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Until You Are Dead, Dead, Dead: The Hanging of Albert Edwin Batson
In 1902, on a prairie in southwest Louisiana, six members of a farming family are found murdered. Albert Edwin Batson, a white, itinerant farm worker, rapidly descends from likely suspect to likely lynching victim as people in the surrounding countryside lusted for vengeance. In a territory where the locals were coping with the opening of the prairies by the railroad and the disorienting, disruptive advances of the rice and oil industries into what was predominantly cattle country, Batson, an outsider, made an ideal scapegoat.Until You Are Dead, Dead, Dead tells the story of the legal trials of Batson for the murder of six members of the Earll family and of the emotional trial of his mother. She believed him innocent and worked tirelessly, but futilely, to save her son's life. More than two dozen photos of Batson, his mother, and the principals involved in his arrest and convictions help bring this struggle to life.Though the evidence against him was entirely circumstantial, most of the citizenry of southwest Louisiana considered him guilty. Sensational headlines in national and local newspapers stirred up so much emotion, authorities feared he would be lynched before they could hang him legally. Even-handed, objective, and thorough, the authors sift the evidence and lament the incompetence of Batson's court-appointed attorneys. The state tried the young man and convicted him twice of the murders and sentenced him each time to death. Louisiana's governor refused to accept the state pardon board's recommendation that Batson's final sentence be commuted to life in prison. A stranger in a rapidly changing land, Batson was hanged.
- GenresTrue CrimeHistory
192 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 20, 2014
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January 20, 2015
Until You Are Dead, Dead, Dead: Resurrection in the Blues
Special thanks to University Press of Mississippi, Jackson, Ms. for making this available through netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
Six members of the L.S. Earll family were brutally murdered in Calcasieu Parrish, Louisiana, in February, 1902. On August 14, 1903, Albert Edwin Batson was executed in Lake Charles, Louisiana, the Court Seat for the Parrish. He was twenty-two years old. He was hung from the gallows. He shouted "Goodbye" as the trapdoor opened beneath him. Sheriff John Perkins pulled the lever. It was his first time to execute a man. The knot wasn't quite right. The fall didn't snap Batson's neck. He dangled, twisted, and choked. It took him twenty minutes to die.
Albert Edwin Batson, 1881-1903
It was easier to hang a man in 1903. Quicker, too. Batson had been the handy man on the Earll place. They were rice farmers who had moved to Louisiana from Michigan to live a wealthier life. And they had. L.S. Earll had banked $700.00 from his rice harvest. L.S. had his own home on the farm he shared with his wife and three of his children. His son, Ward, lived in his own home located a short distance away. Both L.S. and Ward had a goodly amount of livestock on the place, too.
Batson was tried twice and convicted twice. Sentenced to death twice. He had two lawyers appointed to represent him. Well known lawyers. Of course, criminal law wasn't their specialty. They were better at drawing up a deed, a contract, or drafting a will. They did a good job, though. They got their young client's case reversed on appeal after the first conviction on an evidentiary ruling. They launched a review by the Pardon Board to have their client's sentence commuted to life in prison after the second conviction. Two out of three members of the review committee thought the evidence was too flimsy to hang a man. But the third member was from Calcasieu Parrish. His people thought a hanging was due. His opinion carried the day with the Governor and Albert swung. Until he was dead, dead, dead.
It was a sensational two trials. The murders were ghoulish. Gory. Bloody. Six members of one family wiped out. Bludgeoned. Blasted with a shotgun. Throats slashed ear to ear. The trials brought reporters from around the country.
As always, once somebody swings, life goes on. People forget. Everybody seems to have forgotten Batson. In 1910 a fire burned down most of Lake Charles, including the Courthouse, taking whatever records of Batson's cases had ever existed. Nobody knows what happened to the records at the appellate level. They were just gone.
But cases like Batson's have a way of coming back. In the 1930s, the WPA had projects all over America, putting people to work. The Lomax brothers were in Louisiana collecting folksongs. Their collected works are in the Library of Congress today. In 1934 they met Stavin' Chain, the performing name for a blues musician, Wilson Jones, a black man with a black string band. Those bands don't exist much anymore. The Lomax brothers recorded a number of songs played and sung by them. One was the Batson Ballad. It had thirty-five verses. The refrain was, "Mama, I didn't done the crime."
Just as people forgot about Albert Edwin Batson, folks seem to have forgotten about the Lomax brothers and Stavin' Chain, and the Batson Ballad. Strange, though. These things have a way of coming back.
In 2008, an Englishman interested in American Folksongs, contacted Danielle Miller a librarian at the Genealogical and Historical Library for Calcasieu Parrish in Lake Charles wanting to know more about the Batson Ballad. Miller started digging. She found enough information to discover the song was based on a real event. She dug further and found enough information to make her wonder about the ballad's refrain. What if Batson "didn't done the crime?"
