Volks, I received the following from Mary Lou, a member. She ask that I read it and determine if it was appropriate to post. It is a sad story of life that we are all too familiar with. I find it relevent to the List purpose as we deal with SW VA history because genealogy is family history. No one should take offence, the actions of others are no reflection on us. We all have the skeltons and black sheep. I have mine. It is a story of violence against a women so IF YOU ARE VERY SENSATIVE you may choose to not read it. The story is 85 years old and a story like such more recent would not be appropriate. -eddie CANTER Ref: The Bristol Herald Courier, Sunday, 25 Apr 1915 YOUNG MARRIED WOMAN OUTRAGED AND BRUTALLY MURDERED NEAR BRISTOL. Body of Mrs. Maud Wilson found Tied on Floor of Home. Shot with Shotgun under the Left Arm Stabbed Over Right Breast with Knife – Perpetrator of Double Crime Still at Large. Gagged, bound to a bed post and lying in a pool of her own blood, the body of Mrs. Maud Wilson, 22 years of age, was found by her father-in-law, Edward Wilson, at 5 o’clock p.m. yesterday in the bedroom of her home, three miles northeast of Bristol. On the Wallace pike. She had been shot under the left arm with a shotgun and had been stabbed over the right breast, after having been outraged, according to evidence of the crime. She had been dead from 18 to 24 hours. His double crime accomplished, her murderer escaped, and until an early hour this morning was still at large. The crimes are supposed to have been accomplished between the hours of 2 and 4 o’clock p.m. Friday. James Rufus Wilson, the husband of the dead woman, and her half-brother Gilbert Ingall, left the house at 2 o’clock Friday to break up some new land rented by Wilson on Smith’s creek, near his father’s home, 12 miles distant, and were not expected in return until Friday. Mrs. Wilson was supposed, on account of her fear of remaining alone at night, to go at 4 o’clock to the home of Mr. And Mrs. George Owen, neighbors, to spend the night, as was her custom. Not being accustomed to receiving notice of Mrs. Wilson’s coming to spend the night with them, the Owens did not, of course, feel any alarm at her absence. Body Found On his way with a friend, Turl Dickson, to Wallace, where he intended to attend a meeting of the IOOF today, Edward Wilson arrived at his son’s farm, rented of D. M. Kingsolver, of this city, a few minutes before 5 o’clock. Finding the barn and crib unlocked, the two men put up and fed their horses, before visiting the house. Wilson hallowed a greeting on approaching the house, but received no answer and he thought that his daughter-in-law had stepped out for a few minutes at a neighbor’s. Finding the kitchen door unlocked, he opened it and called her name and again upon receiving no reply, he wrote a note and tacked it over the door saying that he had gone to Wallace and would be back Sunday afternoon. With his friend Dickson, Wilson walked around the house, intending to walk to Wallace, when he saw that the windows and front door were open. Yielding to a sudden impulse, Wilson entered the dwelling and in the bed room to the right, he saw the body lying on the floor. The body lay on its right side, the left leg thrown over the right. The skirt had been torn off and was thrown across the woman’s breast. As Wilson approached closer he saw that both arms were tied before the body with strips of cloth and bound to the bed post. The head, turned toward the bed, was wrapped in a red waist, and the mouth was gagged with a red bandana handkerchief. Lifting the skirt from the body he saw the gaping hole under the left arm made by the shotgun and the wound of a knife over the right breast. The face was bloody and the body held in the cold rigidity of death, lay in a pool of blood. Authorities Notified. Horrified, Wilson hurried to the home of Dr. W. H. Teeter, a half mile away, to a telephone to notify Sheriff J. A. Miller, of Washington county, and the Bristol, Virginia, police. Chief of Police S. D. Keller, Policeman J. C. DeArmond and City Sergeant H. L. Baker left here at 7 o’clock. At the Wilson home everything was found as the elder Wilson had found them. While ‘Squire W. E. Phillips was summoning a coroner’s jury for the Inquest, the elder Wilson by telegraph endeavored to locate his son. He was reached by a messenger and did not arrive at his home until 10:30. When the news of the tragedy was broken to the young man, he was overcome with horror and grief. Shotgun Missing An examination of the house disclosed that a Winchester pump shotgun belonging to Wilson had disappeared. It had been loaded and hung over the fireplace in the room adjoining where the crimes were committed. A black shell, the only one of that color among several in the magazine chamber of the gun, was found on the ground under a window of the bed room. The handkerchief with which the woman had been gagged could not be identified, the woman’s husband saying that there were several of that