Atlanta, Ga., Nov. 5—Phillip E. Fox, publicity man for the Ku Klux Klan, late today shot and killed W.S. Coburn, Atlanta attorney and counsel for the faction fighting Imperial Wizard Evans, and other officials of the order. Fox is held at police headquarters without bond under a charge of murder.
Coburn, a former officials of the Klan, and later legal representative of what is called the insurgent faction, was shot five times as he sat in his office on the ninth floor of an office building. He toppled over dead.
Mrs. W.A. Holbrook, stenographer while Coburn was talking to a client for Coburn, said that Fox came in while Coburn was talking (to) a client, and began firing when he was told to come back in about an hour. She said five shots were fired. Three of them were said to have taken effect.
When taken into custody Fox is quoted as saying, “I am sorry to have had to do it, but I am glad he is dead. He was planning to ruin me, and I had just as soon be hung as hurt. What I did has no connection with the Ku Klux Klan. Coburn had threatened to ruin me and to publish affidavits accenting my character that were untrue.”
At police headquarters Fox denied any connection with the Ku Klux Klan, giving his occupation as a clerk. He was identified by newspaper men as the publicity agent for the Ku Klux Klan and police said he is the editor of the Knight Hawk, official organ of the Imperial Palace of the Ku Klux Klan.
Dr. Fred B. Johnson of San Antonio, Texas, who is visiting the home of W.J. Simmons, Emperor of the Klan, told the police that Fox came to Simmons’ home last night. Johnson declared Fox told him that he had severed his connection with the faction of Imperial Wizard Evans, and that he had come to Johnson for the purpose of revealing some information. Dr. Johnson said he noticed Fox kept his right hand in his overcoat pocket and he, Johnson, backed Fox into a corner and took a pistol away from him.
“He then told me,” said Dr. Johnson, “he had been sent there to kill me, but he didn’t say by whom. He said, however, I had talked him out of it. When he left me he told me he was going back to Texas on Monday night, and appeared to be disgusted with the whole situation.” Dr. Johnson said Fox came to Atlanta in March from Dallas, Texas, where he was city editor of an afternoon paper.
The dead attorney was leading counsel last week in the court battle precipitated by David M. Rittenhouse and others of Philadelphia when they filed a petition asking for the appointment of a receiver for the Ku Klux Klan. The receivership was denied. Coburn this morning filed a petition asking for an injunction against Dr. Evans and the Klan.
A wife and three children survive Coburn.
From the front page of The Goldsboro News, Nov. 6, 1923
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