Bill West & Sammy Hooper Murders, Winn Parish, LA Submitted by Greggory E. Davies, 120 Ted Price Lane, Winnfield, LA 71483 ********************************************** Copyright. All rights reserved. http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ********************************************** >From the February 4, 1949 Winnfield News-American Wives Watch Husbands Blast 'Visitors' With Pistols In Two Separate Shootings Authorities here are holding two negroes in connection with the death of two others and the serious injury of a negro woman in two shooting incidents here Wednesday. Jailed were Jeff Maxey, about 45, a logger, who surrendered to city police about 1 a.m. Wednesday and admitted shooting Bill West, also about 45, a few minutes earlier, and Ernest Rice, 23, of Tuskegee, Ala., who was apprehended at 4 p.m. Wednesday in Jonesboro after fatally shooting Sammy Hooper, 25, and seriously injuring Elizabeth Rice, 19, at approximately 8:30 a.m. A coroner's inquest into the two killings will be conducted today, according to C. M. Robinson, sheriff of Winn parish. It is believed that quarrels over women were motivating factors in both shootings. In the first incident Maxey is alleged to have shot West twice at close range with a German Luger pistol, with one bullet entering the heart and causing instantaneous death. The shooting occurred near the McDonald negro quarters about two blocks from the business district of the town, where Maxey overtook West and his negro woman companion, Maxey's wife. A brief argument preceded the shooting and Maxey fired after West reached into his pocket and withdrew "a shiny object," it is reported. Later it was learned that the object was a short length of pipe. In the second shooting Sammy Hooper, 25, a mill worker employed by the Mansfield Hardwood Lumber Company, was killed and his woman companion seriously injured as they sat in a room of the latter's house in the T. & G. negro quarters near the mill. According to Gamble Carter, city police chief who investigated the shooting, Ernest Rice, the woman's husband, confronted the two unexpectedly and shot first the man and then the woman with a .32 caliber pistol. Both were shot in the abdomen and the man apparently died instantly, Carter said. Called to the scene immediately after the shooting occurred, the police chief said he found the woman lying wounded on the floor and attempting to write on a sheet of paper. The dead man was lying across the rooom. Carter summoned Dr. John T. Mosley, Winn Parish coroner, and an ambulance. the negro woman was given emergency treatment and sent to an Alexandria hospital. Hooper had reported to the mill for work and later departed for the negro quarters "to get a cup of coffee," it was reported. Rice, the injured negro woman's husband, and a student at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, reportedly was in Winnfield to visit his wife when he confronted the two in the latter's house. No charges have been filed pending an investigation, Sheriff Robinson said today. >From the February 11, 1949 Winnfield News-American Coroner's Jury Binds Two Negroes To Grand Jury A coroner's jury decided last Friday that Jeff Maxey, 45, of Winnfield, and Ernest Rice, 23, of Tuskegee, Ala., who are being held in the Winn Parish jail and charged with murder, will be bound to the grand jury, which will meet in March. Members of the coroner's jury are Kenneth Watts, Hugh Walker Stovall, C. L. Hammond, John Y. Bell, and J. P. Gresham. Maxey is being held in connection with the murder of Bill West, 45, who was shot and killed about 1 a.m. Wednesday, February 2, with a German Luger pistol near the McDonald negro quarters. Ernest Rice was jailed following the shooting of Sam Hooper, 25, in a T. & G. quarters house at 8:30 on the same morning. He is charged in addition with the shooting of Elizabeth Rice, 19, who was found wounded in the house with Hooper. The negress's condiction is reported improved. (Submitted by Greggory Ellis Davies, Winnfield, Winn Parish, LA.)