New Twist

Unlike most lynch mobs, the men who beat and killed Negro Willie Earle (TIME, Feb. 24) were not hard to unmask. Most of them wore cab drivers' caps; several of their automobiles were taxis. They were almost surely from Greenville, where Willie Earle had been arrested after the murder of a cab driver ten days ago.

Starting from there, police and the FBI moved fast. Two clues turned up: I) the burnt stock of a shotgun, jammed in the flue of a Yellow Cab office in Greenville; 2) blood-stained seat cushions from a taxi. Drivers were rounded up, began to talk, implicated still more.

By this week 26 had admitted participation in the lynching, 31 were charged with a blanket warrant for murder. Taking no chances, Greenville's sheriff clapped 30 of them into jail, kept a cell ready for the 31st. Bail was set at $2,500. Among the 31, but not yet identified, police were sure they had the actual trigger man.

It was a new twist to an old crime. South Carolina--and the rest of the U.S. --would watch with interest to see what, if anything, happened next.

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