Monday, July 18, 2022

Laurens West, 20, and Emory Lance, 24, Shot to Death by Walter Brooks; Price Summer Also Injured, July 18, 1922

Guard Kills Two on Vanderbilt Estate. . . Young Men Shot and Instantly Killed by Watchmen at Biltmore

Asheville, July 18—Laurens West, 20, and Emory M. Lance, 24, of Asheville, were shot and instantly killed, and Price Summer was probably fatally injured by bullet wounds received during an altercation while on the Biltmore estate Sunday night.

Special Deputy Sheriff Walter Brooks, guard on the Biltmore estate, is in jail without bond, charged with the shooting. The tragedy occurred after West Lance, Summer and two other men entered the estate near the Shiloh gate, supposedly to avenge themselves upon Brooks who killed a dog belonging to Summer last fall, while the dog was pursuing a deer on the Biltmore estate.

The coroner’s jury which conducted an inquest into the slaying yesterday returned a verdict that Emory Lance “came to his death by a gun shot wound in the chest inflicted by the hands of Walter Brooks,” nightwatchman on the estate, and that Laurens West “came to his death by a shot gun wound in the head, inflicted by the hands of Brooks.”

After the investigation, Walter Brooks was returned to the county jail where he is being held without bond in connection with the death of the two men.

From the front page of the High Point Enterprise, July 18, 1922

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