On August 4, 2023 I featured on this
blog another in depth article on this case. You can read that one here.
It has taken me just over one year to find this account of the story, however. This one
comes from the November 1930 edition of True Detective Mysteries
Magazine.
"Kentucky's Great 'Resurrection' Mystery"
‘Here beyond doubt is one of the strangest murder cases of the twentieth
century - a screaming miscarriage of justice…and a powerful argument against ‘an
eye for an eye’.
Written by: Frederic Herndon
Published in the November 1930 edition of True Detective Mysteries magazine
Many are the tales that history and fiction have set in that little world known
as Kentucky mountain region. Many are
the romances that have been woven around the sturdy, quick shooting men of the
hills. Many are the crimes whose hidden facts never reach the outside and are
whispered among the simple folk like the rustle of the winds that the giant
oaks and mountain laurel. Seldom is the
world allowed to listen in.
These are stories of a civilization untamed.
In this domain, loves are deep and hatreds deadly. Behind the glamour of every Kentucky mountain
feud and killing, is stark reality based in nearly every case upon the
principles of the law -- 'an eye for an eye...'
Harlan, Kentucky, the county seat of Harlan County, is a typical mountain
town. It lies at the headwaters of the
Cumberland River where the crystal currents of Martin's Fork and Clover Fork
join and become a twisting stream to the outside world. The town is the heart of the great Kentucky
coal fields and pokes its rows of houses back up0 the side of a towering
mountain. Despite the roads made by the
outside world, the folk still retain, to some measure, the doctrine of
individual right and personal redress of wrong that has been handed down for
more than a century.
It is said that truth is stranger than fiction, and this is borne out in the
story of the "Ghost Girl' of Harlan County.
Back up in the hills from Harlan is a little mining settlement called
Coxton. It was there in August 1925,
lived E.C. Vickery, a painter by trade, who had recently moved to the county
with his family from Knoxville, Tennessee.
In his household were his wife, two daughters, Mary and Christine, and
three sons, Everett, John, and Harry.
Their home was a typical mountain home.
IT sat upon a bluff which rolled down to the edge of Martin's Fork. Vickery was a mountaineer by birth, having come
originally from West Virginia, and had relatives in several towns in
southeastern Kentucky.
Mary Vickery was a pretty sixteen-year-old brunette of medium build.
She had dark bobbed hair and brown eyes.
Well known both in Harlan and Coxton, she was
popular with the younger people of the section.
She was still in school, where she took part
in many of the activities outside the regular line of study.
 |
Principal!
Mary Vickery, whose sudden disappearance
marked the inception of the 'resurrection' riddle.
|
On August the 18th, 1925, Mary told her father she was going over to Harlan to see girlfriends and promised to return sometime during the afternoon. When she left home she was wearing a simple print dress, brown shoes and stockings, a brown hat and a light coat. Whether Mary walked over the five-mile mountain road as was sometimes her custom; whether she went by automobile with friends, or whether she rode in a taxi that ran between the two towns has never been known.
When members of the family sat down to supper that night Mary had not returned. Inquiry among neighbors disclosed that she
had not been seen during the afternoon in Coxton. Her mother and father agreed she was spending
the night with some of the girls in Harlan and did not worry about her failure
to return later on in the evening.
The next morning, however, when no word was received from Mary, Mr. Vickery
went to Harlan and inquired among acquaintances with whom she could have spent
the night. To his surprise and worry, he
was unable to find a single person who had seen her during the past twenty-four
hours. Mr. Vickery notified Sheriff
James Greene and hurried home. All the
way there he lived in hope that upon his arrival he would find his daughter had
returned.
He was doomed to disappointment. For, when he reached there, an anxious family
informed him she had not returned. He
found further that persons who had traveled the road between Harlan and Coxton
the day before had not seen her.
Fearing that something might have happened to the girl, the father and
neighbors organized a searching party to scour the ridges between Coxton and
Harlan; relatives were notified as far away as Knoxville, and all her friends
were questioned. None of the latter
could throw any light upon the sudden disappearance, nor could they advance any
theory as to the reason for it. The
possibility of her having run away to get married was scouted, because none of
her friendships was considered more than trivial. She had no reason, apparently, to leave home,
since conditions there were harmonious.
Besides, she took no extra clothing, and it was thought that she had no
money with her other than enough to make a few small purchases.
Within the next three days, all relatives had been heard from, and a thorough
search of the mountain had been completed --to no avail. Had the earth suddenly opened and swallowed
her, Mary Vickery could not have vanished more quickly.
It was not until a week later that B.B. Golden, Commonwealth's Attorney for
that district, received information that a girl named Marie Jackson, of Harlan,
had made a statement to the effect that she had seen Mary Vickery, on the day
she left home, with a man in an automobile between Harlan and Coxton. Mr. Golden decided to take the matter up with
the Harlan County Grand Jury and summoned the Jackson girl and several others
to appear.