Miller contacted Jim Bradshaw which led to Until You Are Dead, Dead, Dead: The Hanging of Albert Edwin Batson, published in 2014. Danielle Miller is Bradshaw's co-author. Rightly so.
At the time of Batson's trials there were no rules on jury selection in a capital murder case. No limits. The District Attorney could pack twelve men on a jury who were committed to hanging a man on circumstantial evidence alone. That didn't cease to be the case until the United States Supreme Court rendered its opinion in Witherspoon v. Illinois, 391 U.S. 510 (1968). 1968? Yep.
Now, don't go thinking that this is a book for lawyers because I put up that fancy dancin' legal citation up there. This is a bone chilling read. It will appeal to lovers of historical fiction as well as non-fiction. This is one that will make the short hairs stand up at the back of your neck. Poor Albert Edwin Batson. Two juries couldn't see past their own noses. The sentencing judge screamed out "Until you are dead, dead, dead," at his first pronouncement. The second time, perhaps having been a bit more circumspect in watching the flimsy evidence unfold, that's the reason spectators had to lean forward to hear him whisper the same words.
In the end, the outcome was the same for Batson. He was truly dead, dead, dead. Funny thing. The sheriff that hung him? He said that young man never looked like a killer to him. You know? He just may have been right. It's enough to make you think about your opinion on capital punishment. Even a grizzled old retired career prosecutor. Like me.
READ THIS BOOK.
EXTRAS!
Wilson Jones, "Stavin' Chain", 1934
Listen to Stavin' Chain sing the Batson Ballad. For those curious, a stavin' chain is a tool used to bind the staves of a barrel together until the metal band is applied to hold the pieces together.
The universally applied rule for the use of circumstantial evidence is that it is perfectly admissible as long as it points to the guilt of the accused beyond a reasonable doubt. If it is explainable by any other reasonable hypothesis, it is the jury's duty to acquit. One Earll son survived the blood bath on the Earll farm. Fred Earll claimed he lived in Iowa. No existing record indicates a person by that name was a resident of Iowa at the time the six members of the Earll family were killed. Just food for thought.
Special thanks to University Press of Mississippi, Jackson, Ms. for making this available through netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
Six members of the L.S. Earll family were brutally murdered in Calcasieu Parrish, Louisiana, in February, 1902. On August 14, 1903, Albert Edwin Batson was executed in Lake Charles, Louisiana, the Court Seat for the Parrish. He was twenty-two years old. He was hung from the gallows. He shouted "Goodbye" as the trapdoor opened beneath him. Sheriff John Perkins pulled the lever. It was his first time to execute a man. The knot wasn't quite right. The fall didn't snap Batson's neck. He dangled, twisted, and choked. It took him twenty minutes to die.
Albert Edwin Batson, 1881-1903
It was easier to hang a man in 1903. Quicker, too. Batson had been the handy man on the Earll place. They were rice farmers who had moved to Louisiana from Michigan to live a wealthier life. And they had. L.S. Earll had banked $700.00 from his rice harvest. L.S. had his own home on the farm he shared with his wife and three of his children. His son, Ward, lived in his own home located a short distance away. Both L.S. and Ward had a goodly amount of livestock on the place, too.
Batson was tried twice and convicted twice. Sentenced to death twice. He had two lawyers appointed to represent him. Well known lawyers. Of course, criminal law wasn't their specialty. They were better at drawing up a deed, a contract, or drafting a will. They did a good job, though. They got their young client's case reversed on appeal after the first conviction on an evidentiary ruling. They launched a review by the Pardon Board to have their client's sentence commuted to life in prison after the second conviction. Two out of three members of the review committee thought the evidence was too flimsy to hang a man. But the third member was from Calcasieu Parrish. His people thought a hanging was due. His opinion carried the day with the Governor and Albert swung. Until he was dead, dead, dead.
It was a sensational two trials. The murders were ghoulish. Gory. Bloody. Six members of one family wiped out. Bludgeoned. Blasted with a shotgun. Throats slashed ear to ear. The trials brought reporters from around the country.
As always, once somebody swings, life goes on. People forget. Everybody seems to have forgotten Batson. In 1910 a fire burned down most of Lake Charles, including the Courthouse, taking whatever records of Batson's cases had ever existed. Nobody knows what happened to the records at the appellate level. They were just gone.
But cases like Batson's have a way of coming back. In the 1930s, the WPA had projects all over America, putting people to work. The Lomax brothers were in Louisiana collecting folksongs. Their collected works are in the Library of Congress today. In 1934 they met Stavin' Chain, the performing name for a blues musician, Wilson Jones, a black man with a black string band. Those bands don't exist much anymore. The Lomax brothers recorded a number of songs played and sung by them. One was the Batson Ballad. It had thirty-five verses. The refrain was, "Mama, I didn't done the crime."
