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Wednesday, August 29, 2018

Bryant Stone Admits to Killing Wayne Norman, But Says He Was Drunk, 1933

“Stone Confesses to Killing Norman,” from the Journal-Patriot, North Wilkesboro, N.C., Thursday, Aug. 31, 1933

Blames Killing on Liquor and Pleads for Commutation of Sentence…Date for His Execution Is Set for September 8

Raleigh, Aug. 30—Bryant Stone, Wilkes county killer who had poems written about him for his capacity to love, today told Judge E.M. Gill, pardon commissioner, that he killed Wayne Norman, son-in-law of Stone, last fall in Wilkes.

The courts have found no error in the trial that landed Stone within 10 days of the electric chair. There had been an evident feud ever since Norman ran off with Stone’s girl and married her. She stood by her husband and testified against her father.

Trial Judge G.V. Cowper, who sentenced the middle-aged mountaineer, has doubt enough of all the murderous elements to recommend clemency for the fellow. Stone denied that he slew his son-in-law. But today he caved in and told Judge Gill that the killing was done with liquor as the chief aid in carrying out the plan.

Warden Honeycutt, whose long experience with prisoners has never made the prison official dogmatic as to guilt or innocence, nevertheless doubted Stone’s story. The prisoner said he did not know who killed his son-in-law. This morning when Parole Commissioner Gill visited the prison, the warden told Stone that his story did not sound right. Stone then made it rational. “I did it,” he said, and he put the big part of it on the liquor they drank.

Mrs. Norman and her mother came to Raleigh weeks ago in behalf of Stone. The daughter swore to the truth of her courthouse story, but she begged for her father’s life. She relied upon the dying statement of her husband who said her father had shot him. The elder man hid in the smokehouse and fired through the cracks. It lacked little of being assassination.

Stone is set to die September 8. He has had one reprieve of 30 days to allow an investigation. The inquiry has not helped more than his confession. There may be something that will entitle the little fellow to life imprisonment.

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