Official interest in the case of the burning of Hubert Gainey, a 16-year-old youth of Sampson county, has disclosed a straightforward record of the incident, but there yet remains much of doubt and mystery concerning the whole matter.
Marvin Thornton, “Man” Thornton, Isham Raynor, Thomas I. Denning and Bradley Herring composed a fishing party which was camping for the night of March 26 at the old Weaver Bass pond in Bentonville township. About night this party was joined by Beaty Gainey, father of Hubert Gainey, and Preston Barefoot, who had with them the unfortunate youth. There were also other fishermen at the pond who witnessed with a great deal of disgust the fact that there was drunkenness and profanity among the fishing party out of which the trouble grew.
At an early hour, Beaty Gainey left his son with the party and returned to his home, some five miles away, the others remaining at the pond until about 11 o’clock. The fishing party then left the pond all riding on a Ford car together. According to the burned boy’s story, the car stopped at the Cross Roads at the old Glenwood Academy and he got off the car and started towards home, it being about midnight. He states that he was stopped a minute after, to assemble his cooking utensils, and while so engaged, the two Thornton men came back to him, having left the moving car. Heated words followed about a pulley, and a fight ensued. Gainey was knocked down in the beginning and tried to make his escape. It seems that he was attracted from the road to two fires burning out across a plowed field, one an old gate post, and another a fat lightwood stump which had caught from the burning woods some two days prior. At the burning gate post Gainey was stripped of most of his clothing, and here it was that he was held by his assailants until the left side of his body was badly charred by the blaze.
Young Gainey was discovered about light on Thursday morning in the home of Zula Blackman, an old colored woman who lived some four hundred yards from the scene of the burning. He was entirely nude and was still moaning from the extreme pain of the burns. The colored woman, with the assistance of her 15-year-old son, dressed the victim and notified her white neighbors. In his agony, Gainey confessed to her and to those who awaited him in the early morning hours, that it was the two Thornton men who had assaulted him.
By 10 o’clock Thursday morning, he was removed to the home of his father, Mr. Beaty Gainey, who lives about a mile from where the incident occurred. The boy is now under the care of Dr. R.B. Wilson of Newton Grove, and Monday’s report indicates that recovery is very uncertain.
Deputy Sheriff Forest Pittman and County Welfare Superintendent H.V. Rose spent Monday in that section of the county in the interest of this very unusual incident. The two men, Marvin and “Man” Thornton, who had previously been released from jail under a $200 bond, were re-arrested on additional charges and were committed to jail again on Monday night. Both of these men are straightforward in their denial of any knowledge of what happened to young Gainey after he left them at the Cross Roads. Their statements have been corroborated by other members of the fishing party. The defendants have retained as their counsel E.J. Wellons of this city, and their case awaits the turn of the wounded boy for further developments.
From the front page of the Smithfield Herald, Wednesday morning, April 1, 1925
newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn92073982/1925-04-01/ed-1/seq-1/#words=APRIL+1%2C+1925