kind in the house. The coroner’s jury announced no conclusions on the murder. The Wilson home is perhaps 100 yards away from the nearest house, and is on the Wallace pike. About 40 yards in front of the home extends the main line of the Norfolk and Western Railway. It would have been comparatively easy for the murderer to have caught a train as it slowed for the crossing near the Wilson home, and made his escape. Sheriff Miller will be assisted by the Bristol Va., police in the case. The tragedy is the first of its kind to occur in Virginia for several years and is said by the police to be one of the most atrocious ever committed in this section of the State. The Wilsons have been tenants on the Kingsolver farm for nearly two years. They had no children. The murdered woman was a daughter of the Rev. Anthony Ingall, of the Methodist Episcopal Church, North.” Tuesday, April 27, 1915, THE BRISTOL HERALD COURIER CANTER BROTHERS HELD FOR KILLING OF MRS. MAUD WILSON LUTHER CANT YIELDS TO MOTHER’S PLEADING AND ADMITS CRIME. Guilty of Another Outrage Last Fall Had Been at Home But Few Days – Jim Canter First Suspected – Taken to Roanoke. His brother, Jim Canter, 18 years old, already arrested, suspected of the murder of Mrs. Maud Wilson, after having outraged her, Luther Canter, 23 years old, evidently thinking that if he made a confession of the crime to two citizens of the neighborhood he could obtain the release of his young brother, for which his mother had been pleading, and that before the citizens could notify the authorities, he himself could make his escape, admitted to Sam P. and W. I, Legard of having killed the young woman between three and five o’clock last Friday afternoon. Upsetting Canter's idea that the authorities would have to be notified before he could be arrested, the Legard brothers took charge of him about three o’clock Sunday afternoon, and in an automobile the two Canters, both farm hands, were driven that night to Marion from where they were taken to Roanoke, where they will be held awaiting the empanelling of a special grand jury. JIM CANTER ARRESTED. Luther Canter had been in the neighborhood only a few days, having fled last September, when he was wanted by the police on the charge of having outraged a Mrs. Annie L. Slagle, on the Stewart farm not three-quarters of a mile from the scene of the Wilson tragedy. Mrs. Slagle died a few months ago of pneumonia. Although Canter’s presence in the neighborhood was known, his coming and going to the home of his parents, on the Legard farm, which adjoins the Wilson place, was kept secret, and very few people in that neighborhood had seen him. On the suspicion engendered by the character the Canter boys bore in that neighborhood and on account of Jim Canter having boasted of being a ‘friend’ of Mrs. Wilson, it was believed that one of them had committed the crime and Jim Canter was summoned as a witness at 1 o’clock Sunday afternoon. He denied any knowledge of the crime, but statements he made concerning his movements were contradictory. A search of the barn on the Canter place revealed a pair of bloodstained overalls which he identified as his own, but could not explain how the bloodstains came on them. In a pocket was found a bloodstained handkerchief similar to the red bandana with which Mrs. Wilson had been gagged. Convinced that Jim Canter either committed the crime or was shielding his brother, he was locked up and Sam P. and W. J. Legard were sent to the Canter home to find the gun with which Mrs. Wilson had been shot and which had been stolen from the Wilson home. In a fence corner, 200 yards from the Canter home, a search in a heap of freshly raked leaves revealed the shotgun. MOTHER PLEADS FOR JIM In the meanwhile, Mrs. John Canter, the mother of the suspected men hearing of Jim’s arrest, had gone to neighbors and pathetically proclaimed the boy’s innocence. Believing all the time that Luther had committed the crime, neighbors advised Mrs. Canter to persuade Luther to confess when he came home and that if he exonerated him the latter would be freed. She knew it was later learned that Luther had committed the crime, because she had asked him what had happened when he came home blood stained Friday night and he told her. Buffeted between her desire to shield Luther and her dread of seeing Jim suffer for a crime she knew he did not commit, the mother was torn with grief, but her love for the youngest son prevailed and she begged Luther to confess. The man who had outraged one woman and had wantonly murdered another yielded to his mother’s pleadings and when Sam Legard and W. J. Legard approached the Canter home after finding the shotgun in the fence corner, they were met by Mrs. Canter who told them to go to Luther and he would make a full confession for Jim’s release. ADMITS GUILT Luther Canter met the Legard brothers in the yard in front of the house. He readily admitted his guilt and showed the Legards where he had hidden the gun. Asked to go to the Legard house