One hundred years ago, Arkansas Gazette composing room foreman C.E. King awoke to find his trousers missing.
I know this because it was reported by the June 13, 1916, Arkansas Gazette.
In an oddly jaunty item on Page 4, the Gazette said that King had a spare pair, and so he "sallied forth," unaware his home had been "despoiled." But then he found his "necessary bifurcated garment" lying in the yard of the vacant house next door.
Back home at 1209 W. Capitol Ave., he learned that his wife's $200 diamond ring, two home banks containing $9 and son C.E. King Jr.'s first week's pay -- $1 -- were gone. "A revolver which Mr. King kept in reach for the express purpose of shooting burglars was left untouched, as was Mr. King's watch, lying with the pistol on a table near the head of the bed."
The headline over this item read "Victim Swears These Burglars 'Have No Heart.'" But this was far, far from the worst crime of the day.
From Rogers came word that a 17-year-old girl had ridden on horseback to Hindsville and called her former beau out for a walk. "She accused him of playing her false, whipped out a revolver, and fired four times, each shot taking effect." Then she rode home. He died the next day.
This awful news was reported on Page 12. But the day's "talker" was delivered by Page One, under a stack of one-column headlines led by "Standridge and Blount Get Away." Two "desperate murderers" were on the loose again.
Yates Standridge was "the Human Wolf." He looked the part, too, with spooky eyes, greasy hair and the broad black-and-white stripes of a convict. In contrast, Lee Blount might have been a farmer running an errand for his church. He wore a hat, a buttoned collar and a jacket. How had this harmless-looking man run so afoul of the law? I pulled up all the old newspapers I could in search of his story.
It had legs, and so did he. In the 62 items that mention him from 1912 to 1917, Blount is usually on the lam, and his reputation ricochets from "desperado" to the almost respectful "noted bandit." A chatty bandit, he alternately horrified and amused reporters and jailers and tugged the public's heartstrings.
We don't have Gazettes from 1901 to 1907, but from retrospectives on his criminal career, we know Blount first did time as a teen at the state penitentiary in 1902 for breaking into a store. Gov. Jeff Davis pardoned him that Christmas in the then-usual, annual display of gubernatorial mercy.
A decade later, he surfaced in an item from Conway headlined "Alleged 'Bad Man' Fined." A judge had assessed Blount $100 and time in the Faulkner County jail for an assault on an unnamed black man and an assault with intent to kill -- a misdemeanor -- for disarming John Cox, a Faulkner County officer who had tried to arrest him at Mayflower.
Blount must then have absconded, because Jan. 24, 1914, the "State News Bits" column reported that Deputy Sheriff C.O. Payne of Faulkner County was back from Poteau, Okla., with him in custody. This county jail didn't post a guard. Ten months later, Blount picked the lock of his cell and, with two other prisoners, dug through the brick wall.
A five-man posse trailed him to a big thicket near Mayflower on Oct. 22. Oscar L. Honea, 36, deputy sheriff of Faulkner County and the father (the Gazette said) of six girls and one boy, was hunting Blount apart from the others. Honea was a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, the Ancient Order of United Workmen, Royal Arcanum, and the Modern Woodmen of America.
A deputized former marshal from Conway, Wash Clibourn (sometimes spelled Clibourne), reported hearing a shotgun blast and, an hour later, finding Honea dead with a hole in his chest -- and empty pockets.
Now Blount was a "desperado" and, the Gazette reported, certain to be lynched should he be taken alive to Conway.
"Blount is described as being about 30 years old, about 5 feet 7 inches tall, weighs about 150 pounds, has blue eyes, freckled face, clean shaven, but had about two weeks' growth of red stubble on face, is slightly stooped and has a long swinging walk," the Gazette reported. "He wore a hunting coat. He is a fisherman and trapper and probably will be found around some swamp. He had a new double-barrel Remington hammer 12-gauge shotgun. He talks a good deal and boasts considerably; has no education and talks illiterately."
This man who had such trouble growing a beard eluded capture through October and November 1914, and a reward fund grew to $500. Innocent travelers were accused of being him. A team of bloodhounds came in from Dyersburg, Tenn.; his father- and brother-in-law were jailed; all "high-power rifles" in the vicinity of Mayflower were confiscated "so that Blount cannot get possession of them."
Finally he was caught by the same Wash Clibourn, who, acting on a tip Payne got from a railroad fireman, trailed Blount's wife, Eliza, as she carried supper to the loft of an old building in dense woods. Clibourn trusted Blount to spend the night with another deputy and then, on his own recognizance, to meet the next day's Iron Mountain passenger train at a switch for transport to Little Rock. Which Blount did. (Clibourn later had to file suit to get the reward.)
In a jailhouse interview published Nov. 28, 1914, Blount paused the checkers game he was playing with another prisoner to spin a tale of rail-riding through five states and "Old Mexico," including close calls with detectives. He had come home to surrender when Clibourn found him.
"'It's a relief,' he said, looking at the window, where the rain spattered and dripped. 'No more sleeping out nights and I know where my meals are coming from.'"
A grand jury charged him with capital murder, and he was tried in Faulkner County, which had to call up 75 talesmen to empanel a jury. Blount claimed he killed Honea in self-defense, and some of the 45 (!) witnesses supported him. Jurors believed his claim, and on March 14, 1915, convicted him of second-degree murder. His sentence was either 18 or 20 years (reports in the Gazette varied).
Honea has not been forgotten in Faulkner County, where his name is etched in granite in a memorial to slain officers of the law on the courthouse lawn.
Next week: Blount escapes again and again assists in his own arrest -- for the reward.
ActiveStyle on 06/13/2016