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Overview
Ax assault, kidnapping, brutal murder: how could these things happen in a small town? Although regional crimes hardly ever make it to the national circuit, they will always remain with the families and communities of the victims and a part of the area's history. After working with the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division as special agent/forensic photographer for twenty-four years, Rita Shuler has a passion for remembering the victims. In Small-town Slayings, Shuler takes us back in time, showing differences and similarities of crime solving in the past and present and some surprising twists of court proceedings, verdicts and sentences. From an unsolved case that has haunted her for thirty years to a cold case that was solved after fifteen years by advanced DNA technology, Shuler blends her own memories with extensive research, resulting in a fast-paced, factual and fascinating look at crime in South Carolina.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781596295582 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Arcadia Publishing SC |
| Publication date: | 02/02/2009 |
| Series: | True Crime |
| Pages: | 160 |
| Sales rank: | 1,112,709 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.60(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
AX ASSAULT AND MURDER OF THE STROMANS
Orangeburg, South Carolina, 1955
The Edisto River, the longest "blackwater" river in the world, runs peacefully along the edge of Orangeburg, South Carolina, winding its way down to South Carolina's coastal waters. In this "simply Southern" town, Sunday mornings are normally pretty quiet. Most residents are getting ready for church and planning what they will have for Sunday dinner.
February 27, 1955, wasn't one of those Sundays. Shocking news of what investigators would later term one of the most brutal murders and assaults in Orangeburg history spread quickly through the town and neighboring communities. Mrs. Mary Lee Stroman, seventy-five years old, was murdered, and her husband, Mr. William P. Stroman, seventy-eight years old and a veteran of the Spanish-American War, was seriously wounded. Mr. Stroman had only one leg and walked with a cane. Saturday night, February 26, 1955, as the Stromans sat quietly in their den watching television, an intruder entered their home and brutally assaulted them with an ax.
Before moving to Orangeburg, the Stromans had owned and lived on Wampee Plantation in Eutawville, South Carolina. Mrs. Stroman was born at Wampee Plantation and had inherited Wampee from her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Watts (Caroline Breeland) Bannister.
The Stromans' faithful maid of thirty years, Mrs. Patsy Brinkley, was with them during their years at Wampee. When the Stromans retired, they sold Wampee Plantation and moved to Orangeburg, thirty-five miles away. Mrs. Brinkley moved with them. She resided in a garage apartment about one hundred yards behind the Stromans' Colonial-style home in a fashionable section of Orangeburg at 1017 Boulevard Northeast.
Every morning, Mrs. Brinkley, who was sixty-five years old and only had one leg, would go to the Stromans' and prepare breakfast for them and herself. On Sunday morning, February 27, about 7:30 a.m., as she was walking to the house, she saw the Stromans' little dog Bilbo outside and thought it strange because Bilbo seldom left the house without them. She walked through the porch at the back of the house to the rear door that opened into the kitchen. She only had a key to this door and carried it on a ring along with her apartment key. She always locked the kitchen door when she left in the evening. This morning she found the kitchen door unlocked. She knew that the Stromans always locked all the doors before going to bed at night. She thought this was also strange, but shrugged it off and walked into the kitchen as usual and started coffee. She put her meat on to cook and started mixing the batter cakes she would cook for breakfast. The Stromans did not open up the rest of the house, which she called "the big house," until they got up. As Mrs. Brinkley continued preparing breakfast, she heard a moan. She jerked and thought, "That sounds like Mr. Stroman. I wonder if he is sick." Then she heard Mr. Stroman call to her and went to find him. The door to the "big house" was open, too. Now she began to worry. She went through the dining area and down the hallway into the den. She found Mr. Stroman severely beaten and lying in a pool of blood on the floor near his wife's rocking chair. In the rocking chair lay Mrs. Stroman, beaten, bloody and not breathing. Shaking and scared, Mrs. Brinkley called the police.
When the police arrived at the home, they immediately called for an ambulance. Mr. Stroman was rushed to Orangeburg Regional Hospital, which was only minutes away.
Mrs. Brinkley told officers,
After I heard him call me, I went to the den and see him there on the floor. He say, "Call Marjorie." I said, "Please, sir, give me Miss Marjorie's phone number." He says, "Well I can't remember the phone number." I said, "Well I ain't know the phone number." He said, "Well call the police station." I said, "Well give me the police station number." I started crying and hollered, "What is the matter with you, anyhow?" That's when I looked for the police number and called you.