Miss Jackson told the jurors she had seen the Vickery girl in an automobile
that day and thought she was with a coal miner living at Cedar Point about
twelve miles away. She thought his name
was Charlie Williams. Williams, about twenty-five
years old and of excellent reputation, was summoned and questioned
thoroughly. He denied even knowing the
Vickery girl and was dismissed after Miss Jackson failed to pick him out of a
group of men when asked to identify him.
Her description of the companion of the Vickery girl did not tally with
that of Williams.
It might be well to note here that Williams was exonerated of any suspicion in
the case.
After hearing several witnesses, the jury was unable to throw any light on the
mystery, and in a few weeks authorities were ready to mark the case 'unsolved.'
On the afternoon of October 21st, 1925, Deputy United States Marshal Adrian
Metcalf and Deputy Sheriff Art Hensley were searching the mountains between
Harlan and Coxton in quest of a moonshine still.
Following an old trail up the side of the
mountain about a mile out of Harlan, the officers noted a peculiar odor.
To these men of long experience, it was
unmistakenly the smell of decaying human flesh.
They pushed high up the rugged mountain and shortly came to the mouth of an
abandoned coal mine shaft.
The tunnel
was sunk straight back into the side of the hill, and about the entrance were
piled rotting timbers. Brushes had grown up in tangled profusion and almost hid
the black maw in the rock ledge.
The
remains of a narrow gauge railroad that once stretched back far into the heart of
the mountain protruded from the shaft.
It was needless for the officers to climb higher, for both Hensley and
Metcalf knew they had traced the odor to its source.
They entered the shaft, and by striking matches obtained enough light to make
their way back in the passage. They had gone only about seventy-five feet when
they saw, in the flickering glow of a match, the outline of a human figure,
covered with rocks.
They approached
gingerly and, with the aid of more match light, found it was the body of a
woman, unrecognizable and badly decomposed.
The men knew instinctively that they were in the presence of some terrible
crime.
The inky passage; black walls
dripping with dank moisture and a ghostly silence contributed to the
gruesomeness of the setting.
The shocked officers gathered dead
limbs and pieces of decaying wood and built a fire inside the shaft in order to
make closer examination of the body.
Apparently, a hasty attempt had been made to bury it with small stones.
They removed these and by means of a crude litter constructed of mine timbers
removed the body to the outside.
Leaving Metcalf to stand guard, Sheriff Hensley hurried to Harlan. Within the next hour other officials,
including the coroner, had arrived. An
examination of the body disclosed the woman had been beaten to death. The skull had been badly crushed, evidently
by some blunt instrument. She appeared to have been of medium stature, but, due
to the decomposed condition of the body, it was impossible to determine her age
or just how long she had been dead. A
physician expressed the opinion she had been in the shaft for several
months. The clothing was torn and
faded. Water had removed the last
vestige of color from all of her clothing except a small felt hat found lying
beside the body.
By that time a crowd had gathered.
Remembering the disappearance of the Vickery girl officials sent for
E.C. Vickery who arrived while arrangements were being made to remove the body
to an undertaking establishment in Harlan.
The mountaineer examined the body and immediately identified it as his
daughter. He recognized the hat,
mildewed and bloodstained, as the one worn by her the day she left home. He was visibly shaken by the gruesome spectacle,
but with characteristic grimness, took charge of the body.
The next day a sorrowing mountain family buried the body in a little church
cemetery near Coxton.
A little more than two months before, the county had been immersed in an
investigation of the disappearance of Mary Vickery. Now authorities were faced with the problem
of finding her murderer. Although
facilities in the mountains are not as adequate as in the metropolitan
districts, G.J. Jarvis, acting county judge, determined to find the slayer at
any cost and bring him or her to justice, launched a methodical investigation
of the case.
Every line of procedure was followed.
The girl's acquaintances were questioned closely in an effort to unearth
a motive for the slaying. Several young
men with whom she had dates at various times came to Jarvis and volunteered
their aid. None were considered as
suspects, and what little information they gave proved of no value. The investigation carried authorities to the
most remote mining camps in sections of Harlan and adjoining counties. The movements of several men whose
reputations were questionable were traced, but each of these men was able to
prove by means of alibis and other testimony that he was above suspicion.
For three weeks the investigation was carried forward relentlessly, and for
three weeks it uncovered no clue as to the motive or identity of the
slayer. Authorities had about reached
the conclusion that Mary Vickery had been attacked and slain by some
degenerate. In the meantime, a reward of
$500 had been offered by the State for information leading to the capture of
the girl's killer.
On November 15, 1925, officials in charge of the case had little hope of
bringing the person who killed the girl to justice. In the midst of their disappointment at the
trend the case had taken so far, they received a tip that led them to
uncovering of one of the most diabolical plots in the annals of American crime.
This clue came in the form of an anonymous telephone call to Mr. Jarvis - a
reward for his untiring efforts.
He was about to leave his office that afternoon when a man, whose name was
never learned, gave him the names of two other men who claimed they saw Marie
Jackson walking down the mountain side near the spot where the Vickery girl's
body was found. This was supposed to be
on the day the girl disappeared.
