Jackson County Louisiana Archives News.....John Griffin Shot Through the Head and Killed. June 28, 1896
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Lora Peppers loradpeppers@hotmail.com January 26, 2016, 3:33 pm

The Times-Picayune (New Orleans) June 28, 1896
SOUTHERN STATES ITEMS OF INTEREST.
Gleaned by the Picayune's Corps of
Special Correspondents.
A Tragedy Enacted in Jackson Parish
Wednesday Night.
John Griffin Shot Through the Head
and Killed.
His Wife in Jail Charged With the
Crime - She Tells Conflicting
Stories.

(Special to the Picayune.)
     Ruston, La., June 27. - A horrible tragedy was enacted in Jackson 
parish Wednesday night.  John Griffin, a farmer, living with his family one 
half mile south of Vernon, was shot through the head while asleep in his bed 
at about 11 o'clock.  The ball entered the right temple and came out behind 
the left ear.  The victim did not move, with the exception of throwing his 
head off the pillow.
  Immediately after the shooting, the wife of the assassinated man ran to 
the house of a neighbor and told him that two negroes had killed her 
husband.  The accused negroes had been prosecuted by the murdered man for 
stealing.
   It is through now that the woman, after having killed her husband herself 
thus attempted to put the guilt on the negroes who were supposed to have a 
grudge against him.
  Before the coroner's jury Thursday some shocking facts were revealed, with 
several confessions from the woman.  Her first tale was that she saw and 
recognized the two negroes whom she had claimed did the shooting as they ran 
away.  The jury trapped her in several glaring contradictions and later in 
the day she confessed the falsity of the negro tale and acknowledged that 
her husband was killed with his own gun.  When asked who held the gun she 
brought into her story two other parties, young men living in the same 
neighborhood, one Bill Smith, the other Frank Johnson.  Her second story was 
that she awoke about 11 o'clock and discovered these two men in the room 
with herself and her husband.  They were at the wall where the gun was 
hanging and trying to get it down.  She says that she got up and made her 
way to the men and begged them not to kill her husband, who was still 
sleeping undisturbed by the struggle between the men, and her screams.  She 
also says that she loaded a muzzle-loading rifle and shot at the men while 
they ran off.
  Her second version is not credited and it is thought she will soon confess 
that her husband was killed by his own wife, as well as with his own gun.  
There are circumstances, however, that justify the implication of the 
accused young men.  In a book found on the table of the room where the man 
was killed were found some scribblings [sic] which she acknowledged to be 
her own.  These scribblings [sic] were the ramblings of a simple woman's 
mind, bearing extravagant testimony of her passion for Johnson, one of the 
accused parties.  She confessed that there has been an undue intimacy 
between herself and Johnson and that her conduct had caused trouble between 
her husband and herself before.
  Another cause of suspicion on the part of the men is that they both 
attempted to leave the parish.  The woman was lodged in jail Thursday night.  
Since then she has had a raging fever and is not inclined to talk. She seems 
to feel perfectly at home in her cell.
  The family are very poor.  The murdered man was 45 years old.  The wife 
and murderess, now in her cell, is 35 years old and the mother of five 
children, the oldest of them 9 years and the youngest a baby something over 
1 year old.  She is a tall woman, angular and masuline [sic masculine] in 
form, but with smooth features and a face with very little expression.
  Smith, one of the men implicated by her, was caught in this parish 
yesterday and is now in jail with her and one of the negroes whom she first 
accused, who was in prison when the murder was committed.

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