Negro
Kills White Man. . . Mr. Gus Tilley Fatally Wounded While Assisting Chief of
Police Hobgood. . . The Negro Was Killed
Oxford, July 6—After fatally wounding Mr. Gus Tilley, a young
white man here, who died this morning at 3 o’clock, Jim Couch, a negro,
succumbed today to gunshot injuries inflicted in seven well directed shots by
Chief of Police Hobgood, who bravely led a crowd of determined men to a vacant
store, where the darkey had taken refuge, following the negro’s escape from his
boarding house after shooting Mr. Tilley, when the latter went to assist in
placing him under arrest last night.
Mr. Tilley went with Chief of Police Hobgood to arrest the negro
early last night at his boarding house because of the shooting late in the afternoon
of a negro girl. When Couch saw Sheriff Hunt bringing in a cow from a field
near where he was staying he fired upon the officer, apparently thinking he was
about to be arrested because of a quarrel he had had with his landlady. The bullet
missed its intended mark striking the girl instead, and inflicting a flesh
wound in one of her legs. At the time Sheriff Hunt knew nothing of the trouble
the negro had had.
The trouble originated when Mandy Anderson, colored, ordered Jim
Couch to vacate her apartments, where he had been boarding, or pay up his rent.
She had threatened to have a warrant issued unless he complied with her demand.
Couch refused and apparently the dispute had ended until he fired upon Sheriff
Hunt about 6 o’clock Saturday afternoon.
Following Couch’s return to his boarding house, a posse of 10 men
were stationed as a guard around the place. Later they were relieved by Chief
Hobgood and he and Mr. Tillery went in the house and ordered the negro to come
down stairs. Couch complied with the request and as the negro approached, Chief
Hobgood threw a flashlight upon him and discovered that he was preparing to
fire upon him.
Being practically alone, the police chief realized his predicament
and immediately fired upon the negro as the latter tried to grab the pistol
from his hands, placing a bullet just below the negro’s heart.
The negro did
not stop and as he ran by Chief Hobgood, Mr. Tilley who had just come in
tackled him barehanded. Couch fired upon Tilley and continued to run, making
his escape successfully. Mr. Tilley was fatally wounded by the shot and
although given every possible medical attention died at his home this morning.
Pursuing the desperate negro, who apparently had become crazed, a
crowd of some 500 men including Mayor Stem and other prominent citizens located
Couch in Wilson’s store, near the Oxford mills, just outside the city limits,
where Chief Hobgood, who had led the posse, fired six successive bullets into
the negro who fell three separate times while running away before he
surrendered.
While there was an immense crowd of people, only a few
participated in the capture of the negro, the others being merely spectators.
Excitement which ran tense all the night had subsided considerably
today. Mr. Tilley, who will be buried tomorrow, had been married only a few
months, his wife surviving him. He was about 21 years old.
The negro is said to have been a man of bad habits and ill repute,
being a big muscular brute.
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