Post by natalie on Dec 2, 2015 16:09:56 GMT -5
A Christmas Family Tragedy
Cheryl Eddy, Gizmodo, December 1, 2015
This time of year nothing goes better with too much eggnog than grim tales of murder and on Christmas Day 1929, an entire family was slaughtered in Germanton, North Carolina. It was a crime as methodical as it was horrifying ... and baffling.
The victims included six of Charlie Lawson’s seven children (an eighth child had died years earlier of pneumonia) and Fanny, his wife of almost 20 years. The youngest, Mary Lou (seen in Fanny’s arms in the portrait above – the photograph was taken shortly before the murders), was just 4-months-old. The eldest son, James Arthur, 16, survived because he had been sent on an errand that fateful afternoon.
The errand was an strange one: Arthur (nicknamed “Buck”) and his cousin trudged through the snow into Germanton to buy shotgun shells. When Buck returned, he found his family dead. His mother, sisters Marie (17), Carrie (12), Maybell (7) and baby Mary Lou and brothers James (4) and Raymond (2), all slaughtered by the family patriarch. They’d been picked off one by one and Charlie had apparently chased down Carrie and Maybell as they fled in terror.
Some had been killed by gunshot, others were bludgeoned some died of a combination of the two. The bodies were either in the family’s small house or the adjacent tobacco barn. According to some accounts, Charlie had placed stones over the eyes of his family members so he would have to see their dead stares.
The only Lawson family member missing from the scene was the culprit, Charlie, who had gone into the woods to shoot himself after he had committed his terrible deed. The shot was said to have been overheard by law enforcement officers investigating the crime scene. According to local legend, there were pace footprints where the body fell, indicating the man had nervously walked in circles before finally pulling the trigger.
‘Crazy Farmer Kills Wife, 6 Children’ announced no less an authority than the New York Times the following day. Rural Stokes County had made the big time for all the wrong reasons. After the initial shock people began asking one question: Why? At first, there was no apparent motive. The Lawsons weren’t rich, but they weren’t having any particular financial struggles and Charlie Lawson wasn’t known to have extreme religious beliefs, nor had he exhibited odd behavior. In fact, he was well-respected in the community.
Two theories eventually emerged: The first was that Charlie had a medical condition that affected his mind and he just snapped. Perhaps he had knocked a screw loose after suffering a head injury while digging a ditch on the farm. Or, as some claimed, he had some kind of “painful growth” on his chest that had him in constant agony and had decided to end it all and take his family with him.
The second theory was far more salacious: There were rumors that Charlie had impregnated his teenage daughter, Marie, and killed his family to prevent the incestuous scandal from becoming known. But the truth, which Charlie took to his grave, will never be known.
The killing attracted so much attention that an estimated 5,000 curiosity-seekers attended the Lawson family funeral. They were all buried in a single plot in the private Browder Family Cemetery just outside Germanton.
In the aftermath of the murders, the Lawson farm became a tourist attraction. Extended family members who lived in the area started charging admission for tours of the property. Though the home was later demolished, the area still has enough spooky history to have inspired ghost stories about the spirits of the Lawson children and their murderous father.
Unbelievably, the tragedy of the Lawson family didn’t end in 1929. In 1945, James Arthur Lawson, the only child to survive the Christmas Day bloodshed, died at the age of 31 in a truck accident in Walnut Cove, N.C., near Germanton. He joined his family in the Browder Cemetery, leaving four children of his own.
If this chilling holiday story sounds custom-made for a murder ballad – well, several artists over the years have drawn inspiration from the tragedy. The documentary, A Christmas Family Tragedy, was released in 2006, but probably the best-known homage is a song by the famed bluegrass due, The Stanley Brothers:
“The Story of the Lawson Family”
It was long last Christmas evening
The snow was on the ground
At his home in North Carolina
The murderer, he was found
His name was Charlie Lawson
And he had a loving wife
But they never knew what caused him
To take his family’s life
They say he killed his wife at first
While the little one did cry
Please papa won’t you spare us
How it is so hard to die
But the raging man could not be stopped
He would not heed their call
He kept on firing fatal shots
And there he killed them off
They say he killed his wife at first
While the little ones did cry
Please papa won't you spare us
How it is so hard to die
They did not carry him to jail
No lawyers would be paid
They’ll have his trial in another land
On the final judgement day
They all were all buried in a crowded grave
While the angels watched from above
Come home, come home my little ones
To the land of peace and God
And ... farewell ...
I’ll see you there no more
But when we meet in another land
Our trouble will be gone.