The Montgomery advertiser., 1907-04-07
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PREPARED ~
@M1Z~,a1 1c=

granted another reprieve until next
Tuesday, April 9. and continued the
parole, r.
Inquiry having developed the fact
that the condemned man was now sane.
Sheriff Lewis last Monday received au-
thority from the Governor to take
charge of Watts and proceed to exc
cute sentence Of law In Marshall Coun-
ty on the day Dis set for the same. Ac-
cordingly, Sheriff Lewis, accompanied
by two of his deputies, went to Tusca-
loosa Monday night and escorted the
condemned man to Guntersville Tues
day morning. where he is at present
confined in the county jail.
An Atr0ciOus Crime.
The crime of which Bob Watts was
convicted and was so soon to pay the
penalty with his life was a most afro
cious one. Perd Wrinkles was an old
man residing in the same neighborhood,
who drew a small pension from the
State. He had just received his claim
of about $50 paid him in the fall of
1904, and was returning from the home
of his friend. John Oller, who lived not
far away. The report of rifle rang
out on the still, clear autumn air and
old man Wrinkles was heard calling
for help, saying that he was shot
His friend. from whose house he had
just gone, rushed down the road to
where the old man lay, and found him
dying, with a hole In his side. from
38-calibre rife bullet had entered the
old mans back, tearing a frightful hole
In his body
To Calvin Hill, Justice of the Peace,
who afterwards macet. TAOIN w
who afterwards came, the old man, be-
tween his dying gasps. told that Bob
Watts shot him; that he saw Watts
run off through the trees.
Watts was arrested and held to the
grand jury. which indicted him on a
charge of murder in the first degree.
He was convicted at the same term
of the Circuit Court held for Marshall
County in April. 1905.
No other motive than robbery for the
crime has ever been found.
Always Maintained Innocence.
Watts has always maintained his in
nocence, and to a correspondent of The
Advertiser who visited him in the Mar
shall County Jail Friday he stated that
he was being killed for a crime he
guards around his cell that he would
walk upon the scaffold with a smile
ON his face and that his dying state
ment would be that he did not commit
the crime.
He was cheerful. the correspondent
wrote, and very composed, except for
a wild, startled look from his eyes. and
expressed an entire willingness to die
saying that he had no Ill will against
any one and that he forgave those who
had done him wrong.
Bob Watts is a typical, illiterate
mountaineer, having been raised in the
northern part of this county, where
his father, mother. brothers, sisters,
wife and four children still reside.
They are people in humble circum
stances and his complaint is that If
he had had more money and had been
able to employ counsel he would noe
have been convicted.
Fatal Quarrel by Brothers.
watts's brother was shot and killed
by another brother in Marshall County
about fifteen years ago. He was tried
and acquitted on the plea Of self-de-
Tense. This occurrence had the effect
of arousing the suspicious of many
good people in the northern portion of
Marshall County at the time as the boy
killed. 1t is said. was about to fore
close a mortgage on his fathers prop
erty which ne had paid off and which
had been transferred to him. There
is no doubt that the unfavorable sent
iment created by that sad occurrence
years ago still hangs over Bob Watts
today.
The hanging of Watts would have
been the first legal execution in Mar
shall County in nearly forty years,
the last to pay the death penalty being
a white man named Keener. who was
hanged just after the war between the
States A negro sentenced to death for
the murder of a negro girl about ten
years ago made his escape from the
county jail and has never been appre-
hended yet.