Due to Marie Jackson's statement during the grand jury investigation of the
case, she had been questioned time and again after the body had been found. She
told nothing other than that she had seen Mary Vickery in an automobile with a
man.
At the time Marie Jackson, vivacious and attractive, blue-eyed and red-haired, about
eighteen years old, worked in a restaurant in Harlan. She was the daughter of Dee Jackson, a farmer
living near Pineville, Kentucky. She had been working in Harlan for about a year
and bore a very good reputation among the townspeople. Neither Mr. Jarvis nor other officials had
any idea she really knew important facts about the case up until this
time. They had placed little faith in
her story about the man in the automobile.
They had found she knew the Vickery girl only by sight. In fact, the latter had no intimate girlfriends.
That night, Mr. Jarvis sent for the two men whose names had been given
him. As they had nothing to do with the
disappearance of the girl, for obvious reasons their names are omitted from
this story.
They were two coal miners who had been walking into Harlan from a nearby mine
where they were employed. They told Mr.
Jarvis that they had seen the Jackson girl coming down the side of the mountain
on which the body was found, late in the afternoon of August 18th. Both had eaten frequently from the restaurant
where she worked and knew her by sight.
They were sure the woman they saw was Marie Jackson, and remembered they
had commented on the fact that she was smoking a cigarette. They had been transferred to another mine in
West Virginia shortly after the incident and had just returned to the
vicinity. They had heard of the case
only two days before and had not formed any connection between their seeing the
Jackson girl that afternoon and the murder of the other girl, Mary
Vickery. They merely had remarked about
it in a street corner conversation.
The story rang true, and Jarvis, after checking it with officials of the mine
company, sent out to get Marie Jackson.
In thirty minutes, she was ushered into his office.
Without mincing words Attorney Jarvis opened with the question: 'Marie, there were two men in my office a
moment ago who said they saw you coming down off the mountain where we found
Mary Vickery's body. It was on the afternoon she disappeared. They are positive they saw you. What about
it? '
'Well I guess they must have been seeing things,' the girl replied,
rather flippantly, considering the occasion.
'Now Marie, you've told me two or three different stories about this thing,
and I know you know something about this case,' Jarvis told her coolly.
'You said you saw her with Charlie Williams. You could not pick him out. You didn't
even know him. What I want to know is, what were you doing on the mountain that
day and with whom did you see Mary Vickery?'
The girl lit a cigarette and faced Mr. Jarvis without any trace of
embarrassment or excitement at the implication.
His pugnacious attitude and determined manner of questioning did not in
the last vanquish her indifference.
Then an experienced prosecutor set about the task of making the grim-lipped,
red-haired mountain girl talk. Her
answers to his questions consisted mainly of nods of her head. She refused to
go into any detail about anything. She
denied time and again that she had been on the mountain and offered to prove
that she was in town that afternoon.
Jarvis stuck to his task like a bulldog.
At 1 o'clock in the morning he still insisted she was withholding
important information from him.
At 1:45 o'clock Marie Jackson broke. It
was when Mr. Jarvis told her he was going to put her in jail and let her think
it over.
'Alright, Mr. Jarvis, you win,' she said. 'Give me a cigarette and
I'll tell you all I know about it.'
Jarvis complied with this request and waited.
'I wasn't on the mountain that day,' she said. 'I did see Mary Vickery that afternoon
though. I saw her riding with Condy
Dabney in his taxicab. They left town and went towards the Coxton Road. I never told this before, because I was in
love with Condy Dabney. He's gone and I
don't know where he is. He has not written me, and I have not heard a word from
him. I am not going to get in trouble
over him. That's all I know about it. When I said it was Charlie Williams I was
trying to protect Dabney. I wanted to
keep him out of it. I didn't have the
nerve to go through with it. I knew all the time it wasn't Williams.'
The name of Condy Dabney had not here-to-fore been mentioned to Jarvis in this
case.
The man, a former coal miner about
thirty-one years old, had run a taxicab and jitney around Harlan for several
months prior to the Vickery girl's disappearance.
He was not listed even among her acquaintances
and his leaving shortly after she disappeared had not caused comment.
It was known his home was not in Harlan and
that frequently he left town, returning later.
These facts had been overlooked in the investigation.
Tired, but with a certain feeling of relief, Jarvis went home after releasing
the Jackson girl with the understanding that she remain in town until her story
could be checked.
Early the next morning, November 16th, Jarvis learned that Dabney's home was in
Coal Creek, Tennessee, just across the state boundary. He verified the fact
that Dabney had left Harlan shortly after the Vickery girl's disappearance.
That day he wired authorities at Coal Creek, Clinton, and Caryville, Tennessee,
to arrest Dabney and hold him for questioning.
The next day he received a wire from Coal Creek stating that Dabney was
under arrest.
Before officials from Harlan County could get to Coal Creek, being delayed two
days because of impassable roads in the Coal Creek sect ion, Dabney was
released.
When the Kentucky officials
finally arrived there Dabney had disappeared and could not be found.