The officers asked Mrs. Brinkley if Mr. Stroman had been able to tell her who attacked them.
"I said, 'Who do you like that?' He say, 'I all beat up and Mary Lee is dead.' I said, 'Well, who do you like that.' And he said, 'A nigger did it, and he had an ax. He didn't tell me what he do with the ax, just tell me he had an ax.'"
The officer asked, "He said it was a nigger. Did he tell you who the nigger was?"
"No, he never say who he is."
Officers from the Orangeburg County Sheriff 's Office and the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) joined in to assist with the investigation. They believed that the intruder had entered the home with robbery in mind because Mr. Stroman's pocketbook was missing and bureau drawers in two upstairs bedrooms had been rummaged through. He had also attempted to break into a safe in a closet near the den. The dial was broken and the door was smashed several times, most probably with the bloodstained ax that was found leaning next to the safe. In all probability this was the same ax that was used to beat Mr. Stroman and kill Mrs. Stroman. Mr. Stroman's cane lay in his chair and a bloodstained newspaper lay at the foot of his chair. They also believed that Bilbo was in the room at the time of the attack because blood was found on his collar.
Neighbors were questioned, but none of them heard any noise or disturbance in the area Saturday evening.
A motorist who was driving along Boulevard that Saturday night about 11:00 p.m. had contacted the police and informed them that he saw a Negro man stumble from the lawn in front of the Stromans' home. He said he almost hit him with his car but simply thought the man was drunk until he learned of the attack on the Stromans.
Officers talked more with Mrs. Brinkley and asked if she had heard or seen anything out of the ordinary Saturday evening. She responded,
I didn't hear anything, but I had gone to bed around ten-thirty. Earlier that Saturday night, about seven o'clock, my grandson, Junior had come to see me and stayed about ten minutes. He worked in Columbia as a Coca-Cola drink truck helper, and he wanted some money to go back to Columbia that night on the eleven o'clock bus. I told him I did not have no money. He said he was going to borrow some from one of his friends to get back to Columbia. I tell him well, to go ahead and do so and when he needed to pay it back, I'll pay it myself. Then he left. He had come to see me on the Thursday and Friday nights before, too, and had spent both nights with me.
She told officers that Junior's name was Samuel Wright Jr. and he had grown up at Wampee. She raised him after his mama died soon after he was born. He worked sometimes as a yard boy for the Stromans after they moved to Orangeburg.
Sunday morning, February 27, about 8:00 a.m., Dr. V.W. Brabham was making his rounds at Orangeburg Hospital. One of the nurse's aides went up to him and asked if he had heard about Mr. and Mrs. Stroman. He said, "No." She said, "Mrs. Stroman was murdered last night and Mr. Stroman is in the emergency room right now." Mr. Stroman was a patient of Dr. Brabham's and the doctor knew the Stroman family well, so he went to the emergency room to check on him. He found Mr. Stroman to be in a somewhat shocked and dazed state but not unconscious. Dr. Brabham observed two wounds above his right ear. One was about two and a half inches long and the other was a jagged, shorter wound. His face was still covered with old, dried blood.
Officers asked Dr. Brabham to view Mrs. Stroman's body, which was in the ambulance parked in the yard at the Thompson Funeral Home in Orangeburg. He finished his rounds at the hospital and went to the funeral home.
While still in the emergency room, Mr. Stroman asked the nurse to call another one of his doctors, Dr. W.O. Whetsell. He arrived and checked on Mr. Stroman's wounds also. Even in his weakened and dazed state, Mr. Stroman talked to Dr. Whetsell about what had happened to him and Mrs. Stroman. Officers also asked Dr. Whetsell to view the deceased Mrs. Stroman.
On Monday morning, Mr. Stroman was ready to talk to officers from his hospital bed and gave his account of what had happened that night. He and his wife were in their den about 10:00 or 11:00 p.m., Saturday night, February 26, watching TV. A Negro man came into the room holding an ax. He attacked Mrs. Stroman, sitting in her chair, and killed her before she could get out of her chair. He struck Mr. Stroman in his chair, knocking him unconscious. He fell to the floor near his wife's chair. He regained consciousness later on that night and crawled about twenty feet into the hall, trying to get to the telephone to call for help. He was so weak from losing so much blood that he could not make it to the phone. He crawled back into the den next to his wife's body, still in her chair. There he stayed until Mrs. Brinkley found him Sunday morning.
