ready to hit the fields with us. It’ll be good to have them extra hands today.

I watched Willie Mae as she left the room. I wish she hadn’t brought up last night. Ever since I woke up, I been doing everything I could not to think about what happened last night. Now that she put it in my head again, I can’t stop thinking about it. I remember that I was dog-tired and decided to turn in early. Willie Mae was already in the bed, sound asleep. After all that bending and stooping to get them tobacco plants in the ground, I certainly didn’t think I’d have much trouble falling asleep. I was right! I was out like a light as soon as my head hit the pillow.

The next thing I remember was waking up to what I thought was a knock at the front door. Since I wasn’t sure what I heard or was just dreaming, I lay still until I heard it again. Then I eased out of the bed as quiet as I could and headed for the front door. Trying not to wake the whole house, I walked on my tippy-toes and nearly tripped over my own feet. When I got to the door, I cracked it open wide enough to see Mr. Arnette standing on my front porch. As late as it was, I knew that it must be important. So I opened the door just a bit wider to speak to him.

Mr. Arnette, I whispered loud enough for him to hear without me waking everybody in the house, is that you out there this time of night?

Yeah, Quent, it’s me, he said, trying to keep his voice low.

Could you wait just a minute ’til I can put on some britches? I spoke as low as I could. I’ll be right out.

Go ahead. I’ll wait right here, he whispered back.

I got dressed as fast as I could. I didn’t want to keep Mr. Arnette waiting too long. I couldn’t imagine what he wanted coming to my house in the middle of the night like that. I figured it must be something that couldn’t wait since he had never come to our house since we moved here. After getting dressed, I scrambled back to the front porch, and that’s when I saw him walking back and forth in the front yard beating his hat against his leg. I couldn’t tell if he was mad about something I done or just in a tizzy over what he come to talk about.

Evening, suh, I said. Sorry to keep you waiting, but I was sound asleep when you started knocking.

Evening, Quent, he said. Don’t worry ’bout that. I expected a working man like you to be asleep this time of night. I came down here and disturbed you, so I’m the one that ought to be apologizing.

No need for all that. What can I do for you, suh? I asked.

I need your help with something, Quent, he said in a way that sounded like he was about to ask me for a big favor.

I’ll do what I can, suh. What you need my help doing? I asked again.

Well, it would be better if I showed you. Would you mind taking a ride with me? he asked, pointing to his truck parked in front of the house.

All right, suh, but I need to run in the house and tell Willie Mae what’s going on, I said, starting toward the front porch steps.

No, no, don’t do that, he said, grabbing for my arm. I mean, don’t wake her up. We won’t be gone that long. She won’t even miss you, he blurted out over his shoulder as he began walking real fast toward his pickup truck.

I never liked leaving the house, especially at night, without letting Willie Mae know about it. But Mr. Arnette wasn’t giving me much choice in the matter. Before I got myself turned around to follow him, he was already climbing into the cab of his truck. I practically had to run to git in the other door before he pulled off. As we drove down the dark dirt road leading to the main highway, he didn’t seem to have anything to say. So I set there quiet as a mouse too. I could have sworn that I saw sweat running down the side of his face. But I told myself I was wrong since it was a cool spring night and hardly sweating weather. When we got to the main highway, Mr. Arnette made a right turn. From there, he drove less than a mile before turning right again onto the long driveway leading up to his house. Instead of stopping in front of the house, where I usually saw his truck parked, he pulled around to the back door and parked only a few feet from the house.

Let’s go in, he said.

What we gonna do in there? I asked.

You’ll see once we get inside. Follow me, he said, moving toward the back door of the house.

Don’t you wanna let your wife know you got me with you before we go in there? I asked.

No need for that. There ain’t nobody in there. My wife and the children are spending a few days with her folks in Georgetown, he said.

Oh! I heard the sound come outa my mouth before I caught myself.

This whole thing seemed a little strange, but I also thought it was a good time to be doing work in the