Bakersville, Feb. 24—Fonz Buchanan was today lodged in the Mitchell county jail where his brother, Grady Buchanan has been held for the past two weeks and both are charged with being implicated in the alleged killing an cremating of the body of B.L. Hearsell, wealthy New York clubman, who disappeared in the Pigeon Roost section near the Tennessee line in March, 1921.
Green Buchanan, father of the Buchanan boys, is reported in hiding in the section near the Tennessee line, and the sheriff and deputies of this county are tonight seeking to locate him. Several days ago, Lynn Buchanan, brother of Green Buchanan, who is not involved in the case, was in Bakersville and is reported to have made the statement that after Fonz was brought back to Mitchell county from Jonesboro, Tenn., where he was arrested and held in jail until today, that Green Buchanan would come in and surrender.
“Big Joe” Buchanan, for whom a warrant also has been issued bearing the same charges as those made against the other Buchanans, is said to be in the Pigeon Roost section and deputy sheriffs are making efforts to locate him. On account of the section being so mountaineous, locating him is a difficult task. “Bill” Rainwater, fifth member of the alleged gang that assassinated the clubman while he was hiking from Bedford, N.Y., to Jasper, Ga., is said to be in the west, and officers have little hope of locating him.
The new warrants for the five men were sworn out by Magistrate J.B. Craigmiles of this city, by M.V. Lewis, a citizen of the Pigeon Roost section, who said there has been unearthed new evidence.
The same five men were arrested in December, 1921, charged with murdering Harsell, robbing him and first burying the body, then excavating and destroying it by burning.
At preliminary hearings held before Magistrate Craigmiles, however, no evidence found sufficient to warrant holding them further. The wife of a jailer at Johnson City, Tenn., at that time testified that she h eard Rainwater, while in jail, remark that he would go to the electric chair but others would go with him.
Extensive investigations have been made of the Harsell disappearance, all without definite result. Rainwater and the Buchanan boys are alleged by authorities to bear bad reputations. They appear for a time on one side of the state line, then on the other. The country is mountainous, almost impassable, and infested with desperate blockaders.
The arrest of the five men in 1921 was made at the insistence of Elmo E. Brim, a private dete4crivce engaged by Harsell’s brother to trace down the alleged murderers.
From the front page of the Raleigh News & Observer, Sunday, Feb. 25, 1923. Name spelled Harsell in all but one reference in newspaper, when it was spelled Hearsell.
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