The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-11-13
|LEW|SBURG ADDS | ANOTHER KILLING | T0L|ST 0F CRIMES Constable w. w. Ellard Is
 Killed and Son Ralph
 Is Injured HAGAN SAYS TT WAS
 IN SELF DEFENSE Shooting Occurred in Hagan's Drug Store-Developments May Show Who Is Ringleader in Fa- nous Clique

l. What Is believed to De the peSih-
 ming of the end of the awful clique lin the Lewisburg-C -Coalb urg- Arcadia
 district known as the "New Georgia
 Desperadoes" occurred last night
 about o'clock with the killing of Will
 Ellard constable for that beat. l Ellard is said to have been killed by
 Tom Hagan and Bob Payne, the former
 a young druggist of Lewisburg and
 the latter the bank boss of the Mary
 Lee mines.
 According to the information obtain
 able Ellard entered Hagan's store and
 walked behind the prescription case
 where Hagan and Payne were sitting.
 Walking up to Payne, Ellard Is said
 said to have said: Payne, I always
 thought you were a friend of mine, but
 from what I understand, you have been saying things behind my back no friend
 would say of another"
 | Payne Is then said to have denied
 the allegation and Ellard is accredited with having called him liar. Ellard
 then started for Payne, and Payne tried to get out of the way when Ellard grabbed him and they clinched. Dur ing the melee Payne Is said to have | fired two shots and then left Hagan in the store alone with Ellard. Then FL | lard is said to have started at Hagan, when Hagan grabbed Ellard's pistol | from the floor where 1t had fallen and shot him. Hagan clamis self defense. Immediately after the shooting oc- cured Hagan hastened from the store
 and made his way across the mountain where he procured a horse and rode to the county jail anq gave himseulf up to Warden Brown. In talking over the matter Hagan stated to an Age
 Herald reported that what he did was purely in self defense.
 Hagan Makes Statement "Just before Ellard came into my store and began on Payne John Elliott came to me and asked me if I was friend of Ellard. I told him that I
 was, and he asked me to go out to
 the mines and intervene between him and another man whom Elliott said Ellard was trying to kill. I smelled something fishy about the matter and would not go. To be frank, I believe that they intended to lure me from my store and kill me ls they did Law | renee Evans and Broom some time ago. "Ellard was the ringleader of the clique out there who has been giv- l ing so much trouble and he had 1t in for Payne and myself because we would not clique with them" Hagan then talked about the clique in that district which elicited such 6 ,atf ,J jury, and which has baffled sheriffs for years. He stated positively that he would do all in his power to break up the way of doing things out there, and was anxious to have conditions so that law and order could be main- tained there.
 Hagan is said to bear an excellent reputation everywhere. From the evil dence given to reporters at the scene of the trouble last night by eye wit nesses and others it seems that Hagan acted purely in self defense. May Reveal Murder Mysteries When the information given depu- ties at the jail last night is finaIly
 sifted down, a thunderclap which will shake the entire county will probably be heard. It was hinted several times
 
 that Ellard was the author of the black hand letters recently written deputy sneriffs regarding their activities in | the many unsolved muruer mysteries In that region.
 During the melee at the store a showcase was turned over and seven shots were fired. Ellards little Swear old son, Ralph, who had run in, in an effort to get his father home, received | a wound in the thigh. He was not seri- l ous1y injured and his wound is accept ed by all as being purely accidental. Ellard was shot in the front of the
 neck, in the hand, in the wrist and in the abdomen. He died within short time after being shot His body was taken in charge by Undertaken Mackey | of North Birmlng gham.
 J. E. Putnam, a clerk in ,Hagan's store and I. E. Coker, who was at the | store at the time of the shooting, ot shortly before, were arrested and | brought to the city last night by the deputies as eye witnesses to the kill ing.
 Deputies Metcalfe, Chew, Bonner, Hartsfeld, Friedman and Steele, ac- companied by newspaper men, went to lIewiSbure to inVeStigate the murder