Horror Among The White Oaks: The Strange Case of Roy Rickey Part 9: The Verdict & Conclusion

  

Carter County Courthouse in Grayson, KY

For five full days prosecution and defense fought a legal battle such as has seldom been seen in Kentucky, with two lives as the stake.  Defense Attorney Sparks paced up and down in front of the jury for two hours using all the oratorical effects he could summon to the aid of his client.  He claimed much of the feeling against the woman had been stirred up because she was stepmother to little Roy.

“Stepmothers,” he said, “don’t get much credit for the good they do, but I had a stepmother and she was a wonderful woman.  This woman, Mrs. Rickey, is a stepmother too.  I believe a stepmother is capable of caring for a boy with the love of a real mother, and I believe Mrs. Rickey did just that.”

The poor boy’s horrible end didn’t seem to uphold this statement and there were some quiet smiles.

In closing his case Sparks called attention to the feelings of hatred for his client that existed throughout the county.  “Do not heed the mob spirit,” he pleaded to the jury, “for they are seeking the conviction of Mrs. Rickey just to avenge the unfortunate death of little Roy.”

Clever as it was, the defense attorney’s oratory went for naught.  The jury brought in a verdict of guilty against Mrs. Eliza Rickey and sentenced her to life imprisonment.  The death penalty which the prosecution had hoped for was thus passed over, doubtless because of Jim Andy Day’s failure on the witness stand to substantiate his original story.

County Attorney McGill then asked the Court to completely exonerate the dead boy’s father, Clyde, of any connection with the crime, as he had no knowledge of it.  The innocent husband of a faithless wife was then discharged.

A day later Jim Andy Day went on trial for his life on a charge of murder.   Just as it was about to proceed in Judge Wolford’s court, the prisoner whispered to Attorney Albert J. Counts who had been appointed to defend him.

Lawyer Counts asked for a brief recess to consult with his client and when he returned to court he asked the prosecutors if they would agree to the same sentence for Jim Andy Day that Mrs. Rickey had received, if his client pleaded guilty.  The prosecution agreed and Day was also sentenced to prison for life.

That same day, the convicted pair left the ancient Carter County courthouse to begin serving their sentence in the State Penitentiary.  Day appeared to accept his fate nonchalantly, but Mrs. Rickey was just as defiant as ever and her eyes flashed scorn as she gazed on the crowd lining the pavement to watch the prisoners taken away.

Four years later a terrible punishment came to this black-eyed and unbelievably cruel woman who had choked her step-son to death.  The glossy black hair had by that time turned snow white, and one morning, wild-eyed, she was taken to the Eastern Kentucky Hospital for the Insane.   She had become a raving maniac, tearing out half of her hair and slashing her abdomen with a piece of broken mirror, in an attempt to take her own life.

Horror Among The White Oaks: The Strange Case of Roy Rickey Part 8 - The Trial

The day of the trial drew near with the officials discouraged over the possible outcome.  Each felt that the murderer of Little Roy was actually in custody, but they were still without the means of separating the guilty one from those who might be only partially guilty.

The night before the eventful day, Coroner Henderson, Deputy Sheriff Stephens, and County Attorney McGill gathered in the office of the last named to map out the plan of prosecution.  With this decided on, it was suggested that they give the sphinx-like trio a final “work-out.”
As the questioning went on, the County Attorney studied the suspects.  As he interpreted them, Mr  . and Mrs. Rickey listened with more or less contempt to the cross-examination, saying little, and speaking with cold indifference whenever they were forced into answers.   Clyde Rickey repeated the statement he had given several times, that he knew nothing of what  had happened to little Roy; nor did he have any idea how he came to be suspended from the white oak tree.   Mrs. Rickey expressed the same thoughts, but occasionally there was a look of gloating in her eyes, as if she felt sure she had tricked the officials, and knew that the law would be unable to fasten the crime on any of them.

