Mamie Thurman
The trial of Clarence Stephenson began on Monday, September the tenth in Logan’s stately old courthouse. It was estimated that nearly one-thousand curious people crowded their way into the public gallery, the balcony, and even lined up in the hallways. Still, others waited outside hoping for a chance to get inside the door. When someone came outside their place was immediately filled.
Mr. Thurman testified he was working his usual shift from 6:00 p.m. until 6:00 a..m on June twenty-first. “I last saw my wife about 5:30 that evening. I was working my beat with Hibbard Hatfield, and I telephoned my wife shortly before one o’clock in the morning. When she didn’t answer I went home, and found her bed had not been slept in,” he said. The next time Thurman saw his wife was at 3:00 p.m. the next day at the Harris Funeral Home when he identified her body. During cross-examination, Thurman said that he and his wife did not argue the afternoon of her death. He claimed that they were always on good terms. Jack Thurman thought his wife was true to him, and believed that she stayed at home when he was on patrol duty. He often praised her with the most affectionate terms. The Banner quoted Mr. Thurman as saying “Mamie was a perfect wife to me, and I cannot realize that she would do such things as she has been accused of.” The Banner described his comments as “a pitiful thing.”
Fannette Jones who lived on High Street in Logan was the first witness called by the state. It was rumored that Mr. Robertson and Mrs. Thurman had met at the colored woman’s home. However, Mrs. Jones vigorously denied that she had rented a room to them. She said Mrs. Thurman came to her house about eight o’clock in the evening on the Saturday before she was found dead. “She stayed for about ten minutes, and she brought her own linens. She was nicely dressed, and wore a yellow linen dress,” she said. According to Mrs. Jones, Mamie gave her a couple of sheets, but she said she worked for them by doing chores for her.
LOGAN BANK & TRUST
Robertson’s house was located near where the Logan Bank & Trust drive-through is now located, but was torn down long ago.
Harry Robertson’s testimony almost brought the crowded courtroom to its feet on several occasions when he revealed sordid details of his relationship with Mamie Thurman. He told the packed room the inside story of his many “foxhunting” expeditions with Mamie, and how he deceived his wife for two-years. He admitted he went hunting with Mamie on Crooked Creek the Saturday before she was murdered. He later met her at Fannette Jones home, and was with her for about an hour. He said he often jokingly told Stephenson to tell his wife to make sandwiches for them to eat on their fox hunt.
Robertson said the last time he saw Mamie was the day she was killed. He left his house shortly after that to take his children to a swimming pool at Stollings. Later that evening he said he went to the Smoke House to listen to a prize fight with his son, and was home about nine o’clock. His wife later confirmed his statement.
Robertson was asked if he owned a hunting knife which he carried in his hunting clothes. He said the knife was not a hunting knife, but a pocket knife. “It was still in my trousers the other night when I went hunting. I never owned a hunting knife in my life,” Robertson told the jury.
Considerable worry was caused to the members of the Logan Business Men’s Club which was located on the top floor of one of the business districts most well known buildings. The list of sixteen men who was said to have had sexual relations with Mamie was never made public. Many claimed some of these men were later named to the Grand Jury, and were members of charter families. C.C. Chambers, one of the defense attorneys for Stephenson later served as custodian of the legal papers of the Nighbert Memorial Church where Mamie’s funeral was held. It was said Mamie was a member of that church, but no records were ever found to verify her membership.
G.C. Murphy Co. – 1999
The Key Club was said to be located on Stratton Street above the G.C. Murphy Co.
The Banner reported that the crowd was anxious to hear Mrs. Robertson’s testify, and they strained to hear every word. Mrs. Roberston was described as a “splendid witness.” She stated her name to be Louise Robertson who lived at 510 Stratton Street. She said she had been married to Harry Robertson for eighteen-years, and they had a fourteen-year-old daughter and an eight-year-old son. She denied that she ever sent word to the jailer, Lance Hall for him to “not let Stephenson want for anything.”
When questioned about where her husband was the day Mrs. Thurman was murdered she gave this account. “He went to work that morning, and came home for lunch. He was home that evening at the usual time, and took the children to a swimming pool at Stollings. They were back by seven. I had supper ready, and we ate together.” She confirmed that her husband was home at nine o’clock.
“I didn’t have a falling out with Mrs. Thurman,” Mrs. Robertson stated. “We just quit going around together, but we had been good friends.” She said they used to go golfing at the country club, but hadn’t gone since October.
