Federal Prohibition Officer Harry H. Cheatham, who on Saturday night, October 14, last, shot and killed Doug Dunham at Jake Brown’s place on South Fulton street extension, near the city limits, will be tried at the approaching term of Federal court at Statesville, according to information from that city.
The case will be heard before Federal Judge E. Yates Webb and Cheatham will be prosecuted by Zeb V. Long, solicitor of this state judicial district, and will be defended by United States Attorney Frank A. Linney. Other lawyers will probably appear in the case on both sides.
Cheatham, it will be remembered, went to the Brown place to serve some papers, so the officers stated, and it was while there that Dunham was killed.
Cheatham contended that as he entered the small storeroom Dunham ran into a rear room and that he followed him, and as he stepped from the front room to the rear room, with pistol in hand, he stumbled at an offset and the pistol fired, the ball striking Dunham. However, Dunham is said to have made a statement after being wounded that he went into the rear room to get some kerosene for a negro woman and that Cheatham followed him and deliberately took aim and shot him without provocation.
Cheatham is one of a number of federal prohibition officers that worked in Salisbury and poses as Guernsey cattlemen, working into the confidence of a number of young men here and in that way getting information on which a number of indictments for violation of the federal prohibition laws were sworn out, and which cases are now pending in the federal court. The killing of Dunham created considerable interest here and the trial will be watched closely.
Court convenes at Statesville next Monday, January 15, and is an adjourned session of the last court. The Salisbury court opens here the following Monday, January 22, and Judge Webb will also preside over this court.
From the front page of the Salisbury Evening Post, January 10, 1923
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