Primer for Lynchers

Mobbery brewed in Jackson, Ky., after Chester Rugate, tenant farmer, had murdered prosperous, farm-owning Lawyer Clay Watkins, his landlord. At 2 o'clock Christmas morning lynchers broke into the county jail, roped the jailer to his bed, with his keys opened Fugate's cell. Accompanied by scores of assistant assailants they rode Fugate out of town, black-jacked him, trampled on him, drilled his body with 13 bullet holes, pitched him over a 20-ft. embankment.

Next morning a farmer, setting out early to gather fodder, found Fugate sprawled in a bed of bloody snow, still alive. At the hospital, Fugate, his armbone shattered, raised his right forefinger to swear to the identity of six of his assailants. The six, all kinsmen of murdered Lawyer Watkins, voluntarily surrendered. Only then did the lynched man die, making murderers of indiscreet lynchers who had broken Lynching Rule No. 1: "Do not leave your man until you are absolutely sure he is finished."

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