The Banner noted that Mrs. Robertson’s response in regard to her husbands alleged affairs with Mamie Thurman was very unusual. “I learned they were intimate with each other because I had cause to believe they were. A woman doesn’t have to be told these things.” She claimed that no one told her about the affair, but it was her “woman’s intuition” that caused her to become suspicious. She said she had not spoken to Mrs. Thurman since May. “I had an enmity (hate) toward Mrs. Thurman, but what was the use to be mad about it,” she said.
LOUISE ROBERTSON
Witnesses, Roy Hall, Frank Hagen, and two other men gave some of the most damaging testimony against Clarence Stephenson. They claimed they had seen Stephenson driving Robertson’s Ford sedan in the Holden area very early in the morning as they walked home from work the day Mamie’s body was found.
Logan Patrolman Bill Bruce became very angry when questioned by attorney Chambers about the stains on the articles found in Harry Robertson’s basement. “If it wasn’t for paying a fine, I’d slap your face!” he yelled at Chambers.
“Oh, no . . . you wouldn’t slap my face here or any other place!” Chambers snapped back.
Judge Jackson calmed both men by saying, “If you men don’t hush, I’ll have you both sent to jail.”
Chief Smeltzer testified that he saw Stephenson cleaning out the inside of Robertson’s Ford sedan at about eight o’clock in the evening on Wednesday, the day Mamie Thurman’s body was discovered. Patrolman Bruce was with him when he drove by.
Only minutes before the trial was over, anonymous notes addressed to Prosecutor John (Con) Chafin was found by several women waiting for the return of the jury. The notes claimed the writer saw the crime committed. They were signed “A Voter” and “A Citizen.” They claimed the crime would be “white washed,” and go the way other crimes have gone in Logan County. “We believe there are people here who saw that woman get in the car and go to her death. We believe there are those who saw her get into the car and go up Trace Mountain,” the notes stated. The Banner reported that Prosecutors Emmett Scaggs and John Chafin did not think there was “anything to the letters.”
JOHN (CON) CHAFIN
According to the Banner, witnesses accounted for every minute of Clarence Stephenson’s time up until eleven o’clock when Mrs. Robertson said he went up to his attic bedroom. However, the jury was only out for fifty-minutes before returning with a guilty verdict with the recommendation of mercy which carried a life sentence. Attorney Chambers immediately entered a motion for a new trial.
“I was of the opinion that the jury was warranted in returning the verdict they did. I am still of that opinion. There is no middle ground. I feel the court is not warranted in setting a new date for a trial,” Judge Naaman Jackson said.
Stephenson made a statement before the sentence was passed. “I am not guilty. I have no knowledge of the crime I am accused of. I tried to tell the truth. I hope the law won’t stop until they find the guilty parties,” he said.
Judge Jackson replied, “It is a little hard for the court to take the balance of a man’s life when he stands up and says he is an innocent man.” Jackson then passed the mandatory sentence. Stephenson was given ninety days to make an appeal to the Supreme Court. The verdict was handed down on Thursday, October 13, but the Banner did not carry the story until the next day. In 1932 they only printed twice weekly on Tuesdays and Fridays.
On November 15, pleas from the Logan County Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) went across the county to raise the six-hundred-dollars needed for the appeal. Fifty-six churches in Logan began taking donations. More than three thousand people attended a mass meeting held at Aracoma High School with both whites and coloreds attending. Despite all the efforts, the Supreme Court turned down Stephenson’s appeal in 1933.
Norman Sloan, a Logan County resident who spent time in jail and prison with Stephenson gave this account of those years. “He never ate a bite of Logan jail food.” Sloan said. “Everything was carried to him three times a day from the New Eagle Restaurant. Stephenson was the funniest looking man that you ever seen. His forehead stuck out, but he wasn’t as bad looking as the picture printed in the Banner.”
According to Sloan, Stephenson served as Warden Oral Skeens’ chauffeur. “He told me he was hired to take the body to 22 Mountain, and that he didn’t do anything to Mamie Thurman. He never did say who killed her, but he said that he didn’t do it. Stephenson told me it was all politics,” Sloan said.
According to West Virginia Penitentiary records, Stephenson was received at Moundsville Prison on August 22, 1934. On June 11, 1939, he was transferred to Huttonsville Prison Farm where he died of stomachic carcinoma (stomach cancer) on April 24, 1942. He was buried on the prison farm May 2, 1942 almost ten years after the death of Mamie Thurman.
