Bertie County NcArchives History .....Gray, Edward Watson Murdered In Windsor 1941 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/nc/ncfiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Gerald Thomas gerald_thomas00@comcast.net February 19, 2019, 2:34 pm EDWARD WATSON GRAY BRUTALLY MURDERED IN WINDSOR by Gerald W. Thomas During the morning of Friday, January 31, 1941, seventy-seven-year-old Edward Watson Gray went to work at the Rascoe Company store in Windsor as he previously had done thousands of times. Gray, the store’s bookkeeper, had been employed at the business for more than a half century. The store was located on King Street adjacent to the Bertie County courthouse. Gray was well-known and well-liked by local citizens. His ancestral “roots” ran deep in Windsor as he was a direct descendant of William Gray who provided the land upon which the town of Windsor was founded in 1768. Edward’s wife was Eula M. Sessoms – they were married in Windsor on November 30, 1904. During the early afternoon of January 31, George Peele, a twenty-year-old African American of Windsor, came into the store and expressed an interest in buying shores. Gray left Peele in the front section of the store and went to the rear of the establishment to serve another customer. As Gray’s attention was focused toward the customer, Peele slipped unobserved into the store’s office and began rifling through the safe. Gray returned to the front section of the store and realized that Peele “was not in sight.” Gray, “thinking of the safe,” entered the office and surprised Peele. Peele grabbed a .22 caliber rifle which was in the office and pointed it toward the elderly man ordering him to “stand back.” Gray refused and attempted to wrestle the rifle away from younger, more robust Peele. Peele struck Gray in the head several times with the rifle. Badly bludgeoned, Gray collapsed to the office floor, breaking a hip in the fall. Mrs. Maggie B. Barnhill was working in the Ahoskie Produce Credit Association office in the building and heard the violent confrontation between Gray and Peele. She later stated that the attack “sounded like someone breaking up a box and then repeated blows.” She plainly heard Gray pleading for his life. According to Mrs. Barnhill, Gray “frantically” pleaded, “Don’t kill me, help, help!” But the elderly gentleman’s pleading did not thwart the brutality of Peele’s assault. Mrs. Barnhill immediately rushed down King Street to the Windsor Pharmacy and informed Steve Cooper that Mr. Gray was being attacked. Ed Cherry and Humphrey Gillam ran into the store and came face-to-face with Peele still armed with the rifle. Peele ordered them out of the store. They consented and backed out. Pat White, the Windsor Chief of Police, and several citizens who had hastily armed themselves with pistols and shotguns, ran into the store where they found the seriously injured Gray. Peele had fled out of a back door and ran toward Granville Street. Peele, in fleeing from the building, ran by Vernon White, a young boy who was nearby. Local citizens carried the gravely injured Gray to the Windsor Hospital. Law enforcement officers soon initiated an intense manhunt for Peele. Several highway patrolmen, Windsor policemen, Bertie County officers, and “carloads of volunteers” joined in the search. Officers brought in bloodhounds in an attempt to track Peele, but the hounds lost his trail. Following the robbery and assault, Peele met Alexander Brown about a quarter of a mile outside the town. The two men went to Brown’s home where they left the rifle which Peele had used in the attack. (Windsor policeman, Locke Smallwood, later recovered the rifle from the home.) Brown and Peele next met Rudolph Gillam. Peele, obviously needing to establish an alibi for his whereabouts at the time of the crimes, gave $10 each to Gillam and Brown and reportedly informed them that he had just “pulled a job.” He further told the two men to “remember he had gone off with them” during the late morning, The three men travelled to Williamston where Brown and Gillam left Peele. Peele visited several business establishments, intending to further strengthen his alibi. After spending some time in the Martin County town, Peele hired a local taxi driver to return him to Windsor. Peele stopped by his parents’ home near the Cashie River, but his father, William Peele, refused to allow him to enter the house, telling his son that law enforcement officers were going to get him. Incredulously, Peele walked to King Street in the direction of the courthouse and the Rascoe store as numerous law enforcement officers were diligently searching for him. During early evening, officers began closing in on Peele who, in an attempt to evade arrest, hid under the home of Mrs. Charles J. Sawyer in the 400 block of South King Street – only about three blocks from the crime site. “A large crowd of men” gathered about the Sawyer house and officers located Peele under the structure and arrested him. After taking Peele into custody, Sheriff Fred M. Dunstan “removed [him] to safety” to avoid possible ill treatment by local citizens angered over the senseless beating of Mr. Gray. Dunstan had Peele transported to Nash County where he was detained in that jurisdiction’s jail. Dr. Cola Castelloe tended to Gray at the Windsor Hospital. By Thursday, February 6, Gray was reportedly still in “serious condition,” but Castelloe had allowed him to return to his home. However, Gray could