-
Title
-
Another Slain in Attack Case at Tuscaloosa
-
Source Type
-
Newspapers
-
Publisher
-
The Press Forum Weekly
-
Publication Place
-
Mobile, AL
-
Publication Date
-
09/30/1933
-
Transcript
-
Governor Seeks Slayer In Effort To Wipe Out State Lynching Tuscaloosa, Ala., Sept. 24.- Taken from his home by a group of men posing as officers, Dennis Cross, was shot to death early Sunday. He was under bond on a charge of assaulting a Tuscaloosa white woman. Sheriff R. L. Shamblin, who, with police, began an immediate inquiry into the slaying, said officers had found no clues to identity of the slayers. Sheriff Shamblin said be was told a group of men, six or seven in number, called at Cross's home about 2 a.m. and, telling him they were officers, said he would have to go to the sheriff's office and make a bigger bond. The party, Sheriff Shamblin said, then drove away. Neighbors of the accused man called the sheriff's office and reported the occurrence, and the sheriff's office called police to ask if city officers had been sent to the home. When it was learned that no officers bad been sent, Sheriff Shamblin said officers were sent to the home for an investigation. The officers failed to find a trace of Cross until daylight, when his body, bearing three bullet wounds, was found near the Tuscaloosa Country club in the direction of the Warrior river. Sheriff Shamblin said the slayers drove away in an automobile, and that prints of the car tires, together with bullets found at the scene, were being studied by investigators in an effort to trace the slayers. Cross was arrested about two weeks ago following a report by a young white woman that she had been seized by a Negro near the Country club. He had been identified by the woman as her assailant. After being held in jail about a week on an assault charge, he was admitted to $300 bail, furnished by Clade Hinton, on whose farm be lived. Sheriff Shamblin said the offense with which Cross was charged was a bailable offense, and that the woman had not been attacked. Governor Offers Reward Insisting that "the guilty must be punished," Governor B. M. Miller offered a $400 reward Tuesday night for the arrest and conviction of all or any of the persons who lynched Dennis Cross, Negro, at Tuscaloosa Sunday. This offense on its reported face is so heinous," Governor Miller said, "that without call from an official of the county, this reward of $400 is offered for the arrest and conviction of the offenders, hoping it will encourage and stimulate not only the officials, but the citizens to double their energy and efforts to end such crimes by a speedy arrest, trial and conviction of the guilty parties. "The law must be obeyed; if not, the guilty must be punished."