Not so with Jim Andy Day. He quailed under the County Attorney’s stern glances, and shifted uneasily as penetrating questions were put.  Was his attitude the opening wedge? McGill thought so.  Anyway there was nothing to be lost by a last minute attempt to play the apparently scared lover against his paramour and the husband he had wronged. So he had Mr. and Mrs. Rickey returned to their cells, and dismissing his two colleagues, concentrated on Jim Andy Day.

After some rapid-fire questioning with the man becoming more and more nervous, the County Attorney suddenly changed his tactics.

“Jim Andy,” he said kindly, “I’d like very much to get the truth from you. This is your last chance to tell all you know, and telling the truth now may save your life.  You must consider the following things carefully.

“We know little Roy Rickey was murdered, and we can prove it.  We know the cord used in hanging him was that used by your father in tying an old suitcase together.  We know that Roy returned to the house after taking the cow to pasture, and we’ve found neighbors who heard his screams shortly after he reached home.  You’ve admitted you were in the house at that time.   Therefore, you know what happened to Roy when he got back home.  Better tell us and save your hide, don’t you think?”

The bluff of the County Attorney about neighbors seeing the boy return and hearing the screams, had a visible effect on Jim Andy Day.  He moved uneasily, moistened his lips, looked silently at the floor.  Then he asked:

“Judge, have you got a cigarette?”

“Sure, Jim,” replied the County Attorney.  “Here’s a whole pack that you can keep.”

Day’s face brightened as if he had at last found an unexpected friend.

McGill continued, “Jim Andy, we don’t want to kill you for this thing if you didn’t do it, but the way it stands now, you’re in it as thick as the other two.”

“But Judge, I’m afraid to say anything, yet if I don’t tell, they’ll frame me. I’m afraid.”

“Tell the truth, Jim Andy,” said McGill inexorably, “and you’ll be all right if you haven’t been mixed up in this awful crime.”

Jim Andy put his hands to his face and brokenly sobbed, “I’m afraid to tell!  I’m afraid of being mobbed and I’m afraid of that woman too!”

“We’ll not let anyone harm you, Jim. We’ll take you to the Federal prison at Catlettsburg, if necessary, where lynchers can’t get to you.  And we h ope to put that woman where she will never hurt anyone again.”

After several seconds had ticked by, Jim Andy suddenly said:

“All right, Judge—but you do everything you can for me.”

“I will, but tell me who killed Roy Rickey?”

“It was Eliza—I mean Mrs. Rickey.  It was this way.  Roy came back Wednesday evening late.  We were eating supper, when Roy said something about telling his Dad on Eliza and me. We had been together a lot and had some big times.  Roy was around all the time and once or twice he came in on us when we were intimate.   Roy showed he didn’t like it and that night he acted like he was sure going to tell on us.  Mrs. Rickey was sitting across the table, and she got mad at Roy. She picked up a dish and threw it at him. It hit Roy in the face and he threw up his hands and started screaming.    I was scared and didn’t hardly know what to do.  He had fallen down, but I picked him up and tried to keep him from crying.

“Mrs. Rickey rushed around the table awful mad. She grabbed little Roy and choked him while I was   holding him.   When she stopped he was dead.

“We both were scared, then, and we quickly wrapped him up in a quilt and put him in a corner of my room.  We, or rather Mrs. Rickey, was going to have prayer meeting at the house Friday night, and because she was afraid the body would smell, she made me carry it down to the old mine.

“We took it back in there late Friday night.  We thought that we might bet by if we hung the body in a tree.  So in the darkness, we put it up in the tree.  I guess we did a bad job of it. Of course, I couldn’t tell that night what condition his body was in, and I was so afraid I didn’t know what to do.  I just did what she told me to, and that’s all there is to it, Judge.”

McGill listened to the astounding story, and drew a breath of relief.  He felt sure Jim Andy was now telling the truth.  Finally he asked:

“What about those bloodstained clothes found in the yard, Jim?”

