JEFF SHEPARD: History is all around us

It can be very interesting to discover incidents that happened long enough ago that are remembered by few people. 

Some of these occurred in buildings or houses that are no longer in existence. 

But there are some that make it easy to see it in your mind’s eye as if it had just happened.   

Most everyone who is from Jackson is familiar with the “Mini Bypass” that is Riverside Drive. 

I don’t know how many vehicles use it every day, but I would estimate that it is over 10,000. 

The building that used to be the Coca-Cola Bottling facility is still there at the corner of Riverside Drive and Washington Street. 

It is a large concrete-style building. 

It has not been used as a bottling facility since some time in the late 1980s, as the company moved out onto a new place on North Parkway. 

Across the street from the old building is Riverside Cemetery, which has been in existence for a long time, some of the founding people of the city are buried there. 

It has a large brick wall that runs the length of the cemetery from its entrance. I say all of this to be able to orient the reader to this crime story I have found in old records. 

On Aug. 9, 1940, this was the scene of a heinous crime. 

A man by the name of Grant Vernon was working as the night watchman. 

Among his duties, he was to make rounds and check the building for intruders and any other issues. 

Unbeknownst to Mr. Vernon, two men were laying in wait for him to make his last round. 

After he punched the time clock, the two men snuck up on him and one of them hit him with a large iron pipe, rendering him unconscious. 

Being the night watchman, he had keys to the plant. He also had a 45 Army revolver. 

The two men took his keys and his gun. They then used the keys to enter the building. 

They proceeded into the office and were able to use a key to open the drawer where money was stored. 

They took several sacks of money and checks. They left the building and threw the iron pipe across the brick wall of the cemetery. 

After fleeing the scene, they went down a railroad track. 

In what must have looked like a scene from a crime noir movie, they found a streetlight that was on and counted the money. 

They went their separate ways and one of them burned the sacks and checks and hid the gun in an outhouse. 

The police quickly put together a case and made two arrests - Lee Willie Porter and Carl Cole, I believe both were 19 at the time. 

When they were interviewed, they both confessed after being told their rights.

They were told they could make voluntary statements and anything they said could be used against them in a court of justice. 

Interestingly, this was 26 years before the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that police had to inform a suspect of what came to be known as “Miranda Rights,” before they are interviewed while in custody. 

In their statements, Porter claimed that Cole had been the one to hit the victim. Cole claimed Porter had hit him. But they both confessed to being involved. 

Unfortunately, Mr. Vernon died from the injury he received from the pipe. The suspects stole $300 in cash. 

The men were found guilty in state court of murder in the first degree and grand larceny. 

They were sent to the state prison in Nashville on June 2, 1941. 

After their sentence was affirmed by the Supreme Court on May 24, 1941, they were both electrocuted to death on July 24, 1941. 

That is less than a year since they were arrested to the time they were executed. That would be unheard of today. 

Death penalty convictions are now generally followed by numerous appeals involving many lawyers and decades go by before the executions are carried out. 

So, the next time you are driving through that location, think back to over a matter of $300, three people met their demise. 

The Jackson Police officers involved in this case were J.I. Carter, James Davis, J.R. Gaba, Paul Kilzer and Tom Murtaugh. 

(The information in this article was obtained through archival Police, State, Federal Bureau Of Investigations records and from a Jackson Sun article from the time.)