Evening star., 1935-04-05
CONVICT IS NAMED
ONE OF SLAYERS
IN COLEMAN CASE
Sheriff Reveals Identified.
ton of One of Two Col.
ored Fugitives.
FINGERPRINTS FOUND
IN RECOVERED AUTO
Funeral Will Be Held Tomorrow
for Murdered Virginia.
Couple.
Special Dispatch to The Star.

Special Dispatch to The Star.
FREDERICKSBURG Va, April S.
Sheriff M. L. Blaydes of Spottsylvania
County today said that one of the two
suspected colored slayers of Mr.. and
Mrs John Thomas Coleman had been
identified as Connie Reese, 81, of
Washington, who escaped March 10
while being brought from Fluvanna
County to the Virginia Penitentiary.
The bodies of the elderly farm
couple were thrown into the well be-
hind the Coleman homestead in
Spotsylvania County, about IL miles
south Of here.
The colored men, who we're seen
when they stopped to buy cigarettes
and gasoline shortly after the double
murder Tuesday night, abandoned the
Coleman sedan in a Richmond COL
ored residential section, where police
found it early yesterday.
FingerprintS inside the stained
sedan were said to resemble those of
the two colored convicts.
Police of the Virginia capital an
nounced they had sent out an alarm
for the escaped pair. James Williams
and Reese.
A coroner's jury at Fredericksburg
late yesterday found that Mr.. and
Mrs. Coleman came to their deaths
fror Sl1,11e 01inShnf
wounds inflicted by parties unknown
to the jury.
Funeral Tomorrow.
The double funeral will be held at
2 O'Clock tomorrow afternoon from a
funeral parlor here and Mrs. Cole
man will be buried in a local church
yard while the body of her husband
is to be returned for burial in the
family plot on the Coleman farm.
The colored pair being sought for
questioning in the murder forced the
deputy to drive them to point near
Alexandria, where the car ran out of
fuel The two then took the officers
pistol and fed.
Three other suspects were picked
up and released yesterday after they
could not be identified by Elwood
Hailsop, proprietor of a filling station
at Thornburg, who sold the murderers
gasoline and cigarettes when they
made hurried stop Tuesday night.
The big Coleman farm, with its
homestead. Hickory Point, is COM
paratively isolated. The nearest
neighbor, Mrs. Bertha Newton. who
lives about half a mile distant, heard
two shots Tuesday night.
No Sign of Struggle.
Although the murderers searched
the premises for valuables the well-to-
do couple was supposed to secrete
about the premises, there was no sign
of a struggle within the house or in
the yard.
Investigators yesterday searched the
ample yard about the Coleman home
for shotgun shells, wadding or other
clues. They found nothing definite
to go on.
County officials believe that Cole
man must have heard the marauders
and gone outside with his shotgun to
investigate. This was about the time
of the evening meal, which Mrs. Cole
man had prepared on the stove.
Coleman apparently was diSarmed,
clubbed with his own gun and pitched
into the 40-foot well. After that. in
vestigators believe, the pair went in
side and searched Mrs. Coleman.
They probably then dubbed her and
threw her into the we'll, shooting down
into the well at the couple.
Coleman's body was fully clothed,
while that of Mrs. Coleman was garbed
only in underclothing.