Clay County AlArchives Obituaries.....Dobbins, James P.  March 1, 1900
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Linda Ayres http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00031.html#0007674 February 11, 2023, 1:50 am

Our Mountain Home
A murder of the foulest nature was committed on the outskirts of the city last 
Wednesday night. Early risers Thursday morning found the nude body of a white 
man terribly mutilated from knife wounds and cold in death lying on the sidewalk 
opposite the grounds of Talladega College. The body was that of James Pinckney 
Dobbins, of Lineville, Clay County, Ala. Part of Dobbins clothes and a bloody 
butcher knife were found near the body. Immediately a search for the murderer or 
murderers was instituted. Parties remembered seeing a negro by the name of 
Elbert Curry leave the square Wednesday night with Mr. Dobbins for the purpose 
of showing him the house of a friend. This lead the officers to suspect Curry, 
and he was found at the home of his grandmother, Julia Moore, and on his person 
was discovered blood stains and in his pocket were found papers that belonged to 
Mr. Dobbins. Curry confessed the crime but implicated Wade and Will Hardnick and 
Sam Gray as his associates in committing the deed. He says Mr. Dobbins told, or 
intimated to them, that he had $60 and wanted to buy or trade horses, and that 
he and the above-mentioned negroes carried him to the Hardnick stable to show 
him some horses when they got him there, he was forced to pull off his clothes 
and allow them to search for money. After this the Hardnick boys proposed to 
murder him for fear he would tell. This was done and the body carried by Gray 
and Curry to where it was found, according to Curry's story. The coroner's jury 
did not agree with the above story, but reported it was their belief that the 
murder was committed where the body was found. The Hardnick negroes say that 
Curry came to their home on the night of the crime and changed his pants which 
had blood on them for a pair belonging to a negro named Mason, and that they, 
the Hardnicks, were asked to burn the pants but refused, said pants being found 
by officers next morning. As stated above the coroner's jury rendered a verdict 
that the murder was committed where the body was found, also that Elbert Curry, 
Wade Hardnick and Will Hardnick are the murderers. Thursday evening it became 
current that parties were trying to inaugurate a plan to get hold of and lynch 
the participants in the above crime that night. For fear of something of the 
kind the Sheriff procured a special over the B. & A. and Dobbins' murderers, 
together with Nath Ragland and George Calhoun, two murderers who have been 
confined in the county jail for some time, were taken to Birmingham for safe 
keeping.


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