They learned that he was a married man and
had two children.
They returned to
Harlan, after Tennessee authorities promised to be on the lookout for him.
As the statement made by Marie Jackson was
not made public, Tennessee authorities did not know when they released Dabney
for what reason he was sought by Kentucky officers.
Jarvis swallowed his disappointment and continued his investigation.
He was faced with a complex situation in that
he felt certain Marie Jackson was the key to the Vickery mystery and that if
Dabney could be found and brought face to face with her, the case might be
brought nearer solution.
In the midst of all this trouble with the case, the Jackson girl disappeared
from Harlan.
Contrary to Jarvis'
instructions she left for 'parts unknown.' This complicated the situation all
the more and Jarvis had to search for two persons instead of one and had no
idea where either of them had gone.
Days
passed and no word was heard from either.
The case again died down in the public mind, but Jarvis was tireless in
his secret work.
It was a few days after New Years Day, 1926, that Marie Jackson returned to
Harlan. She just 'blew in' and acted as if nothing had happened Jarvis had her
brought before him and questioned her thoroughly.
She offered no explanation for her absence
nor any excuse for disobeying his instructions.
Her attitude toward the case was such that authorities decided to place
her in jail.
Time after time during the next several weeks, Jarvis, Sheriff Greene, and
County Attorney George R. Pope questioned the girl. They spent hours trying to
drag more information from her but had little success.
On February 28th the bombshell exploded.
Marie Jackson sent for Mr. Jarvis, Sheriff Greene and Mr. Pope. Her
carefree manner had vanished.
Weeks in
jail had left their mark.
'I can't stand this any longer,' she informed them when they
brought her from the jail to the sheriff's office. 'I'm going to tell you
the truth. Condy Dabney killed Mary
VIckery and hid her body in that mine shaft!'
Three hours later a grim group of officials led Marie Jackson back to jail.
When she re- entered her cell, she had been formally charged with accessory to
murder! Officials refused absolutely to explain why the charge had been
brought, saying only, 'The Commonwealth is in possession of information
concerning the slaying of the Vickery girl, of the most revolting nature. We
are not in a position now to reveal these facts, but they will be made
known at the proper time.'
Th next morning a quiet but thorough search for Condy Dabney was renewed in
earnest. Police officials throughout the
state were sent his description and authorities in Knoxville, Cincinnati, and
other border state towns were asked to assist in his apprehension. Whatever Marie Jackson had revealed to them
was sufficient to cause a warrant to be issued charging Dabney with murder.
On Tuesday, March 4th, while the search was progressing, Sheriff Greene learned
that Dabney was right under their noses, visiting at the home of a relative in
Coxton. Deputies were dispatched immediately, and that afternoon Dabney was
brought to Harlan. He was placed in jail
on a charge of murder and criminal assault.
Dabney vehemently denied any connection with the case, stating he had no idea
who Mary Vickery was and swore he never had heard of her.
He was arraigned Wednesday morning before the news of his arrest had
spread. His examining trial was set for
March 11th by County Judge W.J.R. Howard.
Bear in mind that the whole investigation had been conducted secretly and that
the Commonwealth had guarded its evidence closely. They expressed the belief they had the right
man and were confident of a conviction.
Rumors of every nature spread like wildfire back up into the hills, and there was
the usual small talk of mob violence.
Dabney had been unable to employ his counsel, and Judge Howard had
appointed G.A. Rawlings, an attorney of Harlan, to defend him.
Long before 10 o'clock on the morning of the trial, the courtroom in the Harlan
County Courthouse was packed.
Approximately 1,000 persons were jammed into the room when the
defendant, nervous and obviously anxious, was brought in. From his demeanor it was evident that the
rumbling of trouble had penetrated the walls of the jail. He sat huddled in a chair, twirling his
thumbs, his eyes shifting alternately from E.C. Vickery, the father, to the
crowd.
County Attorney Pope was assisted by Mr. Jarvis in the prosecution. On motion
of the defense counsel the case was waived to the grand jury without trial.
Judge Howard ordered that everyone remain seated until Dabney had left the
courthouse. Back in jail he appeared
relieved. The curiosity of the crowd was
not satisfied by any means.
A few days later Dabney was indicted, and the Commonwealth elected to try him
first on the murder charge. The trial
was set for March 29th before Circuit Judge J.B. Forrester. Just before this date B.B. Golden,
Commonwealth's Attorney, made public for the first time that the prosecution
was based upon the testimony of an eyewitness to the killing of Mary Vickery and
that Marie Jackson was the witness. He
refused to divulge any details.
Although short, the trial was dramatic.
Once again, the courtroom was filled with hillspeople. Close inspection
was made of those who attended in order to prevent the smuggling of arms
inside.
Following the testimony of the coroner, the officers who found the body were
called. They described their part in the
story in a few brief words.
Mr. Vickery took the stand and in a monotonous drawl, again identified the body
found in the mine shaft as that of his daughter. He told of her leaving home
and of his efforts to find her.
