Cleophus Jackson, better known locally as “Apex,” who was accused with good grounds of burning the Hardison garage, was killed early last Sunday morning by Mr. John McRae, a guard at the chain gang, while he was attempting to escape.
Sunday morning about 6 o’clock Apex and another negro, Joe Little, were detailed to carry slops from the convict camp to a point possibly 100 yards away. They were accompanied by Mr. McRae as guard, he being armed with a shot gun loaded with buckshot. Mr. McRae did not accompany the negroes all the way, and when they reached the point where the slops were to be dumped they broke and ran. Mr. McRae shouted to them to halt, but they kept running, and he fired in their direction one time, more with the intention of frightening them into stopping than of hitting them. However, they were perhaps 50 yards away when Mr. McRae fired, and the buckshot scattered considerably, one of them, and only one, hitting Apex in the back and passing near his heart. It was found later that another shot cut a limb at least seven feet above the ground. Apex kept running and it was not known until later that he was hit. Mr. McRae and some trustees went after the convicts thinking they might overtake them, but they did not do so, and when they were returning Apex was found in some bushes, possibly 50 yards from where he was shot. He was dead when found.
Little escaped and has not been heard of since. He was sent to the gang from Scotland county and has escaped a time or two before, being brought back each time. Coroner J.T. Watson summoned a jury and an inquest was held, the jury’s verdict being that Mr. McRae shot in the discharge of his duty and was blameless. The body was brought to Wadesboro and Sheriff Braswell communicated with Apex’s mother, Mozella Jackson, who lives at Apex, near Raleigh, and she had the body sent to her.
It will be remembered that the day after the night the Hardison garage was burned, Apex was captured at Rockingham with Mr. R.S. Beeman’s Ford, which had been taken out of the garage. At the April term of criminal court, Apex was found guilty of stealing the car. He was bound over to September court on the charge of arson.
Mr. McRae is a son of Mr. E.E. McRae of White Store township, and an excellent young man. No blame is attached to him in the shooting, it being his duty to prevent the escape of convicts.
Several months ago, Cleve Little and Lum Ross and Fred Perkins, the latter from Moore county, all colored, escaped from the gang and none of them has been re-captured.
From the front page of the Messenger and Intelligencer and Ansonian, Wadesboro, N.C., May 31, 1923
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