In 1985 George Morrison, a half-brother to Mamie, came to Logan to look for Mamie’s grave. Morrison had recently retired as assistant district attorney in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He had only discovered three years prior to his retirement that Mamie Thurman was his half-sister, and that she had died a violent death. Morrison was born at Logan in 1925, but moved with his family to Kentucky. Later, parental rights of his mother where taken away from her, and he and his sisters were placed in a Louisville orphanage. Jack Thurman did not visit Morrison when he visited his sisters shortly after his wife’s death. Morrison was the youngest child in the family, and his mother readopted him when he was fifteen.
GEORGE MORRISON
Morrison wanted to erect a proper headstone at Mamie’s grave. However, he could never locate the exact location where Mamie was laid to rest. Alva “Alvie” Burgess, was nineteen when he said he helped his father, Ed Burgess dig Mrs. Thurman’s grave. “My father was caretaker at the Logan Memorial Park for many years. He explained the cemetery is divided into three sections . . . A, B, and C. Mrs. Thurman was buried in the B section which is located below the road and in the vicinity of the huge Steele monument. I think she was buried about middle ways up in that section. The only marker placed at her grave was a small metal one put there by the Harris Funeral Home. There was never a headstone placed at the site. There is no question about it she’s buried there. I even helped cover her up,” Mr. Burgess said.
STEELE MONUMENT
Morrison placed a legal advertisement in the Banner and two people called him. One of the callers told of being paid to exhume a body which he believed to be Mamie’s. The man refused to identify himself, and said a prominent doctor paid him to do this in 1962. The other man wrote him asking for Morrison to phone him at 294-1116 after five in the evening, his time. It was signed George. Morrison said the man sounded elderly, and claimed to be a retired businessman in Logan who knew the Robertsons, Thurmans, and nearly everyone, including the jurors who were involved in the murder. He said the man told him that a woman killed Mamie. Morrison asked how he could be sure. “I knew Harry well. He was a well-liked gentleman. We talked about it many times, and he told me who did it several times. Morrison was skeptical about both calls.
When George Morrison came to town looking for answers, he came to the Banner office. Dwight Williamson, a reporter, was introduced to Morrison by the managing editor, Raamie Barker. Dwight volunteered to show Morrison the area, but he never got to do a personal interview with him. However, that got Dwight interested, and he started reading the microfilm files of 1932. He was hooked. He knew it would make an interesting story, but it could not be condensed into a single story. Eventually, he wrote eighteen stories from the Banner files. The stories were made into a booklet called The Mamie Thurman Story from the files of the Logan Banner which sold for a dollar.
RAAMIE BARKER
Managing Editor of the Logan Banner in 1985
Dwight received his share of weird calls while doing the Mamie story. One of them was from an Omar man. He said a county vehicle brought a casket to Chauncey Cemetery for burial. The year was 1932, and there were no mourners. He claimed that when some of the residents got curious, they were told the body was the “blankety-blank” who was killed on 22 Mountain.
Attorney Con Chafin appeared before the board of city commissioners on behalf of Jack Thurman who had been refused bond after the trial was over. The commission voted to accept a personal bond, and he returned to active duty as a Logan patrolman. Dwight Williamson said that Thurman later died in an insane asylum in Louisville, Kentucky.
R.F. Caverlee, pastor of the First Baptist Church who officiated in Mamie’s funeral transferred to a church in Fredericksburg, Virginia soon after the trial.
On Friday, December 30, 1932 a road crew discovered several bloodstained garments and a long bladed hunting knife near the spot where Mamie Thurman’s body was discovered. The knife was covered with what was thought to be blood. “It is only a miracle,” Joe Buskirk said ” that my men discovered the rags and knife.” I told them to pull down a large rock that was hanging some 25 feet above the level of the road, and that is when the items were found.
All the courtroom transcripts of the trial of Clarence Stephenson and seventeen deposition copies have disappeared.
Mamie Thurman’s death certificate was signed by L. W. Hatfield, who was a justice of peace and the acting coroner. The autopsy was done by Dr. W.S. Rowan, Dr. J.E. Robertson (brother of Harry Robertson) and L.W. Hatfield.
The autopsy report stated bullet number one entered at the lobe of the left ear and went through the skull coming back out in the cheek bone above the right ear. Powder burns covered the left ear and cheek. Bullet number two entered two and one half inches about the left ear coming out the occipital bone posterior (backside) left of the central line. Her throat was cut extending through her trachea, carotid artery and jugular vein. One cut made the complete wound. Bruises were over the right eye, and her neck was broken at the second cervical vertebrae.