Lieutenant Harry Hall asked Mr. Stroman if he knew who the Negro man was who had attacked him and his wife. "Yes, it was Junior. Junior did it."
With Mrs. Brinkley's information about her grandson and hearing Mr. Stroman identify his attacker, investigators immediately focused on twenty-year-old Samuel "Junior" Wright Jr. They checked for any previous records on Wright. In January 1955, he had been questioned in connection with a string of robberies in Columbia but was released. On February 14, 1955, he was charged with disorderly conduct in Columbia and fined $25.50 or thirty days in jail by the judge in the city Recorder's Court. He paid the fine. The following week in Columbia he was put in a police lineup for liquor store and dry cleaning robberies, but none of the six was identified for the robberies.
Police also remembered an incident that the Stromans had with Wright in 1953 after he broke his grandmother's door down to get into her apartment. He was fined seventeen dollars for disturbing the peace and ordered not to go back on the grounds. As far as officers knew, he had not been back to the Stromans' until this past week.
An alert was issued for Wright. City and county officers looked for him in the Orangeburg area while SLED agents and Columbia Police sought him in the Columbia area.
On Monday, February 28, Police Chief Salley received information that Wright, a native of Eutawville, South Carolina, was in the Eutawville area. His father and aunt lived in Eutawville. Chief Deputy B.N. Collins and City Detective Harold Hall went to Eutawville to look for Wright. Before arriving in the town, they were radioed that Wright had turned himself in to Magistrate J.U. Watts Sr. in Eutawville about 7:00 p.m., and Deputy P.T. Lancaster had picked Wright up and was transporting him to the Orangeburg County Sheriff 's Office.
About 9:00 p.m. at the Orangeburg City Jail, Wright was questioned by Police Chief Salley, Sheriff Reed, Lieutenant Hall, SLED Assistant Chief J.P. Strom and Lieutenant Dollard, investigator with SLED. Several other officers were present in the room. Wright told officers, "I got to thinking when I went to visit my aunt in Eutawville on Monday and she wouldn't let me in her house 'cause she heard the police was looking for me. She say the best thing would be for me to turn myself in, so I did only 'cause I knew I was being sought and felt like it was the right thing to do."
Lieutenant Hall said to Wright, "Sammie, we want you to tell us how long you have been down this way and everything about what you've been doing."
Wright replied, "I been down here since last Tuesday looking for a job. I went to the Coca-Cola plant, the bakery, the U.S. Plywood and the employment office in Orangeburg and couldn't find no work."
"What did you do Saturday night?"
"I was at the bus station, then I went to my grandmamma's for a little bit and left and went to the White Tower and Five Points, and then to Middleton's Piccalo Joint."
"Why did you go to Mr. Stroman's house?"
"I ain't been at Mr. Stroman's house. I been at my peoples."
"Where was that?"
"In Eutawville."
"You remember buying a fish sandwich and a beer at Antley Lockhart's place and telling him you had plenty of money?"
"No. I ain't had no money to spend. I drank some whiskey, but I didn't buy it."
"What kind of whiskey was it?"
"Bootleg."
"Did you go to your grandmamma's when you left there?"
"I ended up there after I rode around drinking with some fellers."
"What did you do while you were at your grandmamma's?"
"We sat there and looked at television."
"When you left her house where did you go?"
"I met a boy named Jo Jr. at Five Points, and we met some other boys at Big John's Place and rode around."
Assistant Chief Strom moved in close to Wright and said, "Boy, you've been lying to us. We know what you did Saturday night and we know you're sorry about what you did, so get it off your chest and tell us the whole story."
"I ain't killed nobody. I ain't sorry 'cause I ain't done nothing. The only thing I'm sorry about is being up here."
"Sammie, you've got your poor old grandmamma on the spot. All she's done for you, I know you don't want to get her in trouble, so tell us the truth for her sake if nothing else."
"I done told you all I know."
"What did your people in Eutawville tell you when you got down there?"
"They said Mrs. Mary Lee was dead and Mr. Bill was in the hospital ... that they got hit with a ax."