'Call Marie Jackson,' Golden boomed with a significant ring to his
voice.
An expectant hush fell over the crowd as the red-haired mountain girl held up
her hand to be sworn in. Everybody
present felt that the secret of the abandoned mine shaft was about to be made
known.
After the usual preliminary questions Prosecutor Golden asked Marie Jackson if
she on August 18th, 1925, was in the vicinity of the mine shaft and who she saw
there.
'Yes, Sir,' she answered, 'I was. I saw Mary Vickery and Condy Dabney
there.'
'Now Marie, I want you to tell in your own way just what happened and what
you saw.'
In a cold, bitter, voice the witness related a story, whose sordidness
transfixed all who heard with awe.
During her recital she glared at the defendant, who sat like a sphinx
before her. Not once did his eyes waver from the face of his accuser.
'On the afternoon of August 18th,' she began in answer to Mr. Golden's
instructions, 'Condy Dabney and I were riding around in his car. We had been going together for some time. We saw Mary Vickery in town, and he stopped
his car and asked her if she wanted to go for a ride with us. She got in and we drove out the Coxton Road
and stopped. We all three got out and
walked up the side of the ridge and sat down.
We had been talking there a few minutes when Condy asked me to go back down
to the car, saying he had something to tell Mary in private. I sat around for a minute, then got up and
started down the ridge. I pretended like
I was going back to the car, but after getting out of their sight I sneaked
back where I could see them and hid behind a tree.
'Condy was trying to make love to the Vickery girl. He made her sit down and
tried to pull her over to him and kiss her. She started fighting and tried to
get away. He kept on pulling her to him
and when she kept on fighting him off, he got mad. They were struggling when she broke loose and
started to run towards where I was hiding.
'Dabney picked up a big limb off a tree that was laying there and started after
her ---'
Here the girl paused and after a brief tense silence continued:
' He caught up with her and hit her on the head with the club. She screamed, and he hit her another wallop
on the head. She fell, and as she landed
on the ground, he hit her again. I
thought he had gone crazy and figured I'd better be getting away from
there. But somehow, I couldn't
move. He stood over her body and kept
beating her with the club. She didn't move. Then he assaulted her.
After that he picked her up and carried her to the mouth of the mine shaft and
went in. I stood there a moment and
watched him when he came out and got some rocks and went back in. I then went back to the car. Soon he came down the hill and got in. That's
all. We came back to town."
These revelations made by the girl so affected the spectators that you could
have heard a pin drop in the room as she concluded her story.
The prosecutor then asked the girl why she had not volunteered this information
when the search f or Mary Vickery was in progress.
'Why? I'll tell you why. There were reasons I didn't want to tell. The first
reason was I loved Condy Dabney. I was only trying to protect him. But he left me and all the while he was gone,
I never heard from him and I began to see what a fool I was.
The second reason I didn't tell you was because I was scared. He knew I saw him. That afternoon on our way back to town he
told me that if I ever said anything about it he would take me to the highest
peak in Harlan County and burn me at the stake.
I knew he meant it and I would have told for anything, except you all
kept worrying me there in jail until I had to tell.’
Rawlings could not shake the story in his cross-examination. Other witnesses introduced told of having
seen Dabney with the Vickery girl in his automobile on the day she
disappeared. Shortly after the afternoon
session convened, the Commonwealth closed.
In his own defense Dabney made a sweeping denial of the charges. He reiterated his statement he did not know
Mary Vickery and admitted frankly it was perfectly possible she rod in his car
that day, reminding the jury he operated a taxi and could not remember all his
passengers.
The Commonwealth demanded death, while Rawlings asked the jury not to consider
too strongly the testimony of Marie Jackson, pointing out she had admitted
under cross-examination she was jealous of Mary Vickery and Dabne. The jury received the case late that
afternoon. After several hours'
deliberation its members reported they had not reached a verdict and were taken
to a hotel for the night.
The following morning the courtroom was jammed long before the opening hour.
Speculation was rife as to the verdict. There was no denying the crowd was in
an ugly mood, and many expressions were heard indicating that if the jury
returned a verdict of 'not guilty' there were some who would take 'justice'
in their own hands.
At ten thirty o'clock on Wednesday morning the jury reported it had reached a verdict
and filed slowly into the courtroom.
'We, the jury, find the defendant, Condy Dabney, guilty of murder as charged
in the indictment and his punishment at life imprisonment in the penitentiary.'
Dabney received the verdict without emotion.
It was discovered later the reason the jury had been out so long was
because they could not agree on the penalty.
There were six of the jurors who voted for the death penalty, five for
conviction, and one for acquittal. A compromise was effected between the man
for acquittal and the six voting for death.
Rawlings announced that he would appeal the case.
After the trial, Marie Jackson was released from custody, and the charge of
accessory to murder against her was filed away.
Dabney was sent to the State Reformatory at Frankfort.
When the iron doors slammed behind Condy Dabney that day finis had not been
written in the Vickery case by any means.
