The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1935-08-03
SUSPECT HELD
IN MURDER OF
CHIEF HANGED
Door of Jail Is Battered
Down, Victim Taken
From Cell.
NEVER UTTERS WORD
Killers Believed From Home
Town of Slain Police
Officer.
By Unitcd Press

l. ( HtttH 1 Itoo
YREKA, Cal, Aug. s.
Cheating the law in a return
to frontier justice, a mob Of
about Is men today seized C.
L. Johnson, %, suspect in the
Staying of a police officer, and
hanged him to a pine tree out
side of Yreka.
johnson was taken from the Sis
kiyou County Jail, where he had
been held since Monday when he
was captured after the Staying Of
Police Chief F. R. Daw of Duns-
muir, small Siskiyou Mountain
town so miles south of here.
Within an hour Johnson'S shoe
less body, clad in a white shirt and
black trousers, was swinging from a
pine tree outside the town. The
mob scattered before authorities
could mobilize to save the youth
who had confessed that he and
Robert Miller, fugitive, shot Chief
DaW when he tried to question them
about a roadhouse holdup.
Only One Man on Duty
The lynchers struck so suddenly
that only one man was on duty at
the county Jail. Johnson was
brought here for safekeeping after
threats had been made against him
at DunSmuir.
The mob came in automobiles
from the south, apparently from
Chief DAVIS home town, where yes
terday hundreds of men from the
mountains and the ranches joined
war veterans at his military funeral.
Masking their faces with white
handkerchiefs, the lynchers APP
peared in front Of the County Jail
shortly before 2 a. m.
One of them rang bell which
summoned Deputy Sheriff Martin
LANCE. LANCE opened the door par
TALLY and asked what they wanted.
Door Is Smashed Down
you know what we want" some
one in the crowd replied
The deputy tried to close the door.
but the crowd pushed its way into
the jail and demanded the keys to
the section where the prisoners
were kept.
When LANCE refused. he was
bound, taken out and placed in one
of the automobiles standing in the
highway. Later he was driven Is
miles from Yreka, Invested Of his
shoes and socks. and released.
Meanwhile the lynchers found
themselves locked out of the jail
when a door closed and a spring
latch snapped shut. They smashed
down the door. Henry F. Martin,
nightman in a Yreka cafe, passed
the Jail at this time and was seized.
I'm Not the Man
Finally the mob leaders found a
way into the cellar where there
we're IS prisoners. The inmates
shouted and screamed in fear Of
being mistaken for johnson.
I'm not the man." each cried.
johnson finally was identified and
was dragged from the jail
Martin, who was freed when the
party turned to their automobiles.
said the victim never spoke He
apparently realized the fate in store
for him
Select Tall Pine Tree
The party drove three miles south
on the SCOTS Valley Highway, where
they selected a tall pine tree. john
sons feet were tied. A rope was
dropped around his neck and thrown
over a limb. He was jerked up
ward An end of the rope was tied
to fence railing and the lynching
victim, strangled by the moose, was
left hanging.
The mob scattered as quietly and
as quickly as it had appeared, driv-
ing southwark toward Dunsmuir.
Under Sheriff U. G. Chambers
direction the body was cut down
and was brought to a Yreka morgue.
1t was learned later that Deputy
Sheriff Edward Mathews, also sta
toned at the jail at night, had been
called to Mt. Shasta City on an
other mission. The call was not
rllse. Chandler said