Jealousy And Fear Drive Will Jones To The Gallows
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The following is an excerpt from my book “Crimes Seen:”It was said jealousy led Will Jones to shoot and kill a woman with a double-barrelled shotgun near the McNeil turpentine still, just south of the north Florida community of West Farm on October 8, 1901.
It was fear that caused Jones, a young black man who was going under the alias George Rowe at the time, to flee the scene and head into the swamp on foot.
The twenty-year-old murder suspect found that the swamp was not safe, however. Ignoring fear of those poisonous slithering snakes called water moccasins and those vicious alligators, Jones found something he feared much more. He discovered a white hunter named Anderson, or rather, Anderson’s dogs discovered Jones.
As Anderson’s dogs ran up on the man, who was now being sought by a posse including Madison County Sheriff E.S. Armstrong and Deputy Stockton Smith, fear overwhelmed Jones. He thought that Anderson was involved in his pursuit. He fired on Anderson, wounding him critically. Anderson’s injuries were so severe, he later died from the effects of the gunshot.
A short while later, another black man, whose identity like the woman’s was never reported by the local newspaper, The New Enterprise, and is apparently lost to the ages, was walking through the woods and he was also killed by Jones.
At about midnight on October 9, Jones was located in a house and ordered to surrender. Instead, he opened the door and fired both barrels of his gun at Deputy Smith, injuring his arm and shoulder. In the midst of the confusion that ensued, Jones escaped from the house, taking with him the contents of several guns belonging to posse members.
Jones was found in the woods during the early morning hours and a gun fight ensued. Thirteen shots were exchanged, including one small shot which injured Sheriff Armstrong below his eye. By this time, Jones was armed only with birdshot.
At the time of his capture, it was noted that Jones had sustained four gunshot wounds himself. None of the wounds were life threatening.
When he was taken into custody, Jones was said to be callous and indifferent to the crimes he had committed.
A short time later, an attempt was made to lynch Will Jones. Sheriff Armstrong was able to avert the efforts of those angry enough to take the law into their own hands by spiriting Jones fifty miles away to Lake City, Florida.
A grand jury convened and handed down an indictment for the murder of the woman who Jones killed in his jealous rage.
On October 23, 1901, a trial was held. Jones was found guilty and sentenced to hang until dead.
The hammer began to chime the time on the final moments of Will Jones’ life as the gallows were constructed that fateful fall morning of November 8, 1901.
In the time before the execution, Will Jones was visited by Rev. A.B. Osgood. The two men prayed and sang hymns during Osgood’s visit. Jones was also reported to say a prayer requesting forgiveness of his wrongs.
As the clock neared eleven, Jones was escorted to the gallows. He had to be helped onto the platform by sheriff’s deputies because of wounds to his feet.
Jones was placed in a chair and told to make his last statement. He looked around the crowd that had gathered to see him get his punishment. In the crowd, he recognized several of his friends, and called out to them. He told everyone that he was “sorry to be in this fix” and express his wish that he be buried at Cherry Lake.
A black hood was draped over the head of Will Jones and the noose was tied around his neck. At 11:25, the trap door in the floor of the gallows was sprung and Jones dropped into the waiting arms of eternity.
Jones was pronounced death fourteen minutes later by Doctors Yates and Ruter.
Witnesses reported that Jones’ neck was not broken, but dislocated.
Madison County bore the expense of burying the young man who had let his emotions, especially those of jealousy and fear, get the best of him. They had jumbled together and created anger in him that caused the deaths of three people.
The hanging was the first public hanging that had been held in Madison County in ten years and it became the last public hanging held in the rural farm community.
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Crimes Seen: A Collection of True Life Murder Stories (Paperback)
By (author): Jacob E Bembry
Read about the monsters who came before Halloween and terrorized an entire city...the lady wrestler who refused to be part of a murder plot that ended with the explosive trial being the first ever shown on television...a college football player who was murdered and whose assailant was murdered in an unrelated incident in prison...the sister who was jealous of her sister's clothes and decided to kill her...how jealousy and fear led Will Jones to the gallows...the man who wanted to murder his mother and succeeded. In doing so, he committed the biggest mass murder in American history up to that time. Read these and more in "Crimes Seen: A Collection of True Life Murders."
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