Raleigh, June 10—Did Melvin Messer, convicted of manslaughter in Haywood County, beat his wife to death and throw her body from a steep mountain trail, or did she stumble and fall while making her way down the narrow trail in the dark and during a driving rain, as Messer claims? The Supreme Court has decided that there was no error in his trial and that he must serve his sentence. But examination of the record in the case shows that there is much room for doubt as to whether Messer is really guilty of having killed his wife, despite the fact that he has ben tried, convicted and his conviction upheld by the Supreme Court.
Here are the facts in the case as present at the trial: Messer is 54 years old and his wife about the same age. They have had nine children, seven of whom are still living. They have lived together in their little mountain home for years in peace and quiet. They were not given to quarrelling or disagreements, according to neighbors who had known them for years.
One Sunday afternoon not long ago, Messer went to spend the afternoon with a son who lived about a mile and a half away, on up the mountain. Later in the afternoon, Mrs. Messer also went to see the same son. While there they had several drinks of old moonshine, which is not uncommon in such mountain homes. Both Messer and her son admit that Mrs. Messer had a drink or two too many and that at the time Messer and his wife started to leave, it was difficult for his wife to walk, apparently from the effects of the mountain moonshine. It was also late, almost dark when they started on their way down the mountain trail, and a terrific rain storm, accompanied by a strong wind, was in progress. Messer had also been drinking, but was not intoxicated, he claims.
The State at the trial claimed that Messer evidently became angered at his wife because of her inability to walk down the mountain and that he eventually became so angered that he struck her and knocked her from the narrow and slippery trail. Witnesses told of finding evidence of a struggle and the jury found him guilty.
But Messer tells a straight story. And the story of their lives together in the small mountain home where they had raised a large family tends to substantiate his version of the horrible tragedy.
He maintains that as they were walking down the slippery, precipitous trail in the dark, with a driving rain falling, that Mrs. Messer slipped several times, and fell to her knees, though he was supporting her with his arm. Finally, he says, she stumbled over a big rock in the trail, and they both rolled down a bank and landed against a bolder. He struggled back up to the trial with her, not realizing that she was dead. Finally, when he came to the realization that she was dead, and when he no longer had the strength to carry her, he left her body at the side of the trail, when home alone, hitched his horse to the sled, and came back for his wife’s body, took it home and placed it tenderly on the bed.
From page 4 of The Concord Daily Tribune, June 10, 1926
newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn92073201/1926-06-10/ed-1/seq-4/
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