not overcome the severity of his injuries. He passed away shortly after two o’clock in the morning, Friday, February 7. He was laid to rest the next day at St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church. With Gray’s death, charges against George Peele were elevated from assault to first-degree murder. On Monday morning, February 10, Bertie County court and law enforcement officials held an “impromptu hearing” at the county jail located just south of Windsor at the “county farm.” Witnesses testified and formal charges were “lodged” against Peele. The officials had held the hearing without notifying the citizens of Bertie County. The citizens in, and about, Windsor, expressed a great deal of animosity toward Peele. Following the hearing, Peele was transported to Williamston and detained in the Martin County jail to await trial in Bertie County Superior Court. Three days later, Thursday, February 13 – a mere six days following Gray’s demise – a “large number” of people gathered at the courthouse as Peele’s trial began. Initially, lawyers for the State and the defendant attempted to seat a jury from among a “special venire” of 175 to 200 Bertie County citizens. However, not one county resident was admitted to the jury – biases were vehemently strong against Peele among the local citizens. Judge Robert Hunt Parker, presiding over the trial, then summoned sixty-five men from Halifax County, most of whom were examined before a thirteen-man jury was selected. By early afternoon, Friday, February 14, the jury was seated and testimony began. Two court-appointed attorneys – Alvin Eley of Ahoskie and S. W. Jones of Winton – represented Peele. Testimony and evidence were presented during Friday afternoon and Saturday. Twelve witnesses testified for the state: Mrs. Barnhill, Chief of Police Pat White, Dr. Cola Castelloe, Windsor Policeman Locke Smallwood, Bruce White, Vernon White, North Carolina highway patrolmen Johnny Scarborough and Tappen, John Peter Rascoe (one of the owners of the Rascoe Store), Alexander Brown, Rudolph Gillam, and Sheriff C. V. Faulkner of Nash County. Faulkner testified that Peele, while locked up in the Nash County jail, stated to him (Faulkner) that he “fatally wounded” Mr. Gray. Patrolmen Scarborough and Tappen corroborated Faulkner’s testimony. Rascoe testified that $30 in currency and twenty silver dollars “were missing” from the store’s safe, along with jewelry and a watch, cumulatively worth upwards to $700. He identified the jewelry and watch which were recovered from Peele’s possession after his capture. Dr. Castelloe testified that Gray’s death was directly attributable to the injuries he received during the assault by Peele. Late in the day, Judge Parker recessed the trial until Monday morning, February 17, when testimony for the defense began. Peele, who recently had completed serving “a road sentence for assault with a deadly weapon, took the stand in his own behalf. He denied that he had made detailed statements before Sheriff Faulkner and other officers while being held in the Nash County jail. However, he stated that he was drunk, “stupefied with liquor,” and that “he vaguely recalled striking some one [sic].” Three other defense witnesses testified that they bought liquor and shared it with Peele on the day that Gray was attacked. The witnesses testified that they did not get drunk. On Monday afternoon, the case went to the jury which, after deliberating for only fifty minutes, returned a verdict of guilty of first-degree murder. Judge Parker sentenced Peele to die in the state’s gas chamber at Central Prison, Raleigh, on March 21, 1941. The defendant’s lawyers noted appeal and the subsequent legal procedures delayed the execution. Finally, on Wednesday, October 8, 1941, Governor Melville Broughton refused to stay Peele’s execution. According to Reverend Lawrence A. Watts, chaplain for Central Prison, “Peele took the refusal courageously.” George Peele was executed at Central Prison on October 10, 1941. Peele was the first Bertie County resident to be executed at Central Prison since the State had taken over the task of capital punishment from the counties on March 18, 1910. * * * * * Immediately following the conclusion of George Peele’s murder trial, Bertie County court officials issued warrants “as an outgrowth” of the trial for the arrest of four persons – Bertha May Robinson (Peele’s girlfriend), Rudolph Gillam, Alexander Brown, and Arie Wingate (who lived in the same house as Brown). All four individuals were charged with knowingly receiving stolen property from George Peele and concealing him. The cases appeared on the Bertie County Superior Court docket during the May 1941 term. The prosecutor “took a nol pros,” i.e., did not pursue the charges against Robinson. Gillam, Brown, and Wingate were found guilty and given jail sentences of four months, which were suspended. All three individuals were placed on probation. Sources: Bertie Ledger-Advance, February 7, 14, 21, March 21, May 2, 9, October 10, 1941; The Enterprise (Williamston), February 7, 11, 14, 21, 1941; The Wilmington Morning Star, February 9, 16, October 10, 11, 1941; Henderson Daily Dispatch, February 15, October 10, 1941; Death certificate for Edward Watson Gray, Office of the Bertie County Register of Deeds. File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/nc/bertie/history/other/grayedwa289gms.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/ncfiles/ File size: 11.0 Kb