Red Bryant Admits He Was With John Richmond When Richmond Shot Rufus Hamilton, March 5, 1922

Wake Mystery Is Cleared Up. . . Negro Under Arrest Confesses to Being With Man Who Shot Hamilton

By Jule B. Warren

Raleigh, March 4—The confession of “Red” Bryant, a negro held in the Wake County jail on a charge of making whiskey clears up the mystery surrounding the death of Rufus H. Hamilton, Raleigh man, who was shot and killed while riding with his sweetheart, Miss Irene Guess, on the Milburnie road a few miles from Raleigh on the night of December 26. According to the confession Bryant is alleged to have made to detectives of the city police department, Hamilton was killed by a negro named John Richmond, who has not been arrested yet. The officers have had the confession for a week, but have kept it quiet in order to make a still hunt for John Richmond, who has been loitering around Raleigh since the murder, but has been able to evade the officers.

The confession of the negro and his story of the shooting confirms the story told by Miss Guess and the one she stuck to during the several days’ inquiry instituted by the solicitor before the coroner’s jury. Miss Guess said at the time of the murder that Hamilton was killed by two negroes whom they passed on the road. One of these negroes was short and light colored, the other a tall, black man. “Red” Bryant is short and his name was given because of his lightness. John Richmond is a tall black negro.

John Richmond shot Hamilton for “meanness,” declares “Red” Bryant, who was unable to give any other explanation of the shooting. He and Johnson (?) were coming along the road three miles from town when the speeding automobile passed them. Richmond took out his gun and shot at the automobile just for the fun of shooting at something. He did not know he had killed any one, and did not intend to kill anyone, so far as Bryant knew. The two negroes saw the machine stop after the shots were fired and then they saw an automobile coming so they left the vicinity.

“Hey, Red, come along; here comes an automobile,” are the words that gave the detectives the clue which enabled them to work up the case. Reid Taylor, in front of whose home Hamilton was killed, testified at the coroner’s inquest that he heard the shots, went out into the yard immediately afterwards and heard these remarks down the road some distance from where the automobile in which Hamilton and Miss Guess were sitting had stopped. The detectives learned that a short negro called “Red” loafed around Marcom’s saw mill, a short distance from where the killing occurred, and that his companion was a dark, tall negro.

From the front page of The Charlotte News, Sunday, March 5, 1922