Just as people forgot about Albert Edwin Batson, folks seem to have forgotten about the Lomax brothers and Stavin' Chain, and the Batson Ballad. Strange, though. These things have a way of coming back.
In 2008, an Englishman interested in American Folksongs, contacted Danielle Miller a librarian at the Genealogical and Historical Library for Calcasieu Parrish in Lake Charles wanting to know more about the Batson Ballad. Miller started digging. She found enough information to discover the song was based on a real event. She dug further and found enough information to make her wonder about the ballad's refrain. What if Batson "didn't done the crime?"
Miller contacted Jim Bradshaw which led to Until You Are Dead, Dead, Dead: The Hanging of Albert Edwin Batson, published in 2014. Danielle Miller is Bradshaw's co-author. Rightly so.
At the time of Batson's trials there were no rules on jury selection in a capital murder case. No limits. The District Attorney could pack twelve men on a jury who were committed to hanging a man on circumstantial evidence alone. That didn't cease to be the case until the United States Supreme Court rendered its opinion in Witherspoon v. Illinois, 391 U.S. 510 (1968). 1968? Yep.
Now, don't go thinking that this is a book for lawyers because I put up that fancy dancin' legal citation up there. This is a bone chilling read. It will appeal to lovers of historical fiction as well as non-fiction. This is one that will make the short hairs stand up at the back of your neck. Poor Albert Edwin Batson. Two juries couldn't see past their own noses. The sentencing judge screamed out "Until you are dead, dead, dead," at his first pronouncement. The second time, perhaps having been a bit more circumspect in watching the flimsy evidence unfold, that's the reason spectators had to lean forward to hear him whisper the same words.
In the end, the outcome was the same for Batson. He was truly dead, dead, dead. Funny thing. The sheriff that hung him? He said that young man never looked like a killer to him. You know? He just may have been right. It's enough to make you think about your opinion on capital punishment. Even a grizzled old retired career prosecutor. Like me.
READ THIS BOOK.
EXTRAS!
Wilson Jones, "Stavin' Chain", 1934
Listen to Stavin' Chain sing the Batson Ballad. For those curious, a stavin' chain is a tool used to bind the staves of a barrel together until the metal band is applied to hold the pieces together.
The universally applied rule for the use of circumstantial evidence is that it is perfectly admissible as long as it points to the guilt of the accused beyond a reasonable doubt. If it is explainable by any other reasonable hypothesis, it is the jury's duty to acquit. One Earll son survived the blood bath on the Earll farm. Fred Earll claimed he lived in Iowa. No existing record indicates a person by that name was a resident of Iowa at the time the six members of the Earll family were killed. Just food for thought.
July 21, 2014
This is both a fascinating and disturbing look at a mass murder that took place in 1902, and a man who was, in all likelihood, put to death for a crime he did not commit. This is probably the oldest case I've read about in which the media almost single-handedly ensured the outcome of the trial.
I initially found this book a little hard to follow. I knew nothing about Ed Batson's case prior to reading this. The author jumps right into the circumstances surrounding the murder and the assumptions leading to Batson's prosecution. These early chapters are set up in a way more conducive to research and discussion than ease of understanding for the casual reader. I would have liked the opening to be more about Ed Batson and the area in which he lived, so I'd have a base to build upon. That does come later, though the content feels a little choppy.
The second half of this book flows with more ease, as we get into the actual trial and the turmoil surrounding the case. The author includes a lot of quotes taken from newspapers of that time, giving us an inside view of how badly the media had prejudiced the small community.
This is a compelling piece of history. While the case is old, we can still draw (too) many similarities in the way we allow media to prosecute and persecute at will.
** I was provided with an advanced review copy by University Press of Mississippi via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. **
I initially found this book a little hard to follow. I knew nothing about Ed Batson's case prior to reading this. The author jumps right into the circumstances surrounding the murder and the assumptions leading to Batson's prosecution. These early chapters are set up in a way more conducive to research and discussion than ease of understanding for the casual reader. I would have liked the opening to be more about Ed Batson and the area in which he lived, so I'd have a base to build upon. That does come later, though the content feels a little choppy.
The second half of this book flows with more ease, as we get into the actual trial and the turmoil surrounding the case. The author includes a lot of quotes taken from newspapers of that time, giving us an inside view of how badly the media had prejudiced the small community.
This is a compelling piece of history. While the case is old, we can still draw (too) many similarities in the way we allow media to prosecute and persecute at will.
