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 s...