Mamie Thurman and her connection to two Logan cemeteries

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By Dwight Williamson

Photo of Dwight Williamson, authorWith Halloween just a few days away, I thought it an appropriate time to write about the coincidence of two abandoned cemeteries. Both should be of significance in Logan County history because they contain the dusty remains of some of the most important people that ever existed in the establishment of the village of Logan and transforming it into a bustling city that once was referred to as the “real” capitol of West Virginia.

Henry Clay Ragland and John Cary Alderson are two names which every school student in Logan County should be familiar with because, quite frankly, all of Logan County would be a much different place if not for their efforts. Ragland, who is buried at the City Cemetery on High Street in Logan, and Alderson, whose grave can be found in Logan Memorial Park at McConnell, were instrumental in the formation of getting the railroad to Logan, creating the first bank in the county, and served in other capacities, as both were attorneys. Ragland was essential in forming what is today The Logan Banner and in writing the History of Logan County.

Now, as important as these two gentlemen are in local history and as neglected as the two above mentioned cemeteries are, there is one Loganite whose name most local students will identify with, and whose name can be tied to both the Logan and McConnell cemeteries – MAMIE THURMAN.

I will connect Mamie to the two cemeteries a bit later, but for now a summary of the evidence shall be presented and some facts about the murder case that I have never revealed will be allowed out of their respective coffins, so to speak.

For instance, Mamie and her husband Jack Thurman lived in a two-room apartment located over a garage owned by Mr. and Mrs. Harry Robertson, whose brick home sat where the Logan Bank and Trust drive-through is now located on Stratton Street. There were two houses built exactly alike that stood side by side where the bank is. The Robertsons lived in one of those houses, both of which were considered homes for the more affluent.

What has never been revealed before is who built those houses. So, before diving into the gruesome murder itself, I feel obligated to add fuel to a long-burning mystery by informing you that the person who is credited with building the homes was known around town as an alcoholic contractor whose name was George A. Morrison. Some loyal Mamie Thurman readers may recall that it was George Morrison, the half-brother of Mamie, who first came to Logan County in 1985 in search of his sister’s grave. Morrison, who was a retired prosecuting attorney from Albuquerque, New Mexico, said he wanted to place a headstone at her gravesite. He would die having never succeeded in doing so, or even locating her unmarked grave.

Mr. Morrison, who said he only found out that Mamie was his sister three years earlier, also was in Logan seeking information about his father, who he said was thought to be buried somewhere in Logan. Like that of his sister, Morrison never located his father’s grave either.

I interviewed Morrison several times and spoke with him later via telephone after he returned to New Mexico. There were many theories derived and a few people offered anonymous information, some of which was likely valid, while some probably was not. As for myself, I have never ceased with the investigation.

“I’m not really trying to solve a murder,” Morrison explained to me during one early interview, “although I wouldn’t mind knowing. An awful lot of facts have been obscured. Frankly, I think the guy (Clarence Stephenson) took the rap for some other people.”

Morrison brought his own camera man with him and recorded several interviews with people in regard to Mamie Thurman, and I took him to Trace Mountain, which we all now refer to as 22 Mountain because of the No. 22 mine that once operated there. It was on this mountain June 22, 1932, that some boys who were said to be blackberry picking found Mamie’s body, which was said to be several feet over the hill from the public roadway.

Mamie, who had previously worked with her landlord and secret lover Harry Robertson at what was the old Guyan Valley Bank before it folded during the Great Depression, had been shot twice in the head. One bullet entered near the left ear lobe ranging upward and coming out on the right side of the head; the other entered the left forehead extending toward the back of the heads horizontally, the bullet coming out at the rear of her head, according to medical testimony.

Of special interest is the fact that her throat had been slashed by a “smooth” cut, severing the jugular vein, and her neck was broken. In addition, Mamie was found to have a black eye and minor scratches at different places about the body.

Testimony showed that by reason of powder burns caused from the gunshot wounds or the slashed throat, death would have been almost immediate. Oddly, according to testimony by embalmer Bruce Harris of Harris Funeral Home of Logan – known today as Honaker Funeral Home – there was very little blood remaining in the body of the deceased.

Mamie’s hat was found about 50 feet below her body with a bullet hole in it, believed to be caused by a .38 caliber pistol, and one of her shoes was found about four or five feet above the body, which was no doubt just tossed over the hillside. Her pocketbook was found near the body and it contained “eight or ten dollars,” part of a package of Lucky Strike cigarettes and some other articles. Two diamond rings and a wrist watch belonging to Mamie were found on the body, thus ruling out robbery as a motive for the ghastly crime.