The total cost of Mamie’s funeral was seven-hundred-seventy-two dollars and seventy cents. That was an expensive funeral when most people could barely afford to put food on their tables. Her funeral was paid for in cash by her husband who was employed as a city patrolman.
As I wrote this story I was reminded of the old Dragnet TV police series. One line that Jack Webb’s character, Sgt. Joe Friday repeated often stands out in my mind. . . . “Just the facts ma’am. . . . Just the facts.” That is what I have tried to do . . . stick to the facts through research. However, this true-life story may always remain a mystery. After all these years, some really think when the night winds wail . . . Mamie’s restless spirit still walks those hills.
TOP OF 22 MOUNTAIN NEAR WHERE MAMIE’S BODY WAS DISCOVERED
THE HIDDEN COVE
A HAND-PAINTED ROCK NEAR THE BOTTOM OF 22 MOUNTAIN
At one time Logan Memorial Park was a well-kept final resting place for many prominent Logan County family members. A narrow dirt road still winds around the mountainside with graves spread out along the hillside. The cemetery became so neglected many families moved their loved ones to other cemeteries. I found the ad below while doing research on the Mamie story.
EMPTY TOMB
1932 AD PLACED IN LOGAN BANNER
IF YOU ARE NOT A CHURCH MEMBER
Many newly-bereaved widows find to their dismay
that their husband’s bodies cannot be interred in the
cemetery of the church whose services they attend from
time to time, because they are not members of the congregation.
For the man who is not a member of a church, it is an
important duty to at once secure a grave-site in a
non-denominational cemetery such as Logan Memorial Park.
It should not be inferred from the fore-going that Logan
Memorial Park is not a suitable cemetery for church members.
Many devout church-goers, as well as the unaffiliated, have
chosen beautiful Logan Memorial Park for their final resting
place because of its numerous advantages.
In peaceful Logan Memorial Burial Park . . . a part of Logan yet
apart from the city’s turmoil . . . grave-sites can be secured upon
convenient terms of payment. Ten per cent of all money thus derived
is consigned to a Perpetual Care Fund that will forever provide for
the upkeep of the graves and grounds.
LOGAN MEMORIAL PARK COMPANY
405 Morrison Bldg. Phone 841 Logan, W.Va.
LOGAN MEMORIAL PARK IN PITIFUL SHAPE IN 1998
WHEN THE NIGHT WINDS WAIL . . . PEOPLE STILL WONDER IF MAMIE WALKS THOSE HILLS.
My grandfather and I would set out on the porch when, I was about six years old. I often asked him to tell me about the old days. He once told me the story about Mamie Thurmond. He often ended the story that the truth of her murder would never come out until all the prominent people in Logan had passed away. He said it was one of them who murdered her. I was young back then and never realized what he had told me.
I’m from Logan and have moved to TN for work although Logan will always be home and I still come back to visit family, Eat at Morrison’s and Giovanni’s . I use to walk around on that cemetery when we lived at McConnell. I was 12 yrs old in 1987 and the cemetery was in bad shape as far as maintenance. I am a big history buff and more so on Our area of WV history. It’s always fascinated me my whole life. The story of Princess Aracoma, Matewan massacre, Blair mountain war, Hatfield/ McCoy feud and The Mrs mamie Thurman story. I love hearing where these things took place and in my mind know what’s there now. It’s amazing to think how town of Logan was then. I remember town booming and i was born in the 70’s. Both movie theaters playing films, Morrison’s walk in and the fountain at Murphy’s. Long before all the walmart and stuff came in. Closest sort of mall we had was Rita. loved Bananza steakhouse that was there. We rarely went to Charleston or Huntington unless my family had a Dr appt. I stayed busy aside from school doing the plays at the park, and Swvcc, at the park pool, working at Jacks (flash) car wash and Chiraco’s in the bottom when it first opened. Frank treated me great and knew him from the time i was 7yrs old until i moved for work at 18yrs old in 1993. I went to Logan East that is torn down and I was in for a visit and i have a section of the brick wall from the school, I attended Dehue chambers elementary and Logan High school. Great times then. I always said if I was to ever Direct a film or write a screenplay there is two films i would love to do. one being the Edmund Fitzgerald that sunk on lake Superior Nov 75 and The mamie Thurman story would be a great film to write and direct. Idk if it could be filmed in Logan or if that may create a problem but I recall over 30yrs ago a director wanted to do the show at Swvcc. They received threats from a unknown caller. Threatening to burn the college down if they preceded with that idea and some other threats. This was around 1990/91. I remember someone telling a group of us during rehearsals of another show and of course it was many years later and not to far back i heard that the story became a play on stage there in logan. Took 30 yrs but glad to hear whoever was making those threats either is no longer around, gave up or whatever. I would love to see the play. I’m great friends with many there and my wife is from Chapmanville. my wife is Nancy that is the daughter of the former and late Sheriff Bob Vedder of Chapmanville. He passed in 1999 and i remember him when i was a kid and how nice he was to me as a child but didn’t know his daughter till many yrs later. Logan, WV is a amazing town and i have such great memories and can’t wait to visit again.
