I found the following verdict, issued by the Tenn. Supreme Court in 1841, against my relative. Thought the list members might like to see it, too. Does anyone know who William Cottart was? Zebediah Payne was a son of Poindexter Payne, who came to Franklin County from Virginia by way of Georgia. Paynes Cove, where they all lived, is now in Grundy County near Pelham. Chuck Sherrill Zebediah Payne, you have been found guilty of the murder of William Cottart, in the county of Franklin, on the 10th day of June 1840. Your youth, just developing into manly beauty, your apparently ingenuous countenance, and your sensibility are all calculated to excite the sympathies of the court. They would seem to indicate that you are destined for better things. Unfortunately for you, and for the country, early discipline was wanting, by which to restrain the luxurious passions of youth. Your dissolute habits required the expenditure of money, and you were reckless enough to resolve upon obtaining it at any cost. With this in view, you joined yourself to the deceased as a travelling companion. You found he had money and determined to take his life and make the treasure your own. While journeying together you set upon your unsuspecting companion with the ferocity of a beast of prey, and with your knife mangled his jaw, and finally succeeded in cutting his throat, so that he died. In the wilds of Texas, where you supposed a murderer could find a refuge, you hid. But justice overtook you. You were apprehended there and brought back for trial, and you have been found guilty. The court finds no error in that verdict. Your crime is of the deepest dye. Your victim was a youth like yourself. One would have thought that your natural feelings of humanity would have rebelled against the horrid temptation, and withheld your hand. Instead, the most deliberate and cold blooded purpose was manifested, and it was instigated by the cursed lust for money. The judgement of the law is that you must die. Soon you will appear before a tribunal where falsehood cannot avail and where justice cannot be eluded. Let penitence and faith prepare you for that last awful trial; for enormous as is your guilt, it does not exceed the mercies of God. You shall be taken to the gallows on Friday morning next and there, in public, hung by the neck until you are dead. And may God have mercy on your soul.