Raleigh, June 1—Stephen S. Holt, prominent lawyer of Smithfield, N.C., was mistaken for a “rum runner,” and killed by Jessie Wyatt, captain of the plainclothes department of the Raleigh police force this afternoon about 8 o’clock. The shooting took place about one mile from Raleigh. Wyatt is being held in the Wake county jail without bond, upon orders of Coroner W.L. Waring, a coroner’s jury holding that Holt came to his death as a result of a pistol wound inflicted by Wyatt.
Holt, according to witnesses testifying at the inquest, was en route to his home at Smithfield, in company with several friends, after attending federal court here today. They parked the two cars in which they were riding beside the road near the point where the shooting occurred. Wyatt, accompanied by Chief of Police Winder Bryan, were on an inspection tour when they came upon the cars by the road.
Thought It Was Liquor Car
Wyatt said that he suspected the cars as being loaded with whiskey and that when one of them moved off he fired at the tire, the bullet penetrating the rear curtain of the car in which Holt was riding, entering his neck, and ranging upward to the base of his brain. Wyatt also stated that he had ordered the car to stop, but that the order was disobeyed. He said that the bullet must have glanced off the hard-surfaced road.
Parties in the car with Holt, however, testified that no order was given to stop the car, and that neither Wyatt nor Chief Bryan were in uniform and that the first intimation of trouble was the pistol shot.
No whiskey was found in the car, according to the testimony of witnesses.
Feeling was at fever heat among many Smithfield people who came to Raleigh this morning, after the news of the shooting reached Smithfield. Wyatt gave himself up to the police and after being held under technical arrest all afternoon, was placed in Wake county jail to be held without bond.
Wyatt Suspended from Force
Following the shooting, Chief Bryan announced that Wyatt has been suspended from the police force pending the outcome of the inquiry.
Testifying before the coroner’s jury, Chief Bryan stated that he and Wyatt had drive out on the Gardner road to inspect motorcycles the city is planning to purchase for the police department. As they neared the bridge over Walnut Creek, the chief testified, they saw two cars parked near the bridge.
“They look like liquor cars,” the chief testified Wyatt said. The chief said that they passed ahead of the cars and stopped, ad that Wyatt looked back and said, “That’s what it is.”
The chief swore that Wyatt and himself then got out of their car and walked back towards the other cars, and that as they did so, the car which was in the rear, whipped around in front, and that as it did so, Wyatt jumped in front of it, and ordered it to stop, and that Wyatt had to jump aside to keep from being run over.
As Wyatt leaped aside, the chief said, he pulled out his pistol and fired at the rear tire. The Ford went 700 feet, said the chief, and then stopped.
“It was all done in a second,” said the chief.
Answering questions by members of the jury, the chief said he could not remember if Wyatt had shown any badge. Neither Wyatt nor the chief wore a uniform.
After the wounded man had been rushed to Rex hospital, the chief said that he and other officers went to the scene of the shooting and found where the bullet had struck the hard-surfaced road.
Later the jury went to the scene and examined the purported bullet mark, comparing it with a fresh one made by a police officer who fired another shot into the road.
The testimony of Doc Woodard, the drive of the car in which Holt was riding when killed, differed from that of the police chief. He said that he saw nobody jump in front of the car, heard no order to halt, and that his first intimation of any trouble was the pistol shot.
He denied having any whiskey and testimony of Chief Bryan to the effect that no whiskey was discovered supported his statement. In the car with him were in addition to Mr. Holt, A.H. Woodard, J.H. Woodard and Will Wright. They had been witnesses in federal court and were going back to Princeton, which is about 12 miles beyond Smithfield.
In the other car were J.M. Woodard, Robert Webb, Lonnie Lynch, and Solomon Daughtry. Woodard testified that the two cars had stopped to allow one of the men to answer a call of nature.
From the front page of the Goldsboro News, Tuesday morning, June 2, 1925
newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn93064755/1925-06-02/ed-1/seq-1/#words=JUNE+2%2C+1925
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