100 Murder Cases

Courthouse killings rattled community

A red ear of corn and a kiss set off one of the strangest shooting cases in U.S. legal history. It was a gunfight in a courthouse, following a guilty verdict that would have resulted in just a year behind bars.

Instead, the defendant, Floyd Allen, 55, and his son, Claude, 23, would eventually be sentenced to death because of what happened that day in court.

Allen was a prominent citizen of Carroll County, Va., then an untamed backwoods community nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

On March 14, 1912, Floyd stood in the Hillsville, Va. courthouse, convicted of interfering with police business and assaulting a deputy sheriff.

The jury set his sentence at one year. Sheriff Lew Webb stepped toward the prisoner to take him into custody.

Moments later, Floyd uttered a simple phrase, unleashing a horror that is remembered today as the Courthouse Tragedy.

"Gentlemen," Floyd said, "I ain't a-goin'."

There was a brief, tense silence, then the sound of one gunshot, then two. Suddenly, flying bullets and gunpowder smoke filled the room.

Within 90 seconds, more than 50 shots had been fired.

Four were dead when the shooting stopped — Judge Thornton L. Massie, Commonwealth Attorney William M. Foster, jury foreman Augustus C. Fowler, and Sheriff Webb. Seven more, including Floyd Allen, were injured.

Betty Ayers, 18, had been called to court as a witness, although it is unclear from existing records whose side she was on, notes Ronald Hall in his 1997 book on the case, The Carroll County Courthouse Tragedy.

After the shooting, as Betty and her sister were fleeing the courtroom, Betty stopped and doubled over, clutching her stomach and vomiting. A friend tried to comfort her, saying she was only scared.

"No," Betty replied. "I am killed."

She had been shot in the back and died the next day.

It might have seemed that this eruption happened spontaneously, but in truth the seeds had been planted in the late 18th century when William Allen, Jr. settled in the area. His descendants would eventually become wealthy through farming, business, land, and moonshine.

Floyd and his brother, Sidna, 46, were known for living in the county's finest homes, including a grand mansion that Sidna had built for his wife.

Still, the Allen clan was a rough bunch that dominated the wild region, a "hard fighting, gun-toting race," wrote Peter Levins in the Daily News in 1931.

Considered the head of the clan, Floyd was a strong-willed maverick, described as a "mountaineer" in the press. He could be kind and intensely loyal to friends and family. With outsiders and anyone who disagreed with him, he was quick-tempered and brutal, settling differences with fists or guns.

"The Allens is all fighters," he'd say. There were six brothers — Anderson, Washington, Victor, Jasper, Jeremiah Sidna, and Garland.

Rumors of violence followed the clan through the years, even though some of them held positions of considerable power — including Floyd, who served eight years as a deputy sheriff.

Mostly, though, Floyd's hair-trigger temper kept him on the wrong side of the law. On trial for assault, Floyd shot at a key witness against him, his own brother Jack, in front of 20 or 30 people who were in the courtroom.

A Saturday night corn-shucking bee sometime in late 1910 sparked the events that led to the massacre.

Floyd's nephews, Wesley and Sidna Edwards, were at the party. Wesley shucked a red ear of corn. Tradition has it that a boy who finds a red ear can claim a kiss from any girl he fancies. Wesley did just that.

This didn't sit well with her boyfriend. The next day, the boyfriend and the Edwards brothers exchanged blows after a church service and ended up in custody.

Outraged, uncle Floyd took the law into his own hands. He freed his nephews and beat up the deputy who was taking the boys to jail.

More than a year later, Floyd was tried on charges of obstructing justice and assaulting a law officer. On the day he was to hear his verdict and sentence, about 10 members of the Allen clan, all armed, showed up at the courthouse. Floyd himself was carrying a revolver.

Accounts vary over how it started and who shot who. But the gunfight left five dead and seven wounded, including Floyd, whom witnesses said fired some of the fatal shots.

Sidna and Wesley Edwards were the last of the clan to be caught, tracked down in Des Moines, Iowa, in September on a tip from Edwards' girlfriend.

Floyd and his son, Claude, were tried and convicted of first-degree murder. They died in the electric chair on March 28, 1913.

Floyd's brother Sidna and three nephews received sentences of at least 15 years. All were pardoned by 1926. This included Sidna, whose 35-year sentence was the longest, and Wesley Edwards, who planted the kiss that started it all.

Nearly 110 years later, the Courthouse Tragedy continues to captivate people in the region. Several plays and a documentary film have been presented and, on the centennial, there was a symposium held on the shooting and the impact it had on the region.

The J. Sidna Allen Home was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1974. On its website, the Carroll County Historical Society and Museum notes that it was completed in 1911, but "a year later the Hillsville courthouse tragedy occurred. Sidna and his wife had only lived there a year."