"Sammie, you might as well tell us all about it now. You've lied too much and it won't help you. Get it off your chest and tell us the truth. It will make you feel better inside. Now who was with you?" Wright downed his head and said, "I done it by myself."
After over an hour of intensive questioning, Wright confessed and gave the following oral statement. Wright stated that he was at the bus station in Orangeburg on Saturday night, February 26, 1955. He said he didn't know exactly what time it was, but it was between eight and nine o'clock.
I walked to my grandmamma's house, which is in the back yard of Mr. Stroman's house. I stayed there for about thirty minutes. I ask her for the money to come to Columbia. She wouldn't give it to me and I decided to get it from Mr. Stroman. I had looked in the window of Mr. Stroman's house when I come through the yard going to my grandmamma's house and saw Mr. Stroman and Mrs. Stroman sitting in their room looking at television. I got the key out of my grandmamma's door and went over to Mr. Stroman's house. I went to the door ... tried to put the key in the door. Mr. Stroman's key was in the door from the inside. I pushed my grandmamma's key in the key hole until I pushed the other key out and it fell on the floor inside the room. I went in. Mr. Stroman was sitting in a rocking chair, and Mrs. Stroman was sitting in a rocking chair looking at television. I hit Mr. Stroman with a ax. I don't remember how many times. Then I hit Mrs. Stroman. I got Mr. Stroman's pocketbook out of his pocket. I went outside, turned around and come back in the house, cut the television off and went upstairs. I pulled out some drawers and looked around upstairs, looking for money. I got some bananas and some pennies. I come back down stairs, took the ax and hit the combination of the safe twice. The safe was under the stairs. I started to put the ax back under the shed where I had got it, but I saw blood on the handle and decided not to do that. I don't remember whether I left the ax in the room or on the porch. I thought I had killed both of them. I opened the pocketbook ... got around thirty or forty-five dollars out of it. I got ten dollars out of the back of it. I went cross by the over head bridge on the by-pass from Columbia to Charleston. I threw the pocketbook over in some bushes over there. There was some papers in the pocketbook, and I wadded them up and threw them down. I can show you where I threw the pocketbook. I did this by myself; no one else had anything to do with it.
This statement was made in the presence of Assistant Chief J.P. Strom and Lieutenant J.L. Dollard of the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, Sheriff George Reed and Deputy Sheriff B.N. Collins of the Orangeburg Sheriff 's Office, and Chief T.E. Salley, Chief of Detectives Harold Hall, Detective Kemmerlin and Mr. Dantzler of Orangeburg, S.C.
(Copy from SLED Case File 55-35)
Following his confession, Wright took officers to a vacant lot about seven-tenths of a mile from the Stroman home near the Highway 601 bypass. There, officers found the pocketbook and the wadded-up papers from the pocketbook.
Wright told officers that when he left the Stromans' house the second time he walked down the driveway and across the yard to the corner of Ellis Avenue and Boulevard. He said he couldn't remember everything he did after that, but he knew that he had spent Saturday night with some people he didn't know and all day Sunday he was drunk. He spent Sunday night in a field near Orangeburg and then "thumbed" to Eutawville on Monday.
Lieutenant Hall asked Wright if Mr. and Mrs. Stroman had said anything to him when he was in the house.
"Yeah, he said, 'Yeah, nigger.' He always called me, nigger."
Later that night Wright was transported to the state penitentiary in Columbia. The next morning Wright was taken to SLED Headquarters in Columbia and repeated his confession, which was taken in shorthand by a stenographer. It was typed in duplicate and signed by Wright in the presence of a notary public and in the presence of an Orangeburg County deputy sheriff, a city police officer and two state officers, all of whom signed as witnesses. Wright also signed an appended certificate that he had read the statement and was given a copy.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Small-town slayings in South Carolina"
by .
Copyright © 2009 Rita Y. Shuler.
Excerpted by permission of The History Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements,
From the Author,
Ax Assault and Murder of the Stromans, Orangeburg, South Carolina, 1955,
Mysterious Disappearance and Death of Amos Bowers, Eutawville, South Carolina, 1955,
Kidnapping and Murder of Nancy Linett Amaker, St. Matthews, South Carolina, 1974,
Murder of Joyce Robinson, Sumter, South Carolina, 1989,
Unsolved Murder of Gwendolyn Elaine Fogle, Walterboro, South Carolina, 1978,
Bibliography,
About the Author,