Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, March 9, 1991 TAG: 9103090338
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DAVID M. POOLE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ROCKY MOUNT LENGTH: Medium
But the events of the 1930s have produced no scholarly study, in part because court files and the official trial transcript inexplicably disappeared in the 1950s.
Finding the missing documents has become the personal mission of T. Keister Greer, a Rocky Mount lawyer who retired last year after practicing for 42 years.
Greer, 69, has written to the survivors of the attorneys involved in the conspiracy trial, scoured court records and searched state archives. He even sifted through 100 boxes containing the personal papers of the Judge John Paul, who presided at the trial.
The last reference to the transcript that Greer has found is a 1945 notation that the document was wired to the clerk of the U.S. District Court in Harrisonburg.
"Then," Greer said, "it simply disappears from the face of the earth."
Having run out of clues, Greer has placed a classified ad in the Roanoke Times & World-News offering a $1,000 reward for anyone who can furnish information that leads to the trial transcript.
"This is kind of a last-chance thing," he said Friday.
The Franklin County Moonshine Conspiracy emerged during Prohibition, when mountain settlers transformed their liquor-making craft into a huge industry.
White lightning became the county's top cash crop, rolling down mountain roads each night in bootlegger caravans. A federal commission set up to study enforcement of the 18th Amendment reported: "In one county, Franklin, it is claimed 90 people out of 100 are making or have some connection with illicit liquor."
Federal authorities later claimed that Franklin County had been divided into districts overseen by deputy sheriffs who were paid to protect the moonshiners from arrest and harassment by revenue agents.
In 1935, a federal grand jury sitting in Harrisonburg indicted 34 Franklin County residents, including the commonwealth's attorney, several sheriff's deputies and a former member of the General Assembly.
Seven defendants pleaded guilty, including Sheriff D. Wilson Hodges, and seven others chose not to contest the charges, according to newspaper accounts.
The remaining 20 defendants went on trial at the old federal building in Roanoke on April 22, 1935. The trial lasted 10 weeks. The jury stayed out three days and returned guilty verdicts against all the defendants except two deputy sheriffs and Commonwealth's Attorney Charles Carter Lee, a grand-nephew of Robert E. Lee.
Greer said a review of the trial transcript - prepared for the appeal of one defendant - could shed new light on the conspiracy trial and on a subsequent trial for jury tampering.
It was said that one juror in the conspiracy trial would not agree to convicting the other defendants unless Lee was acquitted, according to newspaper accounts.
In 1946, a federal grand jury indicted 24 people on charges of tampering with the jury in the conspiracy case. After a trial, 22 defendants were convicted. The file on the tampering case also has disappeared.
Greer also would like to know more about the murder of Franklin County Deputy Sheriff Thomas Jefferson Richards, who was gunned down along with a prisoner one week before the federal grand jury returned its conspiracy indictments.
The grand jury's deliberations had been common knowledge in Franklin County, and Richards had told people that he expected to go to prison but would not go alone, according to Greer.
Greer said the trial transcript might contain evidence that two brothers who were convicted of the murder, Paul and Hubbard Duling, were not responsible for killing Richards.
Greer declined to describe theories he is pursuing, saying it was too early in his research to reach any conclusions. First, he must solve the mystery of the missing court files.
Was the disappearance yet another conspiracy?
"I've found no evidence of any deliberate malfeasance on anyone's part," Greer said. "I think there is an innocent explanation, but I haven't happened upon it yet."
Greer said anyone with clues may contact him at 703-483-5700.
by CNB