The reader is probably wondering just why the author of this story has gone
into such detail in presenting facts in the case thus far. It was necessary in order to provide the entire
background for incredible disclosures that follow.
In the year that followed, Harlan and vicinity had almost forgotten the affair
with the exception of the family of Mary Vickery who still mourned her
death. Except for a few rumors from the
reformatory now and then to the effect that Dabney maintained his innocence and
was striving for a new trial, it was a closed record.
Authorities of Harlan County had been congratulated for the successful
prosecution in the Vickery case. Particular praise had been bestowed upon them
for their work in unraveling the threads of mystery that twined like a Gordian
knot about it all.
But it remained for George S. Davis, a policeman of Williamsburg, a small town
forty miles from Harlan, to rend asunder this Gordian knot and bring to light
the fact that all previous work in the case had served only to add to its weird
complication.
On March 18th, 1927, Patrolman Davis found Mary Vickery, long mourned dead, alive
and well in Williamsburg!
The officer chanced to see the name 'Mary
Vickery' written on the register of the Williamsburg Hotel. More out of curiosity than anything else he
asked the clerk about the guest and was told a girl with that name had
registered that morning and was in a room on the second floor.
The girl he found there readily admitted that she was Mary Vickery – the Mary
Vickery whose ‘dead body’ had been identified a year before and was
buried at Coxton.
Davis lost no time in get ting in touch with George S. Ward, newly elected
Sheriff of Harlan County and advising him of the strange discovery.
That night Deputy Charles K. Cadell of Whitley County took Mary Vickery
home. The excitement caused in Harlan by
the disappearance of the girl and the finding of a body supposed to have been
hers was nothing to compare with the hysteria of the people when word flashed a
round that she had been ‘resurrected.’
There were 2500 persons at the station when the train arrived. About the only one in town not present was
Marie Jackson. Hundreds in the crowd
frankly said they did not believe it could be she, but all doubts were
dispelled when Mary Vickery stepped from the train and flung her arms around
her father’s neck.
There was a mad rush forward and Sheriff Ward had difficulty in getting her
away from the crowd.
She was conducted
to a small room in the courthouse.
Her
story was heard by Jarvis, Sheriff Ward, County Judge Howard, Deputy Sheriff
Metcalf, and her parents.
Two points were of particular interest to the officers. She denied that she
knew anyone by the name of Marie Jackson and asserted she did not know Condy
Dabney.
However, she described a man in
whose taxi she rode on the day she left home and who, apparently, was
Dabney.
It was evident that those who
had testified probably had seen the girl in Dabney’s car.
It was the story of a girl who was back home from
‘just wandering around.’ She told them she left Harlan with only five
dollars, saved from spending money, in her pocket, and had gone to Livingston,
Kentucky, a town a bout fifty miles away, where she worked as a waitress in a
restaurant.
Leaving there she went to
Berea where she worked as a maid in a private home.
Her next stop was Mount Vernon, where she
heard for the first time Dabney had been convicted for her murder.
Her only explanation as to why she had not notified her family that she was
alive and well was:
‘I just never thought of it.’
She told them she went under the name of Rose Farmer while she was away. She
continued to wander from town to town, working in restaurants and private homes
until finally on March 17
th she got homesick and decided to come
home.
She went to Williamsburg where she
had relatives.
She declared she intended
to stay there only a day and then planned to return to Harlan.
It seemed almost unbelievable to officials that anyone could keep silent while
someone was spending time in prison for their ‘murder.’
Miss Vickery’s statement, that she
‘never
thought of it’, however, was the only explanation she made.
Marie Jackson was picked up the following morning by Deputy Sheriff
Metcalf.
Before sending Mary Vickery
home she and several other girls were taken to the county jail where, to
complicate matters all the more, Marie Jackson was unable to pick her out of
the group.
The same day a petition to
Governor William J. Fields, asking for the pardon of Condy Dabney, was drawn.
It was signed by Mr. and Mrs. Vickery, Judge Forrester, Mr. Jarvis, Mr. Pope,
Judge Howard, Sheriff Ward, Jailer Charles Smith and Lloyd Turner, a member of
the jury which convicted Dabney.
Mr. Rawlings, Dabney’s attorney, said before leaving for Frankfort with the
petition, he would probably bring Dabney back to Harlan in order that he might
testify before the Grand Jury and talk to authorities before he returned to his
family at Coal Creek.
In the midst of this extraordinary turn the case had taken with the
reappearance of the Vickery girl, officials once more found themselves as far
removed from the solution of the murder of the girl found in the mine as they
were before the secret investigation had started. They had again come to a
blank wall and had only to turn to Marie Jackson, that enigmatic personality
whose statements had placed an innocent man behind bars.
Jarvis once more started a determined effort to pierce the gloom which
surrounded the conviction of Condy Dabney and the identity of the body found in
the mine shaft.
The Jackson girl,
despite the return of Mary Vickery, insisted stubbornly she had told the truth.
