Browning chief. [volume] (Browning, Mont.) 1941-1953, 1941-07-11
Murderer Grows
Fat as He Awaits
Death Sentence
Strange Murder Story Comes
From One of the Virgin
Islands.

CHRISTIANSTED. VIRGIN IS
LANDS.-In a penitentiary cell in
St. Croix, growing fat from inactiv-
ity. sits Benjamin Knight, g. years
old, a native fisherman under SEN
tence of death for murder in a
case unique in American criminal
law.
With the exception Of single
juror-l out of l2-all persons in
volved were colored. Murderer and
victim, prosecutor and defense coun-
sci, and the trial judge were Ne
groes. residents of community in
which the ratio of Negroes to whites
is more than 10 to l-about the pro-
portion of the jury.
Sentence was pronounced by
Judge Herman E. Moore, born in
Mississippi; Chicago attorney for
Is years, and for FIVE years an as
SiStant commissioner OF the Illinois
Commerce commission, who says
that as far as he knows. he is the
first Negro judge in the history of
the United States TO impose the
death penalty.
Moore was appointed to the fed
eral district court Of the Virgin Is
lands last January 4 and one of the
first cases that confronted him was
that Of Knight, who is called Bobo.
Knight was charged with the STAY
ing of Henry James, a plantation
worker.
Others Involved.
There were three more principals
in the case-all native Crucians Tres
idents of St. Croix) and all Ameri-
can citizens They were James
wife, Berta, a girl, Daphne Nough-
ton, IS, who was reared by James
and his wife. and Knights son,
George. young man in his twen-
ties. George, the islanders said, was
sweet on Daphne
Henry James lost his job last
summer and the Knights got him
another on the Anguilla estate, St.
Croix island. Shortly after the
Jameses were installed, George and
Daphne took a room to themselves
and lived together. Bobo built
fish trap for Daphne and set it GU,
at sea along with his own traps.
James often was idle and he
talked to neighbors about the rela.
tionship he believed existed between
his wife, Berta, and the elder
Knight. He declared James had
"scandaled" his name. He then
fatally attacked James with 4 wood
en- fish pot marker and with stones.
Case Quickly Solved.
James body was found by cane
cutters the morning after the muir
der. Police solved the case a week
later.
The jury found Knight guilty of
first degree murder. Its verdict
was: I'VE the jury find the defend
ant to be guilty of murder in the first
degree, as charged, and recommend
that his punishment be death" Sem
tence was passed by Judge Moore
on March %. He set June II as the
date Knight was to be hanged.
The execution was stayed, how
ever, pending an appeal to the third
circuit court of appeals in Phila-
delphia. Knight is considered to
have two chances for his life. One
hinges on a possible upset Of the
verdict by the higher court. The
other rests in the chance, that, even
though the judgment were affirmed,
the sentence might be commuted to
life Imprisonment by the appeals
court.
This is regarded as a strong prob
ability. Robert Morss Lovett, for
mer professor emeritus of English at
the University of Chicago, who is
acting governor of the Virgin is
lands, is foe of capital punish
ment, and it has been abolished on
one of the islands. St. Thomas.