“I guess she used them to wipe the blood off the floor in my room.”
“Did Clyde Rickey know anything about all this?”

“No, but he didn’t do anything much about finding him.”

After a few more queries, McGill took Day back to his cell.

Circuit Judge G.W.E. Wolford
Presided at the trial

The County Attorney then called his associates and told them the news. Deputy Stephens, Coroner Henderson and McGill met in the latter’s office and rearranged their presentation of evidence with the determination of sending Eliza Rickey and Jim Andy Day to the electric chair for as repellent a murder as ever was committed in Kentucky or any other state.

Governor Ruby Laffoon of Kentucky named former Governor William F. Fields as prosecuting attorney to succeed Thomas S. Yates who had recently resigned, and he began at once to prepare his case.  He elected to try Eliza Rickey first and use Jim Andy Day as a witness for the Commonwealth against his paramour.

In jail, the stepmother’s contempt had changed to an attitude of defiance.  She still expressed her belief that she would be cleared of killing little Roy, as she was unaware  that the story of her brutal strangling of the child in a fit of anger had been told to the County Prosecutor by Jim Day. She knew that the people of her home county execrated her and were clamoring for her conviction, but this did not appear to trouble her.

When she faced Judge Wolford in the village of Grayson, the count y seat, on  September 19th, 1932, it was just twenty-nine days after little Roy’s bruised body had been cut down from the white oak tree. She was defended by two of the best legal minds in eastern Kentucky, Samuel J. Sparks of Ashland and Benjamin F. Thompson, an attorney of Olive Hill.  The story of how Jim Andy Day had held the youngster while his own mother choked him to death with her hands had been spread far and wide and people came from all over the State to crowd the little courtroom and get a glimpse of the two fiends, hoping to hear them sentenced for their awful crime.   Almost everyone believed they would be found guilty.

The defense attorneys immediately asked for a change of venue, contending with some truth that a fair trial in Carter County would be impossible because of the vindictive feelings constantly expressed against the pair.  However, this indignation was not confined to the people of the county in which the crime had been committed, but extended throughout the State, and recognizing this, Judge Wolford ruled against the motion and ordered the trial to proceed.

As outlined in the foregoing, most of the evidence against the black-eyed woman was circumstantial.  The highlight of the trial was expected to be the detailed story of Jim Andy Day confirming the facts he had given in his confession to the County Attorney.  Much to their surprise Day, when he took the stand, refused to “tell all” as he had promised but contented himself with the statement that “Mrs. Rickey only  choked Roy,” leaving it to be inferred that death had occurred accidentally when she seized the youngster by the throat in a fit of anger.  The prosecution endeavored to extract all the details from their star witness but failed.

Horror Among The White Oaks: The Strange Case of Roy Rickey Part 7 : The Return to the Rickey Home

 

The Modest Homestead of 
the Rickey Family

Coroner Henderson decided to visit the Rickey home once more.  When he arrived he walked around to the back door. Hearing a noise behind him, he turned quickly and saw a little girl looking at him curiously. She had curly blonde hair and azure blue eyes, and she stood illumined by the brilliant September sunshine, a look of inquiry on her face.

“Good morning, little girl,” said Henderson, somewhat astonished. “How are you?”

“Okay”, she answered timidly.

“What’s your name?”

“Agnes”

“That’s a pretty name, but what’s your other name?”

“Rickey. I’m Agnes Rickey.” 

The girl’s answer puzzled the official.  He had not known that there was still another child. Finally he asked:

“Where do you live?”

“I live here,” the youngster said emphatically.  “But I’ve been staying over there,” pointing to another hill where a clump of trees evidently hid a house from view.

Further conversation elicited the fact that Agnes had two brothers and one sister: Herbert, Roy, and Jessie.  Herbert went away about two months ago, she explained, and no one had heard of him since.

As the child seemed inclined to talk, the Coroner continued his questioning.

