HILLSVILLE TRAGEDY.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1419, 20 April 1912, Page 12

HILLSVILLE TRAGEDY.

OUTLAWS SHOOT A JUDGE AND THREE OFFICERS. Further particulars regarding the tragedy at Ifillsvillo (U.S., mentioned in our cablegrams soino timo ago, are contained in the- following message, which appeared in Ihe New York 'Tost" on March 15:—A mob of mountaineers entered the. courtroom and assassinated the. Judge and every officer connected with the Carroll County Circuit Court. Judge. Thornton Jlassie was shot as he sat on the bench, not ono minute after ho had pronounced sentence of ono year upon Floyd Allen. William Foster, the attorney for the Commonwealth, was riddled with bullets ns ho stood by the bench, and Lowis Webb, the sheriff, in trying to baltlo with the outlaws, was shot beforo ho had fired twice. The mountaineers then turned their pistols upon the twelve men in the jury I box, ami wounded all but two. J. 11. lilankenship, one of the jurors, was fatally injured. The. Aliens, including the prisoner and their friends, after (ho killing of tho sheriff, backed slowly out of the courtroom, holding all in check at tho point of revolvers. Once outside they mado a dash for the mountains on horseback. A posse of citizens soon was in pursuit, and reports have reached hero that one of tho Aliens had been seriously wounded in a battlo which was fought with the posse. Special officers aro being rushed info the county to help in running down tho murderers. Governor Mann is holding two companies of militia in readiness in case the Aliens and their friends gather recruits in the mountain fastnesses, and has offered a reward of 1000 dollars for tho capture of any of the murderers. Hillsville is in a remote quarter, fifteen miles from Marren Springs, the nearest railroad station, and outsido help will be late in arriving. Scene in the Court Houio. Tho wiping out of the Jaw officers left affairs in tho hands of untrained citizens, but nearly every man in this section of the county has joined in tho hunt for the band of mountaineers. The scene of tho mnrders was the quaint old-fashioned red bride ODunty court house. Hillsville is the seat of Carroll County, on tho sohthern border of the State. There had been reports that an attempt might be made to rescue Floyd Allen, who himself had aided a, prisoner friend recently to escape from tho county officers. Tho "trial had been in progress for several days, however, without any show of feeling. Allen was found guilty and was called for sentenco to-day. The stuffy littlocourt room, with its coal stove and crude furniture, was crowded. Sidney and Jack Allen arrived and took their places near tho rail, marking the enclosure for prisoner and counsel engaged in the case. Standing near-by were a number of their friends from the Blue Hide Mountains. Judgo Massio began to sentence Allen. Tho words "ono year at hard labour" were on his lips when there camo the crack of a revolver. This was followed by a volley of shots, and the Judge fell dead on tho bench. Tho Commonwealth's attorney, Foster, • was standing directly in front of tho bench and dropped under tho bullets of the mountaineers, who had taken what they thought justice into their own hands. Sheriff Killed in Battle. Others besides those in court had ridden into town, and got to the court-house just as the shooting began. The brothers armed, for it seemed to thoso who esand their ' friends must have been well eaped alive from the bloody court-room that 200 shots were fired. In tho first fusillade, several jurors were wounded, Blnnkonship probably fatally. Sheritf Webb, whipping out his own weapon, mado for tho prisoner, who had joined in the shooting with an oath, and had declared that ho would never go to gaol. Webb was stopped by a score of shots and crumpled up on tho floor. Tho '.' shooting in "tho--courtroom' had 1 becomo ; goneral, and thero was a wild rush of the unarmed for windows and doors.

Doxter Goad, clerk of the court, recoived a bullet wound in the neck, and is dying. He is the only ono of tho court's officers alive.

Judgo Massio was ono of tho most prominent jurists of the State. Ho -was appointed to the bench by Governor Swanson in 1908, and was forty-eight years old. Ho is survived bv a wife, two sons, and a daughter. Judge Massio had been considered recently for promotion to tho State Sunromc Bench. The Com 111011 wealth's attorney, lostor, had held his office for eight years. He was forty years of ago and known ns a fearless prosecutor. lie was a Eepublican leader in the country. Sheriff Webb had been a deputy for fifteen or twenty years before being elected sheriff last November. . Seventeen mountaineers who made their escapo from Hillsville after a battlo with citizens on tho streets after the courtroom tragedy are said to have taken refuge in an old barn in the mountains.