Polk County GaArchives Obituaries.....Bart Goodwin November 1918
************************************************
Copyright.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://www.usgwarchives.net/ga/gafiles.htm
************************************************

File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
W. Stephens wend@bellsouth.net April 20, 2004, 11:49 am

Cedartown Standard, Thursday, November 14, 1918
Bart Goodwin, On a July evening in 1917, Goodwin deserted from the army in 
Atlanta. He spent the night in Cedartown with a dissolute woman, whom he told 
that he had come home to kill his wife. In the morning he got some shells here 
saying he wanted to kill a dog. He went to the home of his wife’s parents, Mr. 
and Mrs. W. M. Stubbs, west of town took the gun from over the door loaded it 
and shot his wife, killing her and the unborn babe. He fled from the scene and 
when caught by Depute Sheriff W. T. York, he was asked why he killed his wife, 
and replied that he did not know, unless he was crazy. The crime was so 
revolting that it was though possible Judge Lynch might be called in, and he 
was taken to the Floyd County jail for safe keeping. There he displayed the 
utmost indifference to both his crime and its probable punishment. When brought 
here for trial, Goodwin tried to establish a plea that the killing was 
accidental, and told it so plausibly that it would have been convincing but for 
the fact that all the circumstances before and after the tragedy, and all the 
evidence connected with it, completely contradicted the theory. Goodwin, 
however stuck to this story to the last. Goodwin was tried and convicted at the 
August term, 1917, of Polk Superior Court. His attorney, Judge F. A. Irwin, 
carried the case to the Supreme Court, where the decision was affirmed. Judge 
Irwin then withdrew from the case, being in the race for Judge of the Superior 
Court, and Mr. W. H. Trawick became Goodwin’s attorney. Mr. Trawick has made 
ever possible effort to save his client’s life, and had the aid of a number of 
our leading citizens who are conscientiously opposed to capital punishment. 
Respites were granted by Gov. Dorsey to permit appeals to the Prison 
Commission, extra ordinary motions for new trial and for investigation by a 
lunacy commission. Polk County does not begrudge the heavy bill she has had to 
pay in the Goodwin case, for we have the satisfaction of knowing that he had 
the fairest possible trial and every possible opportunity to establish either 
his innocence or his claims for clemency. The feeling was general throughout 
the county, however, that if the sentence of the court were not carried out in 
this case, the law imposing capital punishment should be repealed. Goodwin made 
a model prisoner while in jail here, and it was with deep sorrow that Sheriff 
T. P Lyon pulled the fatal trigger Friday in Response to the law’s demands. The 
condemned man maintained his composure to the last and expressed a desire to 
have the ordeal over with. The trap was sprung at 1 p.m., and Goodwin’s neck 
was broken by the fall, death being instantaneous. The execution was in 
private, and was the first time the gallows in our county jail had ever been 
used. As a matter of fact, though we have had a number of murders in Polk, this 
is only the third execution in the history of the county. The first was a 
Negress named Katie, who had killer her child; and the second was that of 
Meeks, convicted for murder in the 79s. Funeral services for Bart Goodwin were 
conducted at the city cemetery by Revs. W. T. Hunnicutt and C. P. Wilcox. The 
tragedy of Goodwin’s crime and its terrible expiation are alike shocking to the 
finer sensibilities of humanity. May we never have such another crime in Polk 
requiring such a penalty. (Cedartown Standard, Thursday, November 14, 1918) 


This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/gafiles/

File size: 3.9 Kb