Chief B.O. Hamrick executed a fine piece of detective work when he unraveled the mystery surrounding the attempt to dynamite the home of Lem Patterson, overseer in the Ella Mill in South Shelby and as a result, Allen Barrett, a painter, has been lodged in jail pending a hearing before Judge Mull on one of the most serious charges known to criminal law. It is the first known attempt to dynamite a home in Cleveland county.
Last Saturday night a man named Ed Bolick going home late at night saw a small flame burning under the corner of Lem Patterson’s house. With no thought of the serious consequences, Mr. Bolick went to the flame and blew it out without disturbing anyone or making any alarm. He proceeded home. Next morning when he saw Lem Patterson he informed him of seeing a candle flame under the house. Both made an investigation of the scene of the flame and found there a cigar box filled with rags, paper and a blue-bordered woman’s handkerchief saturated with oil. Standing in the box was a pink candle stick which had been burning until Mr. Bolick blew out the flame the night before. The cigar box was carefully placed under the bed room, directly under the bed where Mr. Patterson and his wife sleep and had the dynamite exploded, both would in all probability been killed.
Worked on Clues
When chief Hamrick took charge of the case, he examined the contents of the cigar box. The cigar box had contained “Skill” cigars put up by the Rex Cigar Co. of Shelby. In the yard of Allen Barrett he found the lid of the cigar box. The ragged edges of the hinged side of the lid matched the ragged edges of the hinge side of the box. Then he went to Mrs. Barrett and held the blue bordered handkerchief before her and asked if it was here. She admitted tha tit was and that she missed it from the clothes line where it had been hung after washing the day before. Then Chief Hamrick displayed the pink candle and factory cloth which came out of the box and asked her if she had anything in the house like them or if they belonged to her. She admitted that the candles were bought at Woolworth’s Saturday and she had a duplicate of the one found on her mantle piece and samples of the same kind of cloth in the closet. Apparently Mrs. Barrett was not aware of the fact that the information she was giving the Chief was incriminating her husband, but when the chief had his evidence fastened on Barrett she broke down and cried. Chief hurriedly arrested him. En route to jail he showed Barrett his findings and disclosed the evidence he had against him as the guilty party. Whereupon Barrett admitted that he had placed the dynamite under the house but laughingly said it would not have done any damage. He gave as his reason for attempting the explosion that Patterson had been too intimate with his wife.
The hearing will be granted today. Such an offense is a felony and punishable by not less than five nor more than 30 years in the penitentiary.
From the front page of the Shelby Star, June 5, 1925 newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn97064509/1925-06-05/ed-1/seq-1/#words=JUNE+5%2C+1925
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