The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-07-04
SON HUNTS NEGRO 1 SLAYER OF FATHER
 | OVER FORTY YEARS
Application for Parole of Freeman Long Reveals Amazing Criminal Rec
 ord; Petition Refused
By WILLIAM l.. GORMLEY
 Montgomery Bureau The Age Herald
 22l.2 First National Bank RmiIdinl

l<l"f fFst Nauonai Bank Buildtne
 Montgomery, Ala, July 3-(SpeciaL)- Freeman Long alias John Thomas, El- more county negro, whose criminal rec ord reads like fiction story and who has been convicted and sentenced to life Imprisonment by courts in both Georgia and Alabama, must continue to serve his term in the Alabama penitentiary. The state board of pardons today declined to recommend clemency for the negro.
 Long was convicted in 1912 of the mur- der of John A. Berry, which was com mitted, December IS, 1871, six years after the close of the Civil war. He was ar rested at Palmetto, Ga, and brought to Alabama after a man hunt which had continued from the moment the body Of Berry was found in a swamp in Elmore county until he was located while living quietly at Palmetto after having been pardoned by the governor of Georgia of the offense of murder, for which he had, first been sentenced to death. but the sentence having been commuted to life
 Imprisonment later.
 Berry and his son, M. F. Berry. started to Montgomery in their one-horse wagon
 the morning of December IS, 1Sa Reach ing the swamp, they camped for the day while the elder Berry 4went into the swamp for duck. A half hour later the younger Berry, then fifteen years old, heard gun shot, but believed his father had shot at duck. Hours passed and night came, but the father did not re- turn to camp The next afternoon the body was found 1T. the swamp with gun shot holes in the head and with large amount of money gone from his pockets. EYE FOR AN EYE
 Freeman Long was arrested, but the case was postponed. He mysteriously dis- appeared from the jail and the report went the rounds that friedns of Berry had carried out the traditions of the ola south and had exacted an eye for an 1 eye and tooth for tooth. The slain mans wife died, believing that Freeman Lcng had been given the extreme punish- | ment for the crime, but young Berry did not believe the report. He took an oath 1 then to continue the search.
 Forty-one years later Berry, then man J of fifty-sx. received information that a
 man answering Longs description was l living at Palmetto, Ga. The indictment Another was returned and the sheriff of l Elmore county with Berry went to Pal metto, Berry identified the negro and
 he was arrested. Long, it developed, had
 killed a negro in Georgia and had been sentenced to death, but the governor because of extenuating circumstances commuted the sentence to life imprison- lment He served this sentence for twen- ! ty years. all witnesses disappeared, per- sons interested in the prosecution died | and the negro was unopposed when he asked for parole, which was granted l ONLY FOUR LEFT
 | Long then moved to Palmetto, Ga purchased a home and was living quiet ly when Berry arrested him. He at first
 denied his identity, but later admitted it; however, all along he contended that he did not kill the elder Berry. Of the forty or more persons who appeared as
 witnesses at the preliminary trial in 1S7l only four could be found to testify when the real trial began forty-one years later l However, thfs testimony was sufficient tc bring a conviction and Long was giver another sentence of life Imprisonment Attorneys for Long gave notice of ap peal, which was never perfected and the negro began his sentence June [, 1913. Ht filed an application for parole with the board of pardons recently, which at tracted no attention because the circum stances had been forgotten. The younges Berry however, heard of it and entered a vigorous protest declaring that if thu lnegros penal servitude continued