21 Apr 1895 A Man Goes Missing & Six People are Lynched for his "Murder"
Butler County Bruises Just over two years after the December 1892 double lynching of Charles Kelley and John Hipp, the citizens of Butler County, Alabama may have thought life was settling down in the area and lynchings were a thing of the past . Imagine the ir surprise when they awoke to the headline, “Horribly Murdered! Five Negroes – Two Men and Three Women – Lynched for the Crime ”. Watts Murphy, a farmer, was the nephew of the deceased Alabama Governor T h om as H ill Watts, whose grave is tucke d away near Highway 10 behind what is, to this day, a field tha t is planted and farmed regularly. Watts Murphy Disappears Mr. Augustus Murphy, father of Watts Murphy, went to visit his son on April 17 th , 1895. Watts Murphy’s fieldhands told him he’d ridden off on his mule. Murphy never came home , and w hen hi s mule returned a day or two after his disappearance (according to some accounts) , his family began to search for him. His father was suspicious that he’d