People v. Shepherd

One night last week some 2,000 citizens of Mississippi watched a fire. The fuel for the fire consisted of a pile of logs, several cans of gasoline, and a Negro. Brightly burned the gasoline, with orange flame, black smoke. Soon the Negro's flesh became hot, reached what is technically termed the "point of combustion." Then the Negro also burned. Watching citizens heard groans, screams, pleadings. "Get me done with," cried the flaming Negro, "get me done with quick." The fire was out in 15 minutes.

Thus ended the case of the People of Mississippi v. Charles Shepherd, Negro. The case began when one Sergeant J. B. Duvall, guarding prisoners in a Parchman, Miss., convict camp, whipped Negro-Convict Shepherd. Bruised, angry, the black convict entered the Duvall home, attacked Ruth Duvall, 18, onetime beauty-contest winner. Interrupted by the unexpected arrival of Sergeant Duvall, the Negro took a butcher knife, cut the Sergeant's throat, then plunged the knife down the throat he had just slashed. Next he struck the body with an icepick, hitting the back of its head so violently that its eyeballs popped out. Finally he left, taking Ruth Duvall with him. Some 30 hours later the girl was found, naked, outside a cabin in the woods.

The Negro was soon captured. He sought shelter in the home of his brother. Oddly, the brother telephoned one Laura May Keiler, plantation owner, told her to "come and get Charlie." She came. She found Charlie. He had a Winchester rifle and a pistol; she had a shotgun. "Put those down, Charlie," she said. He put them down, surrendered, was turned over to National Guardsmen, called out by Mississippi's Governor Bilbo.

Obviously guilty of murder, of rape, Negro Shepherd would eventually have been executed by the State of Mississippi. But a hanging did not appeal to the People of Mississippi. It arose, it grasped rifle, shotgun, pistol, it rode on horses by night and it took Negro Shepherd away from the State of Mississippi and dealt with him after its own fashion. In Mississippi, Blacks outnumber Whites by almost nine to eight. Where there are nine Black Men to eight White Women, the People is apt to find excuse for making an occasional example. Meanwhile the State of Mississippi took no proceedings against its People. Governor Bilbo said he had neither time nor money to investigate 2,000 persons. A coroner's jury, looking into the death of Negro Shepherd, decided that he had died from "causes unknown."