Events during the four days following Mary Vickery’s ‘resurrection’ had changed
the case from one of interest only to Harlan County residents to a mysterious
maze of circumstances that focused the attention of the entire country.
Newspaper men from Louisville, Cincinnati,
Chicago, and other cities rushed to the little town, and soon front pages were
filled with the weird story, accompanied by photographs.
Before the petition for Dabney’s pardon had
reached Frankfort, Governor Fields had beard the t rue facts and set machinery
in motion for his release.
On March 22
nd, Condy Dabney, his face wreathed in smiles, left the
Reformatory for Harlan, a free man.
To the
surprise of newspaper men who were present at the signing of his pardon, Dabney
evinced no bitterness against this red-haired persecutor.
His sole thought seemed to be of reuniting
with his family.
The only explanation he
offered as to why the Jackson girl had attempted to lie his life away was: ‘The
warped mind of a woman with whom I had just two or three dates caused all this
trouble.’
Now that he was free, Dabney seemed satisfied to say nothing.
On the same day Harlan County officials re-opened the investigation.
They now worked on the theory that the decomposed
body found in the mine shaft was that of Mrs. Leila Cole, about twenty-five
years old, who disappeared from her home in Harlan in late 1924.
Mrs. Cole, who at the time of her
disappearance, was separated from her husband, James H. Cole, came to Harlan
from Cumberland, Kentucky.
Her name before
her marriage was Hicks.
According to her
husband, who had been questioned by authorities, she was last seen in a house
in Coxton where her clothing and jewelry were found in a suitcase sometime
later.
Officials asked Marie Jackson if she knew the Cole woman.
To their consternation she immediately dropped
her attitude of sullen indifference and said that the body found that October
day was that of Mrs. Cole and that Charlie Williams, the miner who she first
involved in the case, killed Mrs. Cole at the boarding house where she was
living.
To give the reader some idea of the workings of the mind of this unusual mountain
girl the author sets forth the second confession made to Mr. Jarvis on March 22
nd,
1927.
‘I was standing on the corner by the Harlan Bank when Charlie Williams came by
in his car and asked me to go for a ride.
Lying on the back seat was a bundle wrapped in a coat, and I asked him what
it was. He then told me about the killing, and I tried to get out of the car,
but he would not let me.
He drove out
Coxton Road and stopped near the mine shaft.
He got out of the car and said he was going to take the body up on the
mountain and hide it.
While he was gone,
I got out and ran away and walked back to town.
The next day I saw him and promised I’d never tell anyone about it.
He gave me fifty dollars to keep still. I
spent some of it for clothes.’
Without taking time to check the veracity of this statement, Judge Howard
issued a warrant that night for the arrest of Williams and deputies were sent
to Cedar Point to look for the miner. While this second manhunt was in
progress, Marie Jackson, as changeable as the mountain breeze in her deadly
accusations, repudiated her second attempt to implicate an innocent man.
Hardly three hours after she had accused
Williams of murder, she told officers she had lied, and that the truth of the
matter was that as far as she knew Charlie Williams did not even know the Cole
woman.
When questioned as to why she told these different stories she admitted she
made the first confession because of a violent hatred for Condy Dabney.
She denied it was caused from jealousy and refused
time and again to explain why she sought such heinous revenge.
Her second attempt to implicate Williams was
attributed merely to the knowledge she had failed in the first and to an effort
to drag herself out of the mess.
After this development, officials saw at once the danger in placing any
confidence in statements or ‘confessions’ made by Marie Jackson, and
immediately quashed the warrant for Williams and abandoned their search for
him.
On March 24
th, Condy Dabney came back to Harlan.
A grand jury was impaneled and before they
went into deliberation of the case Judge Forrester instructed the jurors as
follows:
‘A frightful travesty has recently been committed in Harlan County. It is of such a nature as to horrify even the
most callous. A man was indicted in this
court on a charge of the brutal murder and criminal assault of a
sixteen-year-old girl. This man spent
practically a year in the penitentiary under a life sentence for the murder of
a girl who is alive and at the present moment is here in Harlan.
The jury decided the case on evidence of witnesses. One of these witnesses detailed the murder of
that girl as an eyewitness. A more dastardly deed is inconceivable - to swear
away the life of an innocent man is a crime for which the law, unfortunately,
does not provide sufficient punishment.
This is a case that deserves immediate and thorough investigation. Enter into all angles of it. If there are others behind this perjury, sift
them out and indict them, closing your eyes absolutely to the stations in life
of the persons guilty of such a vile subornation of perjury, if there has been
any committed. Indict them, be it who they may.
It is bad enough to swear falsely in order to shield a guilty person,
but in my humble judgement there can be nothing lower or more degraded than to
make an innocent human being suffer the tortures of a trial, to hear perjurers
swear his life away, to hear the verdict of a jury confining him to prison and
misery for life. I want this matter
sifted to the bottom. It is as much the
duty of the court to see that justice is done to the innocent as it is to see
that justice is meted out to the guilty.’
Following the judge’s instructions
the jury went into the case thoroughly.
