Rape Revolvers & Ropes by James Ferrell

Author:James Ferrell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gatekeeper Press
Published: 2020-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

Inquiries & Indictments

“Five Heard In Lynching Quiz: Time of Warning to Sheriff Disputed”

The Muncie Evening Press

September 3, 19301

“ ‘Red’ Agent is Held At Marion”

The Muncie Evening Press

September 23, 19302

“Jury Fails to Indict Members of Lynch Mob”

Marion Leader-Tribune

October 10, 19303

DURING THE NEXT two months, September and October 1930, the Grand Jury queried possible mob members. The Indiana state prosecutors and local law enforcement conducted inquiries, inspections, and eventual indictments. Communists tried to incite trouble, Cameron’s stepfather went on a rampage, and the political battle between Ogden and Hardin intensified.

Attorney General James M. Ogden began the month of September by making explosive claims to the press. He reported that a special investigator issued a secret report to him about the lynchings. This investigator visited Marion while the two bodies still hung from the tree on the courthouse lawn. This assessment accused Sheriff Jacob Campbell with “negligence” and added that “someone warned him at 4 o’clock in the afternoon that a mob would be formed to attack the jail and lynch the two men accused of having killed a white man and attacking his woman companion.”4 The detective added, “I think there was plenty of time to have taken the men out of the jail.”

He cited other instances in which the sheriff was allegedly lax.5 He believed that six of the “mob members included the man who tied the knots about the prisoners’ necks, the man who wielded the sledge hammer to batter open the jail and cell doors and the active leader.” The report added that one individual was a paroled prisoner from the state reformatory and another was under indictment for an attack upon a girl.6 Further, he detailed that “the two solid steel doors of the Grant County Jail, which should have stopped intruders, were not locked.”7 After dropping this bombshell, Ogden refused to state what action he planned to take in the case.

Finally, on September 3rd, the Grant County Grand Jury convened in the superior courtroom. Orma Elliott, court stenographer,8 recorded the entire proceedings while Harley Plank served as the jury foreman. Of the other five jurors, two lived in Fairmount Township, one of whom was Cal Hancock, a member of the Deeter family’s First Friends Church.9 Witnesses were being questioned by Grant County Prosecutor Harley Hardin and two Indiana assistant attorneys general, Earl Stroup and Merle Wall.

It was expected that the jury would adjourn on Thursday and reconvene on Monday. Grand juries could convene and adjourn at their discretion. This short recess allowed the jurors to tend to their business and personal interests, which indicated they expected a long period of time in the jury room.10 During the Wednesday session, eleven witnesses appeared, including Sheriff Jacob Campbell; Mrs. W. T. Bailey, state president of the NAACP; and Lillian Ward, a Negro policewoman. Courthouse observers noted that Sheriff Campbell did not stay in the jury room very long. They surmised that the jury “waived charges of alleged irregularities in the sheriff’s conduct.”11

On Monday, September 8, 1930, the Grand

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