The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-11-29

Decatur, November 2s.-( Special J. The mystery of the horrible Edmondson tragedy at Woodland Mills, this coun- ty, deepens as the days go by, and while many theories have been ad- vanced it is now almost certain that the entire family were murdered, robbed and their home burned by the ones who committed the crime.
 No trace of Tom Edmondson, the husband. father and son of the victims of the tragedy. has yet been found all though every effort has been made by the officers to locate him. So far as known no one has seen him since the commission of the horrible crime.
 Thursday a coroner's jury was em- paneled mad after an investigation of the crime gave the following verdict: "The members of the Edmondson fami- ly came to their death at the hands of Tom Edmondson." It is now believed that this verdict is erronious and that Tom Edmondson mSt the fate of his mother, his wife and \s three children. This afternoon, acting upon this the ory, another coroners jury was em- paneled to investigate the crime
 At an early hour. this morning Sheriff Thomas R. Shipp, District Solicitor David c. Almon and County Solicitor D. F. Green drove across the country to Woodland Mills, a distance of 2S miles. to be present at the investiga- tion.
 Sheriff Shipp Talks.
 Before leaving for the scene of the crime this morning Sheriff Shipp said :: "I have every reason to believe Tom Edmondson was murdered like the other members of his family. l have just learned that on the day preceding the night of the murder Edmondson sold 10 bales of cotton and took the money home with him. We have been unable to find him, either dead or alive and am of the opinion that he, too, was murdered and his body secreted. We will make a search for his body"
 It is definitely known that the re- mains of Edmondsons wife and three children were found in the ruins of his home and in his barn, but there is nothing definite as to whether or not his mother was cremated in the flames. Here is one of the most mysterious features connected with the story. Ed mondson's mother was old and sick and 1t seems impossible that he could have escaped with her without being apprehended. Yet no definite trace of either Edmondson or his mother has been found
 In the barn were found the partial remains of a feather bed and lying on the chared mass was a portion of the chared body of Edmondson's baby girl. Knife wounds were plainly dis cernible on the body, indicating mur- der without question. One of the childs feet had been cut off and was found on the ground some distance from the burned ruins of the barn.
 The affair is one of the most horri- ble that has ever taken place in this county, and while 1t may never be cleared up, the officers are doing every thing within their power to solve the mystery. Sheriff Shipp is firmly of the opinion that Tom Edmondson was mur- dered for the money that he secured for the sale of cotton and his body hid and that the robbers and murderers then murdered his entire family and set fire to his home and barn to make it appear that Edmondson had com mitted the crime himself and then fled.
 Were Well-to-Do.
 The Edmondsons resided in a log house. but were wel-to-do country people. It is said that Edmondson' S mother had something like 5000 in coin buried near the place. Whether or not this money was found and car ried off no one knows.
 Edmondson was young man and had been married only a few years. It is said that his standing in the neighbor- hood in which he lived was as good as the average.
 t This tragedy recalls to mind another tragedy which took place in this county some years ago, and in which Tom Ed mondson's brother played the leading role Tom Edmondson's brothers wife was found dead at spring one day. The husband was arrested accused of the crime. He claimed that his wife had knelt over to drink out of the spring and that a snake had bitten her. The verdict of the jury was that Edmdndson had choked her to death and his punishment was fixed at death by hanging. Later on he was hanged. Many of the neighbors of the Woodland Mills neighborhood still remember this horrible affair, and on this account they believed that Tom Edmond son was but following in the footsteps of his brother, only committing a more hor- rible crime.
 But at the present time everything in- dicates that Tom Edmondson did not com- init this crime, but that he met the same fate of the other members of his family only that his body was not burned, but