** I was provided with an advanced review copy by University Press of Mississippi via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. **
April 13, 2017
"Until You are Dead, Dead, Dead: The Hanging of Albert Edwin Batson" by Jim Bradshaw is an absorbing and ultimately very sad account of a man who was tried and put to death for the mass murder a family that he may or may not be guilty of.
It is a little bit of a dry read but then it is a historical crime novel and reads as non fiction so that is appropriate for the novel. I actually had a very hard time putting the book down as I became very engrossed in the story.
The historical background is fascinating and very well written. Highly recommended for fans of true fiction.
I received a copy from the publishers via Netgalley for free in exchange for an honest review.
It is a little bit of a dry read but then it is a historical crime novel and reads as non fiction so that is appropriate for the novel. I actually had a very hard time putting the book down as I became very engrossed in the story.
The historical background is fascinating and very well written. Highly recommended for fans of true fiction.
I received a copy from the publishers via Netgalley for free in exchange for an honest review.
September 13, 2023
The title of the book is derived from the words spoken by the judge said after the guilty verdict was read. You are to be hanged by the neck until you are dead, dead, dead. An appeal resulted in a second trial with the same outcome. The witness testimonies were not convincing by either side but the press of 1903 had already convicted Edward Batson of the murders of a man and his wife and their four children.
Ed was a transient laborer who worked for the Earll family as a farmhand in 1902 when they were slaughtered. The supposed motive was to steal some livestock and sell them. Batson pointed out that he was often left to care for the animals and could easily have sold them without the need for murder. The only criminal record for the twenty-two year-old man was for public drunkenness.
The trial transcript was lost in a fire and so the material used here is from newspaper accounts of the time. The Louisiana of the early twentieth century was one of frontier justice and frequent lynchings.
Ed's mother Rachel was first married at the age of twelve and was her son's staunchest defender. She begged the governor to spare Ed's life to no avail.
The gallows were built outside of the condemned man's jail cell. The rope was placed around his neck in an incorrect manner and failed to break his neck. Death by strangulation took about twenty minutes.
It turns out that the "good old days" were not so good at all; at least for some.
Ed was a transient laborer who worked for the Earll family as a farmhand in 1902 when they were slaughtered. The supposed motive was to steal some livestock and sell them. Batson pointed out that he was often left to care for the animals and could easily have sold them without the need for murder. The only criminal record for the twenty-two year-old man was for public drunkenness.
The trial transcript was lost in a fire and so the material used here is from newspaper accounts of the time. The Louisiana of the early twentieth century was one of frontier justice and frequent lynchings.
Ed's mother Rachel was first married at the age of twelve and was her son's staunchest defender. She begged the governor to spare Ed's life to no avail.
The gallows were built outside of the condemned man's jail cell. The rope was placed around his neck in an incorrect manner and failed to break his neck. Death by strangulation took about twenty minutes.
It turns out that the "good old days" were not so good at all; at least for some.
January 21, 2015
This is a true story of the case of Albert Edwin Batson who was hanged for killing a family of six in the early 1900s Louisiana. The book is from an academic press and as such does not read like a story as many of the true crime books I usually read. I found the book a bit hard to read at first, very much like a newspaper. It is full of direct quotes from the newspapers and the author's narrative between is journalistic in style too. However, once the mother comes on the scene things become much more interesting and I got quite involved having a hard time putting it down. It is a very interesting case and shows a very early example of "trial by media". The book relates the case and the two trials through the newspapers of the time as a transcript was not taken. Batson was found guilty twice and hanged for the crime but maintained his innocence throughout. There are many, many troubling things about the nonexistent police inquiry and the following trials. The first was acquitted on a technicality. Batson was the only suspect considered, witnesses were few and unreliable, all evidence was circumstantial and the jury was rigged in favour of capital punishment, a "hanging jury". We will never know if he was guilty or not, but reading the book clearly shows that life imprisonment was an option for sentencing and was in fact recommended by the governor's board at the last stages only to fall on deaf ears. If Batson had spent his life in prison would his determined mother and supporters have had the time to find real evidence of the true perpetrator?
March 22, 2015
I received a kindle copy of Until You Are Dead, Dead, Dead: The Hanging of Albert Edwin Batson by Jim Bradshaw (Author), Danielle Miller (Author) from NetGalley for fair review. I gave it almost four stars.
This is the story of the trial of Albert Edwin Batson & his subsequent hanging for the murder of six members of the Earll family in the early 1900's. His mother was a staunch believer in his innocence.
Perhaps hanging him was an irretrievable mistake. We will never know.
To purchase link: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1628...
This is the story of the trial of Albert Edwin Batson & his subsequent hanging for the murder of six members of the Earll family in the early 1900's. His mother was a staunch believer in his innocence.
Perhaps hanging him was an irretrievable mistake. We will never know.
To purchase link: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1628...
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews