October 1910, my brother Claudius and me and Henry Short and our own nigra was fishing them bayous northwest of the Chatham River mouth-on the chart it's Storter Bay today-and selling our catch to the clam diggers on Pavilion Key. Coming and going along Chatham River, we might pass the Watson Place, and knowing that, Henry Short took his rifle in the boat. Never went without it, and never said what it was for. Nobody asked him questions, neither, we was glad he had it. Weren't nothing but one them old 1873-model Winchester.38s with lever action, but that colored man knew how to work it. He was a fine hunter and a expert shot, I never seen him shy away or lose his head. But one way and another, he just dreaded Mister Watson, he was scared to death of him.
One evening we was selling mullet at Pavilion when who should come in all in a uproar but Jim E. Cannon from Marco and his boy Dana, who was farming vegetables on Chevelier's old place on Possum Key. Folks suspected that Jim Cannon was hunting the Gopher Key treasure that Chevelier was supposed to have left buried. Some said it was the Frenchman's own misered-up money, some said it was Spanish gold that come into the hands of the Calusas back in days of yore. Either way, this treasure was the reason why Mister Watson went and killed Chevelier. By now they was laying everything on Mister Watson, made him responsible for every killing in southwest Florida. If he'd still been in jail up in north Florida, wouldn't of made one bit of difference. There was one I could tell you about but better not, one that was planned and got away with clean, in the knowing that Mister Watson would get blamed for it.
The Cannons was provisioning the clam crews, same way we done. Bananas and guavas was still thick on Possum Key in years the damn bears didn't clean 'em out, and there was two alligator pear trees, and key limes, all put in by the Frenchman. Over the years the garden was kept cleared and the cistern fresh-that's why Injuns always camped there when they come along inside the Islands, north through the salt creeks from Shark River. The house that belonged to Old Chevelier had disappeared after his death-not rightly knowing what become of it, people blamed Richard Hamilton-and someone burned Lige Carey's house down to the ground, probably cause he put a padlock on it. Another house built at the turn of the century by a feller name of Martin, who cleared off there after Tuckers was killed, that one went, too. Plume hunters and moonshiners used Possum Key after Jim Martin moved to Fakahatchee. Probably they got drunk, set things afire.
The Cannons hoed 'em out a real nice garden, but after Watson had come back for good, early 1909, they never cared to stay the night at Possum Key. I like to wake up in the morning, is how Jim explained it. Camped with the clam crews on Pavilion Key and went to and fro up Chatham River on the tides. Jim Cannon Bay is on your chart today.
Going upriver with the tide that morning, it was dark and squally, but the boy seen a pale thing swaying in that raining river, and he yells, Pap, I seen a foot sticking up, right over there! And Old Jim Cannon says, Foot? No, you ain't never! Must been a ol' snag or something! But Dana says, Nosir! I seen a foot! Well, Jim Cannon paid no mind, and they went upriver.
His boy knowed what he had seen, and coming back, he was on the lookout, and pretty soon he's hollering again. Know that eddy two hundred yards or so below the Watson Place, north side the river? You don't? That's where it was.
So Old Man Jim swung the boat in there, seen something unnatural sticking out, kind of white and puffy, and sure enough, a human foot is swaying and trembling in the current. The ebb was so strong curling around it that they had to tie up to it just to stay put. They seen it was a woman's foot, but there weren't nothing to be done, they could not come up with her. That female was heavy as a manatee, and fast to something way deep in the river, and they pretty near capsized trying to boat her.
Looks like she's hung up bad! Jim Cannon hollers. Jim had him the almighty creeps, and the boy was scared and getting scareder. He figured that giant gator that was seen sometimes in Chatham River must be hanging on to her, right down below their boat in that dark water. Staring at the ghosty face mooning around in the dark current, and the hair streaming like gray weed, so old and sad, that little feller bust down in tears. So Jim said to hell with it and let her loose, he come up with some kind of a prayer instead, said, Rest in peace. By the time he had the Amen finished, he had to shake his boy to get some sense back into him, cause Dana was having some kind of a fit, and had got seasick.
Jim said, We'll row back to the Bend and report this here calamity to Mister Watson. But the boy had more sense than the father, always did. He pipes up, No, Pap! I ain't going! Young Dana had heard the stories about Mister Watson, he was scared stiff, and soon as he got done being sick, he commenced to cry again.
So Jim told Dana to hush up so he could think, and he set there and give the situation some more thought. I thought long and I thought hard is what Jim told us. Even saying that, he frowned like anything. Said he had noted from the rough way she was gutted that the woman was not drowned but murdered, and whoever done such a foul deed had nothing to lose by getting rid of witnesses, maybe gutting 'em out and throwing them into the river right alongside her! The more Jim thought, the more frighted he became, and all of a sudden he decided they would go and ask the clam diggers' advice. So the Cannons took off to the clam bar, brought the news.
Early next day some men went up the river with Tant Jenkins, cause Tant was about the only one who wasn't deathly scared of Mister Watson. Tant and them got Hannah floated, hauled her out. Sure enough, that poor big woman, going on three hundred pounds, was gutted out same as you'd gut a bear. She was anchored off with an old flywheel, worm rock, pig iron, and who knows what. But Hannah Smith were a stubborn soul and always was. She had never took no for a answer all her life and didn't aim to start now she was dead. So she bloated up and dragged that pig iron back up off the bottom and used her foot to wigwag the first boat to come along.
Big Hannah had her hog-thief boyfriend still tied to her apron strings, as you might say. Somebody looked down and there he was, he was weighted, too. If things was left to poor old Green, they would probably stayed put on the bottom, but he never had no say about it, she raised him up right along with her.
Nobody wanted to look at 'em, let alone smell 'em-made their eyes water. They dug 'em a pit and buried the pair of 'em across the river and down a little way, thirty-some feet back of the bank on that point where Mister Watson had his other canefield. Maybe someone mumbled a few words and maybe not. Wasn't too many in our section had much practice.
Our colored boys was along to dig the hole, but them two knew much better than to touch her. Every man was boiling mad to see a good woman gutted out like a damn animal. Even Tant didn't make no jokes that day. Once she was covered, the men talked about going up to Watson's place, ask a few questions. But they never went, and he never come down from the house to see what they was up to in his cane patch.
Starting downriver, they come upon Dutchy Melvin in the mangroves. He was swole up and rotted, too, but not so bad they couldn't see the gator bites. They threw a hitch on him and towed him back, laid him right in there alongside them others, practically poured him into Hannah's grave. Tant almost upchucked, and he weren't the only one.
All the way back to Pavilion Key, Tant never spoke, the only time Tant held his tongue in his whole life. Henry Daniels asked what he was thinking, and he said he was thinking about Mister Watson.
You can go down there yet today and see that lonely grave. Looks square and maybe sunk about a foot, with nothing growing, ain't that funny? As if you picked up a old tabletop stuck in the marl. There's three lost souls laying down in there if tides ain't took 'em. You can open up that grave, have a look at Hell.
When we got back from burying Miss Hannah, in come this nigra from the Watson Place, dark husky feller in torn coveralls, pretty good appearance for a nigra. He had took a skiff and got away from Chatham Bend-a desperate act, cause he were a field hand and no boatman. He had wore the skin right off his hands, that's how hard he pulled on them old splintery oars. One minute he was moaning and blubbering so much you couldn't hardly make him out, next minute he was very quiet and his eyes was calm. Henry Smith give him a cuff to make him talk straight, and finally he hollers out how three white folks was dreadful murdered on the Bend.
"We know that!" someone shouts. "Who done it?"
"Yassuh! Mist' Watson's fo'man!"
Tant asked if Mister Watson ordered them three murders. This man said yes. We heard him say it. Said Watson was at Chatham Bend when Cox killed Dutchy.
There come a ugly silence in that crowd, part dread of Watson, part disapprovement of a nigra who would try to get a white man into trouble. Looked like he'd figured out in that burr head of his that we'd go along with any blame he laid on Watson. Well, he might been right. Captain Thad Williams got rough with him then-Are you accusing Mister Watson? And the man stared bug-eyed at the crowd, you know, looked too scared to speak. I believe right to this day he were playing possum. Cap'n Thad advised him to be careful who he went accusing, cause Thad knew them men was all excited, might string him up before their supper if they took a mind to.
Tant Jenkins and his sister Josie, and Aunt Netta Roe who run the post box at the little store-all that whole Jenkins-Daniels bunch that used to live at Chatham Bend and was what you might call kissing kin to Mister Watson-they wanted to put a stop to that darn nigra then and there. And seeing the way the wind was blowing, the nigra switches his whole story, says Nosuh, he sho' mistook hisself! Mist' Watson was done gone to Chokoloskee, never knowed nothin about nothin!
When the nigra was told how that big woman's body had rose up out of Chatham River, he lets out a yell, Oh Lawdamercy! They slap him again, to keep him quiet, because everyone's trying to think what they should do and his nigra racket is getting on their nerves. But in a minute he finds his tongue again and yells about how Mist' Cox done told him he was done for if he didn't shoot into the bodies and lend a hand in the gutting and hauling, and if anyone asked, just blame this mess on Mister Watson.
That nigra had to be so terrified or crazy to tell them men something like that. He'd confessed he had took a part, confessed he'd shot into the body of that white woman and maybe worse. Maybe he was in on it from start to finish-that's the way them men started to talk, that's how upset they was. There come a kind of ugly groan out of that crowd, and one of them Weeks boys started slapping on that nigra, looking for a way to ease his nerves. You shot a white woman, that what you said, boy? Laid your black hands on her?
Going off half-cocked, is what they were. Good thing they wasn't no big limb out on that key or they would of took and strung him up right there.
But if he was guilty, why was he there? Why would he ever say a word? I couldn't believe that man had been so foolish. I caught his yeller eye again, and I shook my head, as if to say, Boy, you have asked for it! And again his gaze give me the feeling that nigra did just what he aimed to do-reckless, yessir, but he weren't no fool.
Papers reported that this here nigra was young and frightened, done nothing but moan and carry on like the Devil was after him. Well, maybe he looked young but he weren't, because I seen him, I seen the little gray along his temples. He acted scared, but back of all that nigra shout was something cunning. It was only after he got Watson suspected that he switched his story, tried to save his life. Next time he looked up, I seen that quiet in him, and he knew I seen it, cause he cast his eyes down. He was more angry than scared is what I seen, and bitter, bitter, bitter.
Henry Short and Erskine Roll-we called him Pat-had eased out of the crowd, not wanting to pay for this feller's mistake. Claude and me walked along with 'em to our boat, case there was trouble, told 'em to go on across, sleep on Little Pavilion, come back pick us up first thing next morning.
By the time we got back to the clammers, the men was angered up and frustrated. They started in to drinking and concluded pretty quick that Watson's nigra would be much better off lynched, just to be on the safe side. Captain Thad was shouting at the crowd that his vessel was the only one could carry 'em safe home from Pavilion Key if a bad storm come down, which sure seemed likely in a day or two, from all the signs. Said any man tried to come aboard to harm that nigra would get left behind.
Captain Thad locked the nigra in his schooner cabin for safekeeping. Later on I went on board and told this black boy to calm down and make sense cause his life depended on it. He was still pretty bad shook up, or played that way, but what scared him most was Cox or Watson finding out what he had told.
Asked his name, he said Little Joe was what Mist' Watson usually called him. Seemed kind of funny, cause he wasn't little by no means. Said that name was as good as any, from which I knew he was a wanted man, most likely, same as all the rest of Watson's people. Said he had knowed Mist' Watson for a good number of years, both here, he said, and there, though he couldn't quite remember where "there" was. Just wouldn't talk straight, everything he said had two-three meanings to it. There was a lot else he knew about Cox and Watson, I could feel it boiling back in there behind his eyes, but all he would tell over and over was his story about the murders at the Bend.
Trouble started, he said, when the Injun hung herself cause Cox had got her in a family way. Figuring her people would kill her and the child, she done it first. I said to him, You had her too, I bet, and he said, Nosuh.
Mister Watson had went to Chokoloskee to see to his family, he took Dutchy with him. The other three was drinking pretty good, that restless weather all that week before the storm had riled up everybody's nerves the way it will, and the nigra in the kitchen fixing supper heard everything they said about the Injun girl that Waller had found hanging in the boat shed. Hannah was upset and she told Cox, The least thing you could do is bury her. Cox said, That squaw ain't my business. Said if Hannah wanted her buried so damn bad, then go bury her herself or let the nigger do it.
"That's me," Little Joe said. Again I seen something in his eye I didn't care for.
"This ain't no joke," I warned.
"Nosuh, it ain't."
Hannah was never one to hold her fire, so she come right out with something about Cox's manlihood he didn't care for, and he called her by some very ugly name. The nigra allowed as how he always liked Miss Hannah, always respected her real good-he said that twice, make sure we heard it-so he dast not repeat the dirty name Mist' Cox called her, but it was that foul word got her old man into it. Green Waller told Cox that was no way to talk to a lady, and Cox said, I ain't talking to no lady, unless you mean this fat lady out of the circus. And Waller said, White trash like you wouldn't know a lady if she come from church to help your mother off the whorehouse floor. And Hannah screeched at her old man to shut his drunken mouth, cause she knew loose talk about Cox's mother was a bad mistake. White trash has their honor, too, and loves their mothers good as anybody.
Cox said, That done it, and hauled out a pistol. Waller was scared but wouldn't quit, so he just cackled. He was crazy with love for that big woman, you know, and showing off for her, letting her know he weren't some drunken hog thief, the way Watson said. He pointed right at his own heart, said, Are you skunk enough to shoot a old man twice your age?
Maybe Old Green had Cox figured for another Dutchy Melvin, dangerous talker with his heart in the right place. Hannah Smith didn't make no such mistake. She's fighting to get up out of her chair, to get between them, she is hollering, Don't pay no attention to that drunk old idjit! Little Joe claimed he come in from the kitchen, said, Nemmine, Mist' Leslie, he just foolin. But Cox had more excuse already than his kind ever needs, and he drew down on Waller. Lined him up real careful, being so drunk, arm wobbling, you know-Sit still, you sonofabitch, is what he told him.
Waller's still cackling, but he seen the muzzle, and that cackle's starting to go high, more like a rooster. His hands are coming up real slow so as not to flare the man behind that pistol, cause it's high time to get serious, the fun is over.
Ever hear a gun go off in a small room? The nigra thought the roof fell in. They all set there a minute in the crash and echo, staring at Waller, and him looking back, kind of puzzled, trying to cackle like it all must be a joke but spitting up a lot of fizz and blood.
"Well, hell," Old Man Green Waller whispered in the echo. He looked kind of sheepish. And them were his last words, though Hannah shook him. The nigra backing up into the kitchen was pretty sure he seen God's light die out in Waller's eyes.
And Hannah whispered, "Oh, dear Jesus, Green, won't you never learn? Oh Christamighty, Green."
Hannah barged out of her chair and waddled to the kitchen, from where there come a howl of purely woe. She screeched at Cox for a yeller-bellied dog, and Cox grabbed up his gun and took out after her, never thought to duck till the split second before he went through the kitchen door. That flinch saved his life, cause Hannah Smith damn near beheaded him. She split the pine frame with her big two-bladed ax, which she always kept behind the kitchen door. She took a bullet in the shoulder, dropped the ax, then headed for the stairs, hunting a weapon, cause she had no chance of escape across the yard.
When Cox picked himself up off the kitchen floor, he pointed his gun at Little Joe, dead furious the nigra had not warned him. Said, Don't you move, boy, I got business with you.
Miss Hannah were so cumbersome that Cox caught up with her at the first landing. He give her room, knowing how strong she was, he stood a step below while they got their breath. Sounded like they was snarling, Little Joe said. Hannah weren't the kind to beg for mercy, and knew she wouldn't get none if she did. So Little Joe claimed he tried again, he said, Mist' Leslie-, and Miss Hannah screeched, Get away while you got the chance, boy, cause he'll kill you!
At the first shot, the nigra run outside, he was past the cistern by the time the shooting ended. He hadn't took no side in the argument, he was just scared that Leslie Cox aimed to murder any witnesses, settle Watson's payroll once and for all. He heard a shout and then some kind of crash. Then Cox was hollering, telling him to get his black ass up the stairs, give him a hand with this here sea sow, that's what he called her.
Cox shot poorly, being drunk, and sure enough, she were bleeding like a sow by the time he finished her. She went close on to three hundred pound, so he couldn't work her carcass down that narrow stair, and he got sniggering so hard with nerves that he fell down the whole flight and hurt his shoulder, which was when he commenced to holler for the nigra.
By now Little Joe was hid back in the mangrove, wouldn't come out when the man hollered, so Cox yells out the window he won't hurt him, he just needs a hand, and if the nigra don't come out, why, he's going in there after him, shoot him in the belly, leave him right there for the gators or panthers or bears or snakes, whichever was hungriest and got to him the first. Had big crocs up them southern rivers, too, least back in them days, but maybe Cox never knew that or forgot to mention it.
The nigra is so scared that his brain quits on him, I guess, cause after a while, he decides he will come out. Watson's skiff is tied up in the mangroves down below the house, but he can't reach that skiff without crossing the clearing. He knows Cox needs him, for a while, at least, and playing along is his one chance to reach that skiff-that's what he told us, and I don't believe a nigra would know how to make that up. So he waits a little for Cox to simmer down, and then he comes out, asking for mercy when Cox raises up the gun. But Cox just marches him into the house, hands him a gun, makes him shoot into both bodies. Says, Now you're in it right along with me.
Only a nigra would know, I reckon, why he never put his bullet into Cox instead. Probably Cox had him covered the whole time, and anyway, shooting a white man just ain't a thing your average nigra thinks to do, leastways back then. And if he shook that day holding a pistol like he shook at Pavilion Key, he wouldn't have hit a lean feller like Cox on the first ten tries.
So then Cox tells him he's successory to the crime, and will hang for murder if he ever breathes one word about it.
Well, they drug poor Hannah down the stairs and out into the yard, got blood on everything. We'll have to gut her out, Cox said, so she don't gas up. They weighted her with pig iron, done the same for Waller, and rolled 'em both into the river, but they don't do nothing with that Injun girl that's hanging in the shed. Cox went right on acting like she wasn't there.
Cox tells the nigra to go mop that blood that's nastying up the house, "get everything tidied up real nice for Miss Edna." Cox is in a high state of excitement, but he has to laugh when he says this, he's putting down a lot of shine. Before Little Joe can find the mop, Cox waves his gun and pushes Waller's glass at him. Don't let's go wasting that good likker, boy! Tells him they're in this thing together so might's well be friendly, tells him to set down and drink with him, try out some of his nigger conversation. Seems like these two knowed each other someplace, but the nigra wouldn't say how come, least not to me.
Not that they talk. They sit there drunk and getting drunker, Cox's gun square on the table. Little Joe's not only scared to be setting at a table with a white man, he's scared that Cox will blow his head off any minute. He is feeling dizzy. Maybe Cox has forgot about the skiff, maybe he aims to take care of his black sidekick soon's he gets his breath. His one chance is that Leslie Cox don't want to be alone there with his dead, knowing he is bound for Hell already. So them two set there getting drunk and looking at flies on the walls while they think over the day's work. Finally Cox informs the nigra that Mister Watson wants Dutchy Melvin dead. Once that is taken care of, Les Cox says, everything is going to be just dandy.
Pretty soon the nigra slips back to the woods and don't come out again till two days later. Cox is wandering around the yard, yelling and cursing. This was October the 13th, a few days before the hurricane. Cox has had no sleep, and his nerves are shaky. He swears he won't hurt Little Joe if Little Joe will tell Mister Watson how Les Cox were not at fault, tell him how them two drunken old fools went after Les for no damned reason-look at that there ax mark on the door!-how they give him no choice but to shoot in self-defense. And if Mister Watson was to ask why they sunk them bodies, why, heck, they done that so nobody wouldn't come snooping around to bother Mister Watson with no stupid questions.
Little Joe was surprised to see Les Cox so skittish. He doubted Mister Watson would believe that story, but he decided he had to go along with it. But when he come out, Cox locked him in the shed, said he wanted him where he could find him in a hurry.
That same evening, that was Thursday, he hears Mister Watson's motor, pop-pop-pop, coming upriver. Cox comes running, turns him loose, warning he'd better do right by their story.
Cox took Waller's shotgun and went over to the boat shed, next to the bunk room where Dutchy slept. He waited there inside the door with that young squaw turning slow in the dusty light behind him, and Hannah and Waller lifting in the river current right where Dutchy and Watson come in at the dock.
Weren't much of a life, but Dutchy Melvin got cut down in the prime of it. Cox shot him dead through the slat on the door, resting the barrel on the door hinge. Young Dutchy, that had been so cocky, took a charge of buckshot square in the face, died on that path kicking like a chicken with the head cut off. He never had no chance to draw his guns.
So Mister Watson don't say nothing, just turns the body over with his boot, takes them two Colts, and gets back in the boat. Cox hollers, Where the hell you going now? and Watson says, Nowhere at all. I haven't been here in the first place.
Little Joe was going back to his first story, and he knew I knew it, but before I could say so, he said, Nosuh. Nosuh! I mistook my self! Mist' Ed Watson dropped Mist' Dutchy on the dock and headed off downriver, never knowed a thing about it, never seen them other bodies neither!
I asked him where Watson was headed, and he didn't know. I asked him why Watson never come on back when he heard the shooting, and he said, "Might be Mist' Watson thought Mist' Leslie was shootin for our supper, back to Watson Prairie."
Fed up with his lying, I hollered at him, How come Cox didn't kill you? Don't that mean you was mixed up in it yourself? He said Mist' Leslie might been spooked by all them bodies and needed somebody to talk to. Might been Mist' Leslie figured niggers didn't count, cause no nigger would dare to tell no stories on no white man. Might been Mist' Leslie had enough killing to do him for a while. All the same, he rowed for his life before Mist' Leslie changed his mind, cause all them dead folks could just as well been him.
All this made some crazy kind of sense, but I weren't satisfied.
I couldn't figure why he took his story to Pavilion Key, and why he hinted he knew Cox for a long time, like they was partners. Why did he own up he shot into them bodies, and laid his black hands on that woman when he helped to gut her and throw her in the river? And why did he cause trouble for himself by trying to get Watson suspected? If he'd said nothing about Watson, just let on that Leslie Cox killed them three people, there weren't one person would have doubted him, not for a minute.
As it was, nobody trusted him, not even me. The way I figure it, any nigra whose mouth done so much damage must be too panicky to make up lies-either that or too damn ornery and stubborn and plain furious not to tell the truth.
Watching him work his story back and forth this way, I realized that this feller just played at being panicky. He changed his story cause he didn't want to die, but first he took his risk and told the truth. Probably knew he was a goner anyway, so he wanted justice done, no matter what.
The day that colored man showed up was October the 14th. Them people must been killed about the tenth. For some days the weather had been restless, with bad squalls and rains. Come out in the paper a week later that the Weather Bureau had issued storm warnings on the thirteenth and changed that to a hurricane south of Cuba the next day. But on the fifteenth, just when the storm seemed all set to come down on us, the Weather Bureau predicted it would sheer off toward the west, through the Yucatan Passage.
Well, us poor fellers in the Islands didn't have no radio, we didn't know the first thing about it. All we knew, we was troubled by the wind, we didn't like the looks of that hard sky. Feeling so sure a storm was coming down, we naturally took what happened at the Watson Place as evil sign, like that light that tore across God's Heaven every night back in the spring. So silent it was, and faraway, like a lonesome thing in the deeps of the black ocean.
Old Beezle Bub, Aunt Josie said, had took the upper hand. She wanted to see the nigra punished for trying to lay it all on Mister Watson, said she'd take care of it herself if a few of them no-good ex-husbands of hers would lend a hand. But when Thad advised he'd take no lynchers on his boat, the men decided they'd see justice done in court. Josie called 'em yeller cowards. She swore she'd never set foot on Thad's boat if it was her last day on this earth, and neither would her new baby boy that she never did deny was Mister Watson's. Well, she'd had some drink, and we let her rant and rave.
By Saturday, all but Josie Jenkins was ready to return to Marco with Captain Thad, go to church, hear Brother Jones on Sunday, see if that done any good. Josie sent off her little Pearl with her latest husband, Albert, went down with her baby on her arm to see 'em off. She swore that she and her little boy would see it through. Asked poor Tant if her own brother would stand by her, and he give us all a comical look, but said he would.
So Captain Thad set sail from Pavilion Key on the sixteenth of October. Fine clear weather with light winds, but a strange purple cast to that blue sky. Us Storters was in our own small sloop, and kept right up with 'em. Hit a squall off Rabbit Key Pass on Sunday afternoon but got Henry Short to Chokoloskee by that evening. Mrs. Watson and family was staying with Walter Aldermans, I heard, but I never seen them. Before we went on home to Everglade, Claude seen Mister Watson at Smallwood's store and told him almost all of the whole story.
MONROE COUNTY ISLAND SCENE OF MURDERS
White Man and Negro Get in Bloody Work Last Week
White Man Still at Large
ESTERO, OCTOBER 20, 1910. A horrible triple murder is reported to have been perpetrated below Chokoloskee, at the place of E.J. Watson of Chatham River. We have very few of the particulars, but we learn that a negro has confessed that he was forced by threats on his life to assist a man named Cox, who shot and killed three persons, two men and a woman, who were working for Watson, and sunk their bodies in the river. The woman's body was discovered floating by a passerby who pushed it under the mangrove to hide it while he went for assistance. Upon returning the body was found to have disappeared, but a trail showed where it had been dragged inland. On following the trail, Cox and the negro were found near the body. The confession of the negro implicates Watson as having engaged Cox to do the deed.