John Odom Beats Wife Christmas Morning, Dies Accidentally When Gun Goes Off, 1920

John Odom, aged about 65, was killed early Christmas morning at his home about four miles northeast of Hamlet. The coroner’s jury investigated the death a few hours afterwards, and rendered a verdict to the effect that he killed himself accidentally. Odom was about 65 years old, and his wife is about 35. They have five children, the oldest about 16, named after his father. According to the evidence of Mrs. Odom, her husband went to bed drunk Friday night. About 1 o’clock they were awakened by a knock at the door. She opened it and admitted three men who said they had come for some whiskey. One of the men asked her what sort of Christmas she was going to have; she told him “none at all.” He threw a quarter into her lap. After the men left, her husband, who was still drunk, began beating her. She ran into the yard. He got his gun and placed it beside the cot. The evidence of the son followed that of the mother. The boy told of his mother being driven from the house, and how his father got a knife after her. That his mother was finally pulled back into the house by his father who had her by the hair. That his father threw Mrs. Odom across the cot and was on top of her with his knee pressed down on her chest when the gun fired and the man fell over dead. The gun was a single barrel hammer gun, with short sawed-off barrel. The coroner’s jury consisted of R.L. McDonald, W.W. Smith, M.D. Smith, J.H. McDuffie, J.M. Sedberry, C.H. White. They rendered a verdict that “John Odom came to his death by an accidental discharge of a gun in his own hands.” (From the front page of the Rockingham Post-Dispatch, Dec. 30, 1920)