Charlie Abram, young Georgia negro, who on Saturday night shot and killed Will Carpenter, negro chauffeur, on the street near the Masonic temple, was nabbed by local officers about 9:30 Saturday night while asleep in a chair at the home of Matt Parker, negro woman, in the Buffalo section on the Anthony place. Abram told officers that he had been out in the woods all Saturday night and Sunday and had entered the Parker house only after nightfall Sunday evening. He had had nothing to eat since Saturday noon and immediately after his arrest asked officers to take him where he could get something to eat.
Abram, who made a few statements regarding the fatal shooting, was brought here and placed in jail and will be given a preliminary hearing one day this week.
Fate Plays Hard
The cards were apparently marked for Carpenter, the dead negro, and Fate seemed to be dealing form the bottom of the deck. Saturday afternoon at 3 o’clock Carpenter was freed from the county chain gang, where he had been toiling for 30 days. Not quite seven hours later as he was crossing the court square near the new Masonic temple, enjoying his recovered freedom, Abram leaped from is delivery truck and began pumping lead in his direction. One of the bullets found its mark and Carpenter keeled over on the sidewalk, dying after he had run across the street to the opposite corner. He was removed to the hospital, but died about the time he was placed on the operating table.
Caused Much Excitement
The shooting with its stray lead and accompanying excitement took place right in the center of a big Saturday night crowd, on the streets. With the shots coming suddenly, the street for a half block was cleared, but with the third and final shot an excited crowd began to gather around the dying negro, while his slayer in the confused dashed around the corner of the temple and made his getaway in the dark in the direction of “jail alley.” Officers soon gave pursuit, but were unable to locate him until Sunday afternoon when they received information to the effect that Abraham was in the Buffalo section.
As the case now looks, Carpenter was killed by his wife’s sweetheart. The Carpenter matrimonial bark never sailed smoothly and the “time” Will had been doing up until Saturday afternoon was for an affray with his spouse. While the negro was “making time” on the Cleveland county roads, the other negroes say Abraham also was making time with Carpenter’s wife—and as a result of that report Carpenter is dead and Abran faces what appears to be a hectic hereafter.
Nearby witnesses to the shooting say Abram, who drives a delivery truck for Paul Wellmon, local grocer, was passing the corner of the temple in the truck with another boy driving, when he saw Carpenter on the sidewalk. Immediately the reports have it, Abram leaped from the truck and began shooting. In the alley at Pendleton’s, only a half a block down, stood Carpenter’s wife within hearing of the shot fired by her lover, that killed her husband. Others say that Abram started to ride Carpenter’s wife and another woman home and that Carpenter made his wife get out of the truck and that the shotting was the aftermath of the talk that transpired then. Still others tell that Abram had heard Carpenter was looking for him and that he, Abram, was carrying a pistol for protection.
Abram’s story is that Carpenter jumped on him with a knife and that he shot to protect himself. However, just a few minutes after being arrested he told officers that he and Carpenter had a “fuss” on the street and that he went home for his gun after the row and just before the shooting. Realizing that he was getting himself in a premeditated tangle, officers say, Abram then told of the attempted cutting by Carpenter.
Officers making the arrest were Chief Hamrick, Sheriff Logan, Jim Hester, Marshal Moore and Bob Kentrick, and they say that Abram was greatly surprised when he awoke and found himself looking into the muzzle of a gun held by an officer. He told them, they say, that after getting away from the scene of the shooting that he circled about town, back to his home where he secured some clothing and about $35 in money, and that he intended to go to California, knowing that he had killed his man.
The dead negro, who bore a reputation that was none too good, was well known and at various times had driven cars for a number of Shelby people. Abram, a Georgia negro, was in the employ of the Wellmon grocery, and had the reputation of being rather impudent and had been in court several times for speeding and reckless driving.
From the front page of the Cleveland Star, Shelby, N.C., Tuesday, June 30, 1925
newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn97064509/1925-06-30/ed-1/seq-1/#words=JUNE+30.+1925
No comments:
Post a Comment