I threw the story was thinking about Mrs Morrison, until I read that Mamie ‘ s husband was suppose to have died in an insane asylum.
The over kill and the strength that it took to slit her throat in one cut and to break her neck took hatred and anger along with strength.
Has this case ever been profiled?
Did Mamie have any children?
Was she pregnant when killed?
I do not believe that they convicted the right person! He was covering for the one or the pair that did it. Money was coming from somewhere?
Agreed
This was such an interesting story. I hope there will be more to come. I found this site when I was looking for information and hopefully a picture of the old yawkey elementry school from 1958 or 59. I went there and it was a large white building wth the rooms seperated into 3 with an old fashioned cafeteria.we had an outside toilet. And coal or wood stoves in the center of each room.
I have very fond memories of that school and the teachers there. We had to move so my dad could find work. We live in virginia now, but my brother anb sister and I talk of that school often
Did you have a teacher there named Glenna Estep Brumfield?
She was my great aunt….
I have done quite a bit of research on this case over the past few years. I have this question, why so much overkill? The slashing of her throat was enough to be fatal, then 2 shots to her head ( almost, if not at, point blank range) AND a broken neck? Add in all of the inconsistencies during the trial, the disappearing records, etc. and what are you left with? The question of just exactly what were the good people of Logan trying to hide? This case will never be solved. Just the way the “good” citizens wanted it.
Because it’s a crime of passion someone that was related to mamie hit her head on a mantle fighting with her husband in front of many people… Many people witnessed this woman’s murder yet kept quiet to frame a black man they all need to suffer they took two lives away for no good reason i truly believe her husband killed her i hope the families involved have a generational curse
a close friend and i were traveling through trace road when they were building the new highway about the year 1970. we were on bicycles about 1:am right when we got to the entrance of the road going up to 22 mine rd we heard a scream that chilled us to the bone it echoed through the hills scary minute that i never forgot.
I so enjoyed this story ! My mother was from a family of 13 from Mt. Gay, our family of 7 would spend the summer in the hollar of Shammrock. I had one aunt (Jean Vanatter) who loved to tell us stories at night time & this was one of them! Brought back some precious childhood memories! Thank you.
I thought at the time the stories came out about Mamie Thurman that Mrs Morrison did the killing when she found out Mamie was having an affair with her husband. and I still believe it today. But politics ruled back then.
i would love to have more pictures of the real crime seen about mamie thurman death in 1932.
I did a lot of research to get the pictures that are posted, and it took me a long time to write the story. Some of the locations I took pictures myself. If I had other pictures or more information I would gladly post them. I did a lot of interviews, including Mamie’s half brother who claimed he was writing a book. You say you want to see the crime scene photos which if I had them I would not post them as it would be inappropriate. I am not sure they even exist as I was told by many sources that all of the records of the trial mysterious disappeared from the Logan Court House records long ago. Maybe someone out there has them or that that someone destroyed all the records. Many prominent citizens feared they might be linked to Mamie. It is a story that just does not seem to die. Dolores Riggs-Davis
I just rsn across this story, Wonder is it possible to get a copy of part 1 or to purchase the book, am assuming its been published.
I’m a “rum creeker” lived at Yolyn and Orville. Dad was a coal miner at Orville, died in 1954 Charley M Cole,
marynjames3@yahoo.com
Also the court house burned down sometime in the 60’s, I think. A lot of records were lost. My Dad’s birth certificate to be one lol.
He has told me a story many times about a woman getting on the bus and sitting quietly in the back. No one gets off. Then at the end of the line she is gone.
I would love to have the info you have. I’ve always been fascinated with this story and read everything I can about it. Thanks