A study of local history, even predating the Hatfield-McCoy Feud, tells of many murders that were committed throughout Logan County, which then included what is today Mingo County. Although many such killings – including former Logan sheriff Don Chafin’s cold-blooded slaying of a young man for just passing him in an automobile, or the assassination of a Logan police chief, or the murder of Ann Lawson by two of her own slaves – are all of historical significance, it is the savage killing of Logan’s now most infamous woman that has aroused the most interest for those people who care about local history.

Without divulging all of the information accumulated about the murder of a woman who was a “lover” of at least 16 so-called businessmen of Logan County, I will provide a few facts that make Mamie’s story just a little more interesting than what it already has been for all of these years.

First, Mamie’s father, as her brother said, did die in Logan. According to his death certificate, George A. Morrison, whose occupation is listed as a carpenter, died at the age of 50 on Feb. 6, 1928, of pneumonia. Morrison was said to have fallen into a ditch on Cole Street of Logan in a drunken stupor and was not found until the following day. The death certificate says he was buried in Logan at the “Aracoma” cemetery. Since Logan was once named Aracoma, it is likely that Mamie’s father was buried at the High Street location often referred to as the City Cemetery. However, if this is true, he does not have a headstone indicating his final resting place in that abandoned cemetery, and no other local cemeteries have been found with his name on any marker or tombstone.

Jack Thurman, who was hired as a Logan policeman only after Harry Robertson, who was a member of what today is called the Logan City Council, insisted that another officer be fired so that Thurman could be employed. Although The Logan Banner questioned the hiring of Thurman as “Harry Robertson’s man,” Thurman was hired, thus displaying the political power that Robertson did yield. The expression, “You can’t have your cake and eat it, too” certainly didn’t apply to Robertson since Thurman’s hiring guaranteed the apartment rent and the police officer’s nightly duties freed up Mamie so she could rendezvous with Robertson, who regularly told his wife that he was coon hunting.

Also of interest is that Jack Thurman, who was 16 years older than Mamie, would less than a year after his wife’s murder, marry a girl from Boone County who was even younger than Mamie, who happened to be 31 at the time of her demise.

So what happened to Jack Thurman and Harry Robertson? Well, for now I will only tell you that Harry, who testified to his many affairs with Mamie and even disclosed that she had a list of at least 16 other men she was having affairs with, wound up working as a timekeeper for J.T. Fish at what was Mansbach Inc., at Mt. Gay, which is now the offices of a local gas company.

Joe Fish, who was an elderly and wealthy friend of mine in 1985, telephoned regularly to convince me to write that Mrs. Robertson was who killed Mamie Thurman. “Harry told me that his wife killed her,” Joe said. In fact, Joe called me so many times with that information that I believed him to be trying to lead me away from figuring out just what did happen. Therefore, I never printed the information, although Mrs. Thurman certainly had reasons to want Mamie killed.

The connection I earlier mentioned between the cemetery in Logan and the one at McConnell is that, not only is it probable that Mamie’s father is buried in Logan, but it was at a house very near the cemetery the night/morning she was killed that she had been seen carrying bed linen to the home occupied by Fannette Jones, who likely rented out rooms to willing customers.

Although Mamie’s brother had died before I received a copy of the complete transcripts and appeal of Clarence Stephenson’s trial for the murder of Mamie Thurman, testimony presented by both the coroner and Jack Thurman says that Mamie Thurman was buried at Logan Memorial Park at McConnell.

I have a complete listing of every plot purchased at the 20-acre cemetery and Mamie or her husband’s name is not listed. So, the question is who donated the plot where Mamie is buried and why didn’t her husband ever place a proper marker at the site?

I will leave you with this Halloween clue. At a leisurely walk from where Mamie’s apartment was located on Main Street, it takes four minutes to reach the Logan County courthouse. From the courthouse to what was the Midelburg Theatre on Dingess Street, where Mamie was also seen walking before her death, it also takes four minutes to get there at a normal pace.

I now must warn you that there is nothing normal about this story. Just remember: four plus four equals eight; and Mamie always loved going to the movies.

If you pay close attention, you just might see her this coming Halloween night.

Dwight Williamson is a former writer for the Logan Banner and a retired magistrate for Logan County.

*Published with the author’s permission.

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