Browse Items (1 total)

  • Description is exactly "A Series of 1895 and 1896 Florence Gazette, Herald and Times, newspaper articles on the arrest, trial sentencing, conviction and appeal of Lauderdale County African-American resident Bill Brown for the midnight, Sunday, April 12, 1896 murder of Rogersville, Alabama Constable James Foster.

    Foster and several other officers attempted to arrest Brown for stealing chickens however Brown was apparently waiting for them and, meeting them at the door, fired a shot which killed Foster.

    Brown escaped but was captured near Shoal Creek Tuesday morning and incarcerated in the Lauderdale County jail. Dr. Arnold was called in to dress his wounds. Brown was described as:

    "A young negro abut 22 years old and of slim build. His body, from his head to his waist, is thinly sprinkled with shot, and when brought here he was a miserable looking object indeed."

    Fearing a possible lynching, Sheriff AD Casrson had Brown transferred to the Madison County jail in Huntsville where he remained before and after his trials.

    He was indicted by a Lauderdale County grand jury which charged that he "unlawfully and with malice aforethought killed James Foster by shooting him with a gun."

    Brown was defended by noted local attorneys the Hon. Henry C. Jones, John T. Ashcraft and Col. Cutler Smith. A jury found him guilty and sentenced Brown to be hung however he appealed his conviction to the Alabama Supreme Court, which in May of 1896 granted him a new trial. At his second trial in September of 1896 Brown was sentenced to life in prison.

    Bill Brown was taken to the penitentiary in Birmingham in late September, 1896, where he died of tuberculosis in 1898, having only served two years of his life sentence.
    "
Output Formats

atom, dc-rdf, dcmes-xml, json, omeka-xml, rss2