They reviewed the various statements, ‘confessions’ and declarations of
the Jackson woman. They heard other
witnesses including Dabney and Marie Jackson.
On March 25th, while the grand jury was still in session, Charley
Williams walked into t he office of Mr. Jarvis and said he had heard the officers
were looking for him in connection with the case and he wanted to find out just
what it was all about. Although he was
not ‘wanted,’ he volunteered to go before the grand jury when told what the Jackson
girl had said in her confession.
All doubt was erased from the minds of the grand jury when just as a matter of
record Marie Jackson was called into the room where they w ere sitting and
asked to pick Williams out of a group standing with him. For the second time
Marie Jackson showed clearly she had no idea who Charlie Williams was.
On March 26th the jury completed its investigation and returned an
indictment against Marie Jackson on a charge of perjury. Her case was set for April 4th.
Four hours after the indictment was returned, much to the interest of all
concerned, Mary Vickery was married. The
ceremony was performed in the office of Mr. Jarvis by the Reverend Mr. H.C.
Davis, pastor of the Baptist Church of God. The husband was C.E. Dempsey,
twelve years her senior, whom she had known for some time. The couple returned to the home of the bride’s
parents following the ceremony. When the happy pair walked out of the office of
the astonished attorney, Mary Vickery Dempsey re tired from this fantastic tale
of the hills.
Another principal in the case passed out of the picture that same day. Condy Dabney
returned to his family at Coal Creek. It
was a happy reunion between the man and his wife, his twelve-year-old son, Oscar,
and nine-year-old daughter, Helen. Words
are inadequate to describe the gladness in the hearts of members of the family.
On April 4th the Circuit Court room at Harlan again was crowded to capacity. There was a brief trial. A sullen, grim-faced
mountain girl stood before Judge Forrester. In answer to the reading of the
indictment she pleaded guilty.
Following the instructions from the judge the jury retired and in four minutes
returned with its formal verdict of guilty and sentenced her to five years in
the penitentiary, the maximum penalty under law.
Thus the tangled skeins in a web of
grotesque circumstances were in a sense unraveled. The innocent had been vindicated and the
guilty punished.
But there are many things about the case today that officials of that mountain
section still puzzle over. The main
question is: Whose body was found in the abandoned mine shaft and who was the
perpetrator of the crime? Many believe it was the body of Mrs. Leila Cole, but
this supposition has never been proven.
After all, the mystery reverts to the day that Deputy Marshal Metcalf and
Deputy Sheriff Hensley made their gruesome discovery in the mine shaft!
With the thought that three years imprisonment in the penitentiary might have
softened Marie Jackson to the point she would lift the veil of mystery that
cloaked her inadequate explanation of her perjury against Condy Dabney, the
writer on April 27th, 1930, went to the Reformatory at Frankfort.
In the presence of Acting Warden W.R. Roach and several newspapermen he talked
to her for more than two hours. Instead
of finding a woman broken and meek the writer found one who had nursed a hatred
for the man she had condemned through all the long days of her solitude and who
declared in words couched in bitterness, ‘I will kill Condy Dabney if I ever
meet him face to face!’
When asked if she knew how near Condy Dabney came to death at the hands of the
jury because of her lies and whether she would have allowed him to go to his
death had the death penalty been inflicted, she very deliberately said: ‘That’s
what I wanted them to give him – the chair.
What do you think I told that story for? I would have been glad
of it.’
She freely admitted she had manufactured the s tory deliberately in order to
send him to his death in the electric hair and added that if she had had
opportunity before telling the story she would have killed him herself.
No doubt the readers of True Detective Mysteries wonder at the woman’s boldness
and callous attitude in making such a statement. The writer was no less surprised in view of
the fact she was told before the interview for what purpose anything she might
say would be used. To show she was impressed that her statements would be
written in a story for True Detective Mysteries, she chose her
answers carefully and with due deliberation.
The only question she absolutely refused to answer was the one that was put to
her repeatedly and that was: ‘What had Dabney done that caused you to desire
to seek his death?’
‘I have never told that,’ she answered. ‘And I’m not going to tell it
now. There’s no reason to tell you anything but the truth about this to you
now. I have only about two years more to
stay in here and then I’ll be out. I’ll always feel the same way about Condy
Dabney, and I suppose the only way I’ll ever come back to this place will be
for me to meet up with him. If I ever do, I’ll get me a gun and kill him. He hasn’t paid yet for what he did to me.’
She said that when the body was found that day in the mine, she knew it was not
Mary Vickery. She said it was Leila Cole. She would not explain how she knew it
was Mrs. Cole.
She evaded answering any questions as to whom she suspected of the woman’s
murder.
That was about all. She said she had not decided whether she would go back to
the mountain country or not. Throughout
the interview the girl spoke in a calm voice.
Her listeners were amazed at the venom and spite in the words of this
twenty-four-year-old mountain girl who showed no sign of remorse for her deeds.
As the group left the cell house Warden Roach was heard to remark: ‘Well,
they say that ‘Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned!’
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