to sign a statement, Canter refused. He wanted to make it at home so that Him could be released at once. He showed by his conversation that he did not want Sheriff Miller or any deputies to have a chance to reach him, evidently not thinking that the Legards could arrest him or that they would attempt to do so. When he refused to go away from home, Sam Legard grasped him by the hand and W. J. Legard by the other and took him to the home of Dr. W. H. Teeter. His arrest was kept quiet until just after nightfall when an automobile was secured by Sheriff Miller to take the two men to Abingdon. It was intended to catch train 12 at Abingdon, but the message ordering the train to stop there was delayed and the trip to Marion was made by auto at midnight. MOB VIOLENCE THREATENED All along the pike from Bristol to Wallace and a few miles beyond there was talk of more than a hundred men planning to form to avenge the killing of Mrs. Wilson. It is said that the proposed mob gave up the plan about 1 o’clock, when it was learned that the Canters had been taken away from Abingdon. LUTHER CANTER MAKES CONFESSION OF KILLING Called, He Says, on Friendly Visit When Woman Infuriated Him. (Special to the Herald Courier) Roanoke, Va., April 26. According to a confession made in his cell in the Roanoke jail today, Luther Canter, 23 years old, a Washington county farmer, killed Mrs. Maude Wilson, 22 years old, the wife of a farmer living in Canter’s neighborhood, in her home on the Bristol-Abingdon turnpole three miles north of Bristol, Friday afternoon between 3 and 5 o’clock. Canter used a repeater shotgun which he had found over a doorway in the Wilson home, and fired one charge in the woman’s side just under one of the arms. Canter, In making his confession, No Criminal Intentions. Canter, in making his confession, said he had no criminal intentions against Mrs. Wilson, and killed her in a fit of temper because she screamed out words significant of his having wrong motives, which he thought might get him into trouble. He intended to rush away, after committing the crime, he said, but was deterred when he learned that James Cant, an 18 year old brother, had been arrested for the killing, which turn of events prompted him to give himself up. DESCRIBES KILLING To a reporter Canter, late this afternoon in a cool, unaffected manner, recited how he killed Mrs. Wilson. ‘Before Friday,’ he said, ‘I had not been to the Wilson home for about a year. I had been to Knoxville to see an uncle. I had been helping my uncle at his coal yard. Before that I traveled – in North Caroline – and Tennessee, and spent a little while in Johnson City. When I came back, I thought I would go over to the Wilsons and see them. I used to work for Mr. Wilson off and on and had gone to see Mrs. Wilson two or three times. ‘I went to the Wilson home between 3 and 5 o’clock. When I got to the door and made my presence known, Mrs. Wilson did not appear to be alarmed. She greeted me and asked me where I had been so long.’ At this moment, Canter was interrupted by the reporter. ‘Did you care anything for the woman?’ he was asked. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I liked her.’ ‘Did you love her?’ ‘I reckon I did,’ he replied. ‘Yes, I liked her right well.’ Reverting to the scene that followed his arrival at the Wilson home he said after he had gotten in what was considered the family sitting room, Mrs. Wilson suddenly screamed out words significant of wrong motive on his part. This made him violently angry, he said. ‘When I went to see her,’ he said, ‘I didn’t intend to bother her, I just went to see her because I had been away and wanted to be friendly. When she screamed out these words I got into such a temper that I grabbed her around the body and told her to shut up. She would not do it, so I threw her to the floor and tied the thing around her mouth to keep her from crying out. After I had done this I was still in a violent temper. I was practically desperate when I saw Mr. Wilson’s gun hanging over the door. I stood off I recon about eight feet and fired one shot in her side, and then I left.’ MOB VIOLENCE THREATENED All along the pike from Bristol to Wallace and a few miles beyond there was talk of more than a hundred men planning to form to avenge the killing of Mrs. Wilson. It is said that the proposed mob gave up the plan about 1 o’clock, when it was learned that the Canters had been taken away from Abingdon. Dr. W. H. Teeter, who examined Mrs. Wilson’s body last Saturday, said yesterday that the wound over the right breast of the woman was not stabbed there, but was made when the shot were being picked out of the wound. The funeral services over the body of Mrs. Wilson were performed Sunday and the body was taken to Smith creek for burial in the family burying ground. Mrs. Wilson was the wife of James H. Wilson and her body was found last Saturday afternoon by her father-in-law Edward Wilson. Her husband had gone to clear some land 12 miles away the day before.”