The Brandon news. (Brandon, Miss.) 1892-1961, 1904-08-25
A TRAGEDY
ON THE PIKE
Jesse Puckett Meets an Untime1y
Death. ". Tardy and Sam
Dixon Under Bond.

About two o clock Sunday morning,
August 21st, Jesse Pickett, keeper OF
one of the jackson turnpike's noto-
rlous dens, was killed in mysterious
manner in the place of Gus Catchings.
another denizen of the same district.
A 38 calibre pistol was used, the ball
entering the brain, causing death in a
few hours The scene of this TRACE
dy is an ideal spot for the perpetra
tion of such bloody work. Although
situated right at the door of Jackson,
the capital of Mississippi, and under
the jurisdiction of that municipal
ity, it is veritable "no mans land. !"
On the east of jackson the ripping
Pearl, spanned by lengthy bridge
flows merrily by as though uncon-
soious that only by its shimmering
waters is the capital of great state
separated from one of the foulest den 6
of iniQuity Mississippi has ever been
called upon to father.
Across the bridge from the city
there is swamp, once densely shad-
owed with vines and underground,
but now converted into net work
of paths, each path leading to some
cabin or beeohed shanty boat, where
flourish in all their villiany the blind
tiger and the gambling hells to which
those men of the great capital city
who are unwary or lacking in STAN
ina go to vie with tickle fortune or to
steep the brain with poison. On the
fatal night such crowd had gathered
there, submerged in the gloom of a
benificent foliage, with God alone
as their witness. They drank, they
played, they made merry long into
the night, and when the day of their
coming there passed into yesterday and
the sacred Sabbath appeared they were
drunk. Their reason dethroned, they
quarreled. The ever-ready gun came
into play and as sequal Jesse Puck
ett's lifeless body was carried to his
home in Jackson. Though at first it
was thought the deed was accidental
and committed by a deaf and dumb
negro boy, the coroner's jury after an
inquest rendered the following YER
dict:
1--WE the jury, sitting as an in :
Squest upon the body of Jesse Pickett,
do find that the said Jesse Puckett
came to his death by reason of q pis-
tol shot wound in the forehead, made
and fired therein by V. Tardy, with a
pistol. on the 21st day Oh August, in
the county of Rankin, in building
known as Gus Catchings' blind tiger,
on the Rankin side of Pearl river,
AID that Sam Dixon was present i'm
mediately before and after the shoot
ing of said Pickett, that Y. Tardy is
guilty of murder and that said Sam
Dixon is particeps criminis.
The man Tardy was manager of the
joint in which Puckett met his death.
1t is said that he (Tardy) was the only
one of the party who was not drinking
heavily. Tardy is said to be hand
some dashing fellow of perhaps TWEEN
tyfive years of age, and only recently
arrived in Jackson from some point
in Texas. The room in which Puck
ett met his death was the large front
room in Catchings' place. 1t is a
kind of audience chamber. and has a
pool table in the middle. Back of that
is network of little passageways and
rooms, and between that room in
which the operator of the blind tiger
holds forth and the large room is a
small hole out in the board partition.
1t is supposed that Puckett was peep
ing through that hole when shot and
that the pistol used, Puckett's own
weapon, was within less than foot
of his head when fired. The edges of
the hole and Puckett's head were
/ both powder burned. After the shoot
ing Pickett never uttered a word
though he lived three or four hours.
He bled profusely before physician
reached him, else he might have lived
longer and been able TO tell who shot
him. He was placed in a hack by
Tardy and Dixon, and the latter &C,
companied him to his home on South
Jefferson street, where he died.
Jesse Puckett was native of Ran
kin county and was about "a years o1
age. He had lived in Jackson several
years.
The killing of Pickett and the ar
rest of the men charged with the mur
der caused quite sensation in JacK
son blind tiger circles, which are large
and powerful there, according to tht
Clarion Ledger.
Puckett was an immense specimen
of humanity, weighing perhaps 2S(
pounds, and had been mixed up in sew
.eraI personal encounters since his en-.
+rv into the blind tiger husinaaa He