Rev. McLaurin Paroled After Serving 54 Months for Assault with Intent to Rape Young Girls, March 13, 1926

Rev. W.H.L. McLaurin Finally Gets Parole. . . 65-Year-Old Preacher of Mecklenburg Served 54 Months for Grave Offense

Raleigh, March 12—Governor McLean today granted a parole to W.H.L. McLaurin, 65, one-time preacher, who was committed to state prison in 1921 on a 20-year sentence after submitting in Mecklenburg Superior Court to two counts of assault with intent to commit rape.

McLaurin’s offense, the governor gathers from the record of testimony, was more an outrage of decency than a criminal act. The parole order requires that he be returned to Scotland County, his former home, to reside with his sister and other members of his family, who have agreed to take care of him for the future.

McLaurin took a party of young girls on a ride into the country, and there subjected them to indecencies. Following his arrest, feeling ran high in Charlotte and vicinity, and Governor McLean considers the possibility that the severity of his sentence might have been due to the immediate reaction of public sentiment.

The parole order has the following to say:

“The above named prisoner submitted at the August term, 1921,superior court of Mecklenburg county, in two cases, to assault with intent to commit rape, and was sentenced in each case to 10 years in state’s prison.

“It appears from the testimony, and is agreed by all the parties concerned, that the offense for which this prisoner was convicted was more an outrage of decency than a criminal act. The exceedingly heavy sentence given the prisoner was undoubtedly due to the state of feeling in the community at the time and the youth of the offended girls.

“The parents of the girls assaulted; D.B. Smith, private prosecuting attorney; Hon. George W. Wilson, associate justice of the supreme court, and a large number of the citizens of Mecklenburg county, with other sections of North Carolina, have requested to me to extend clemency to this prisoner, believing that in view of all the circumstances a reasonable punishment has been incted(??) out of the prisoner.

“I am advised that the prisoner was more than 60 years of age at the time of the commission of this crime, and had prior to this offense been a man of outstanding character in the community.”

From the front page of The Concord Daily Tribune, Saturday, March 13, 1926

newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn92073201/1926-03-13/ed-1/seq-1/