The Chronicle-star combined with the Moss Point advertiser., 1944-06-02
McClunuhun Held
Gully In Circuit
Court Saturday.

SiyoC NtSidilditdil, 10 years
old, one of two Navy deserters
charged with the murder of E.
w. Williamson in Pascagoula Mo-
vember IA, was found guilty and
sentenced to life Imprisonment
by a jury in circuit court Satur-
day.
Calvin Charles Mullinax, joint
ly charged, will be tried separ-
ately under severance granted ON
request of counsel for the de-
Tense, William Elmer, and his
case was continued by Judge L.
c. Corban. In addition to muir
dering Williamson, the sailors
were said to have robbed him
OF more than $500.
Trial of the case consumed two
days with the state introducing
principally law officials of Jack
son County and of Lagrange, Ga,
where Nice lanahan and Mullinax
had originally been arrested on
armed robbery charges. Prose-
cution was conducted by r. c.
Cowan, district attorney, and L.
K. Mcintosh, county attorney.
Defense witnesses were the de-
PENDANT, still dressed in his sail
or's uniform, his mother and a
friend.
The state based its case prin-
cipally on two statements law of
ficers testified McClanahan had
made at different times but had
refused to sign, on testimony the
defendant had given concerning
intimate details of the crime and
on letters written from the La
Grange Jail, and intercepted, in
which he referred to the crime
and expressed the belief he
would get the hot seat.
Mother Gives AIibi
Mr.. Elmer. who was appointed
by the court to represent Nc
Clanahan and Mullinax, built
the defense around the fact that
the statements were unsigned
and the testimony of the sailors
mother, Mrs. John McClanahan,
that she had come from Emmett,
Ark, to visit her son at the Navy
base in Algiers, La, on the week
end of the murder and had spent
the major part of that weekend
with him.
Details of the finding of the
pool hall operators beaten and
bullet-r i d body Sunday
morning, November IA, in his
blood-soaked trailer residence
were established through the tes-
timony of ]. Guy Krebs, then
sheriff of Jackson County, and
Chief of Police A. w. Ezell. They
testified that Williamson's body,
clad only in an u~ndershirt, was
half kneeling across one of the
beds in the trailer with the face
resting on his crossed hands.
There were numerous wounds
made, apparently by a rounded,
wooden weapon across the back
of his head and two bullets had
entered his left side and gone en-
tirely through his body.
In statements officials testi-
fled were made by McClanahan,
the youth told of attempting to
rob the pool hall operator, beat
ing him over the head with a cue
stick, adding "he acted like he
wanted to boiler so | shot him..
In one statement he said the
fight started in the pool hall
where the man was hit over the
head and then dragged to the
trailer and in the other purport-
ed confession he said Williamson
was in the trailer when they en-
tered, struck him over the head
and shot him, taking the money.
Nh. Ezell further testified that
McClanahan had told him details
of the arrangement of the fur
nishings of the trailer after his
arrest in LAGRANGE and had lat
er, in Jackson, confessed to the
crime and had told the entire
story before a number of wit
nesses in the state highway pa
troll office. He said, however.
that when the statement was
presented to McClanahan for his
signature he had refused to sign
it.
Seen In PascaeouIa
E. v. Hilyer, sheriff of Troup
County, Ga, H. H. Poole. Geor-
gia Highway patrolman, James
Cooper. Mississippi State High
way patrolman; and D. H. Hunt
er, who was at the time police
lieutenant on the LAGRANGE
force, took the stand to testify to
statements made by McClanahan
showing his connection with the
crime.
S. NJ. Hewlett of Paseagoula.
also called by the state. by testi-
mony placed McClanahan in Pas
cagoula on the Monday follow