Negro Convict Was Shot From Ambush

Title

Source Type

Newspapers

Publisher

Tuscaloosa Times-Gazette

Publication Place

Tuscaloosa, AL

Publication Date

11/06/1914

Transcript

NEGRO CONVICT WAS SHOT FROM AMBUSH INFORMATION REACHED THI CITY YESTERDAY OF THE KILLING OF DONNY COOK ON WEDNESDAY LAST NEAR NEW LEXINGTON. The information reached the city yesterday of the killing of Donny Cook a negro convict, near Whitson's Bridge, in precinct 26, near the Walker county line and close to New Lexington. The details of the killing are very meager. It seems that he was a trusty and was with the county chain gang working out his sentence. He was a trusty and was allowed to drive a wagon. The road gang had orders to move back toward the city a few miles and the negro, Donny Cook, was driving one of the teams While crossing a creek at Whitson's Bridge he was fired on from ambush two loads of buck shot entering his body. He dropped back in the wagon a dead man. This is a wild mountainous part of the county and the man who fired the shot was concealed in the woods on the side of the hill overlooking the bridge and had a clear view of all who passed that way and his victim was absolutely at his mercy, as he fired the shot from about thirty yards, from behind a tree, surround et by some low undergrowth. As soon as he fired he made his way off in the woods in the confusion attending the shooting and it vas time before any one thought to put the convict dogs that accompany the road hands on the track. The dogs struck the trail and ran it for a mile and a half, but whether or not there were any developments from the chase this paper has not heard. On May 8th Donny Cook was convicted in the County Court for shooting Deputy Sheriff J. H. Brewer, put ting out one of his eyes. Donny was tried for this offense and the jury fined him one hundred dollars. The Judge did not think this sufficient punishment and he gave the negro a sentence of six months in addition to his fine. He was working out the fine and sentence when he met his death on Wednesday last. His time would have been out on April 14. Nobody knows, of course, who did the killing, but it is supposed to be a friend of Mr. Brewer's, who lives in that section of the county. It was a very brutal, cold blooded affair to shoot a man from ambush, while wearing the garb of a convict. The negro died instantly and never knew what killed him. Sheriff Palmer went to the scene of the killing and may bring back more of the details of the affair when he gets home as the killing took place in an isolated part of the county and news is very hard o get from that ponit.

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