Mamie Thurman’s Brother Asks, ‘Who Killed My Sister?’

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By Dwight Williamson

(Fist In A Series)

George A. Morrison
“Where is Mamie Buried?”

From out of Logan County’s rowdy pas comes the brother of a slain woman not satisfied that justice was done.

After a life-time, retired New Mexico lawyer George A. Morrison, brother to the legendary slain woman Mamie Thurman, has emerged to as a question many have dondered about for decades:

“Who killed Mamie Thurman…and why””

When one thinks of Logan County’s history, there are many fascinating topics of discussion. The Hatfields and McCoys, Blair Mountain Mine Ears, the murder of Justice of the peace Ezra Butcher, Princess Aracoma, the King Shoals Murders and county politics and a host of other “Believe-It-Or-Not” scenarios.

How, the June 22, 1932 slaying of a young Logan woman named Mamie Thurman has to rank as one of the most absorbing and maybe unexplained mysteries of the century. It is a story of murder and romance, shrouded in mystery because it involved some prominent past residents.

Microfilm files of the coverage regarding the death of Mrs. Thurman and the resulting trial and eventual sentencing of a black man, Clarence Stephenson, are proof of the tremendous local and state interest generated during that time. Now, the interest is rekindling.

In the Friday, Oct. 14, 1932 edition of The Banner, written nearly four months after the murder of Thurman and the arrest of Stephenson and Harry Robertson, who was president of Logan City Council and a bank official, The Banner’s reporter May Yvonne Scales, who had covered the events of the murder and resulting legal proceedings, included the following copy in her newspaper account shortly after a jury deliberated just 50 minutes in returning a first degree murder conviction against Stephenson:

“It is a Logan’s most heinous murder mystery, and just why the woman was killed remains as baffling to the police as the day when her body was discovered on Trace Mountain 9now referred to as 22 Mountain).”

“This case has attracted the attention of the country as few of this nature ever have, and after a long and drawn out four-day session in court here, the events surrounding the fatal night are still nettled in a haze of mystery, which may never be dispelled.

“Months have passed since the mysterious slaying of Mrs. Thurman scarred the city of Logan with scandal, and many theories have been advanced, and it now remains to be seen if time will dull most of the clues.

“The various theories which have been advanced since the tragic happening stand today about were they stood during the first few weeks of the investigation — unsubstantiated, shadowy, one degree above the class of pure rumor. None of the them have ever received verification to the point of reality.”

The Banner’s reporter could not have envisioned a continuation of the mystery in the 1985. however, her written accounts of the events of that time period are the basis for an investigation by a recently retired assistant district attorney from Albuquerque, Ne Mexico, who strangely enough only discovered three years ago that Mamie Thurman was his half-sister.

Morrison, 60, along with a companion who taped and filmed various interviews with Logan Countians whom he thought might be of aid to Morrison’s cause, spent two days in Logan adding to the supposed facts he had already secured.

While in Logan, Morrison visited the 22 Mountain site where his half-sister’s body was found by deafmute young boy who was blackberry picking. Mrs. Thurman, the wife of Logan City patrolman Jack Thurman, was later discovered to have two .38 caliber bullet holes in left side of her head.

According to medical testimony, death resulted instantly from gunshot wounds before the throat was cut from ear to ear.

One shoe and her pocketbook containing $8 to $10 and other articles were found six or eight feet away. Tow diamond rings and a wrist watch, belonging to the deceased, were also found on the body, ruling out robbery as a motive.

Morrison, who was born in 1925 at Logan, moved with his family to Kentucky in 1928. he said his father died in 1928 ad his mother remarried. However, her second husband was killed in a gun battle with police in Ashland, Ky. The state then terminated parental rights of his mother and he was placed in a Louisville, Ky. orphanage.

At age 15, his mother re-adopted him. A short time later Morrison said he lied about his age in order to join the service. After seven years in service, including time during World War II, he returned to Kentucky and eventually graduated from the University of Louisville in 1951.

Morrison, who was making his second trip to Logan from new Mexico, said he also is attempting to locate information about his father, who supposedly is buried somewhere in Logan.

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

“The indications are pretty clear there was political obscuring of the facts in the case. But I’m here mostly to satisfy my curiosity and to find out where she (Mamie) is buried. I’d like to put a headstone at her grave.”

Morrison, who added that he is going to include his sister’s story in a book he intends to write, said he cannot find where his sister is buried, even though the funeral home records showed she was buried in a Bradfordsville, Ky.

In 1932, Harris Funeral Home, which later became Harris-Honaker Funeral Home, was in charge of Thurman’s arrangements. Morrison said that officials at the funeral home now would not allow him to se Mrs. Thurman’s records.

“They did tell me she was buried in Bradfordsville, Ky. cemetery, said Morrison, “but when we went to the cemetery, which was a well-kept and organized cemetery, they said she was not buried there.”

Morris said the would to whatever is legally necessary to se the funeral records of his half-sister.

Ironically, the first witness for the state in the Stephenson trial was R.L. Harris, undertaker for Harris Funeral Home. Harris testified that he have been an embalmer for 20 years and that he had embalmed the body of Mrs. Mamie Thurman June 22 after he had gone to the spot where the body was first discovered, taking it to the morgue on Main Street.

Harris further testified that he found two bullet holes in her head and her throat cut. There was not much blood in the body or head, he said, ot as much as usual in a body that size.

“If anybody knows anything at all about Mamie Thurman, I would appreciate it if they would contact me. I don’t even have to know their names,” said Morrison, who listed his address as 13110 Constitution NE 507, Albuquerque, New Mex.

(NEXT: Part II, Young Attorney C.C. Chambers To Defend Robertson, Stephenson; Robertson Admits To Sexual Affairs With Mamie Thurman.)

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

*Published with permission.

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