Albemarle, April 2 (AP)—John Gray, convicted slayer of “Dad” Watkins, aged Stanly County man, today was sentenced to die in the electric chair on May 26.
Noticer of appeal was made by Gray’s counsel.
A verdict of guilty of first degree murder was returned yesterday in Superior Court after a trial that had required but a few hours.
The state rested its case against the man with only one witness testifying, John Fulton, deputy sheriff, who told the jury of overhearing while he was in jail.
Only two witnesses were on the defense stand. The aged mother of the condemned man told of how he had been of a peculiarly nervous nature as a child.
Watkins’ charred body was found in the ruins of a burned barn some time ago shortly after he had disappeared from his home. Three other men, Carl Sweat, Mack Lawrence and Theodore Lawrence, are under indictment also charged with complicity in the murder, but will not come to trial during the present term of court.
Robbery was held to have been the motive for the crime.
From page 4 of The Goldsboro News, Sunday morning, April 4, 1926
newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn93064755/1926-04-04/ed-1/seq-4/
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