John Fredell Killed by Long John Lail, Aug. 25, 1919

From the Hickory Daily Record, Monday, Aug. 25, 1919

Bad Murder in Burke County Saturday

Details of the killing of John Fredell at his home in the South Mountains Saturday afternoon by “Long John” Lail were not in possession of the local officers today, including Deputy Sheriff W.L. Eckard of Burke County, who was in Hickory this morning.

It seems that Lail, who was said to be drinking, passed Fridell’s home Saturday morning and threatened to shoot the Fredell children and again passed the house late in the afternoon and shot Fredell five times. Mrs. Fredell and the children saw the killing. Lail said he was going to kill his own mother.

It was not learned today whether Lail had been arrested. The funeral over the remains of Fredell was held at John’s church, Burke County, yesterday.

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From the editorial page of the Hickory Daily Record, Monday, Aug. 25, 1919

Can’t It Be Stopped?

The South Mountains in Burke county, officers say, are notorious for the manufacture of liquor and for other forms of immorality. It was in this section Saturday that an apparently cold-blooded murder was committed by a drunken man.

Men and women to go the South Mountains from Hickory, Lincolnton, Gastonia and other places, it is said, and the Central highway is the scene of many offenses against good morals.

If half the things reported in that section are true, the state would do well to exert special efforts to rid the place of lawlessness. Something surely should be done.

A witness in Burke superior court some time ago declared that nearly everybody in the mountains maid liquor and he felt that he had as much right as anybody else to make the stuff. This shows how lightly the prohibition law is regarded.

The state should do something about South Mountains.