“Did you ever see your mother and Jim Andy together, Agnes?”

“Oh yes,” she answered.  “But she’s my stepmother.  They went out together at night all the time, and didn’t ever come back until I was asleep.”

“Do you remember seeing any other men coming up to see your stepmother?”

“Sure. Thomas Winfield and Charles Pond would give me money to leave the house so they could be alone with her.”

“How often did this happen?”

“About once a week, I think.”

“Did you ever see Jim Andy to anything to hurt Roy?”

“Yes. I’ve seen him slap Roy and pull his hair.”

“Do you know why he did this?”

“No. Roy was always a good boy.”

What a home for a youngster, thought the Coroner when he concluded his talk with Agnes.  Later he made arrangements for the little girl to be taken to Grayson and placed in a home which the County Attorney found for her.

Examining the house he found stains which looked like blood in Day’s room.  Also, under weeds in the back yard, he found some bloodstained clothes.  These he took back with him to Olive Hill.

Due to the publicity given the case in Kentucky and adjoining states, the officials soon learned that Herbert Rickey was not dead.  He was living in Fort Gay, WV.

Coroner Henderson immediately went there and returned to Olive Hill with the youngster, a handsome, intelligent lad of fourteen.  The youth confirmed much of the information the officers had obtained, but he was unable to add anything to their stock of knowledge; and he had no idea as to why his brother Roy would desire to commit suicide; or why anyone would wish his death.

From time to time the County Attorney had each of the three suspects brought to his office, and there with the assistance of Coroner Henderson and Deputy Stephens, he endeavored to break down the wall of silence which surrounded the two men and the woman. But neither persuasiveness nor threats had any visible effects on this stolid trio, who, regardless of any differences they might have had in the past, stood united against what they probably considered their common enemy, the Law.

There was nothing to be done but go before a grand jury and attempt to obtain an indictment against all three, even though the evidence had several weak links in it.  They could not continue to hold the prisoners indefinitely and there appeared little possibility that additional and conclusive evidence against any of the suspects would be forthcoming.

Circuit Judge G .W.E. Wolford thereupon ordered a grand jury convened in special session.  The officials marshaled their evidence, and much to their surprise and delight, the jury handed Judge Wolford three true bills indicting Clyde Rickey, Eliza Rickey, and Jim Andy Day for the murder of little Roy Rickey.

Frantically the prosecutors now worked to uncover evidence of a more direct and damning nature.  At best they could only conclude that two of the three were  guilty; in all probability only one had done the killing, and the other two were accessories after the fact.   One thing they did discover—that the cord used in the hanging of little Roy had come from an old suitcase, which Jim Day’s father had delivered to the Rickey home.  He admitted that it was the same cord he had tied around the suitcase to hold it together.

This was an interesting piece of evidence, but of little value.  Each of the three suspects, as well as Roy himself, would have had ready access to it, so it contributed nothing against any of the three prisoners.

Horror Among The White Oaks: The Strange Case of Roy Rickey Part 6

 When Coroner Henderson met the Deputy Sheriff again, the latter suggested that in all probability Clyde Rickey had accidentally killed his son and that Mrs. Rickey and Jim Andy Day, learning of the tragedy, had decided to help him cover up the crime.  All he had learned from his visit to the Reverend Richard Short was that Mr. And Mrs. Rickey had joined the pastor’s church a few weeks before.  He had conducted the prayer meeting in their home Friday, and as far as he knew, both were devout Christians.

“I too have about come to the conclusion that the old man Rickey killed the boy,” said the Coroner, wearily, ash the two men made their way back to Olive Hill.  “But how are we going to prove it?”

“I don’t know,” replied Stephens, “but those footprints—they ought to cause someone a lot of grief.”

Feeling sure that either Mr. or Mrs. Rickey, or else Jim Andy Day, knew the details of the crime, it was decided after a conference with the County Attorney, to take the three into custody and try and match one against the other to get at the truth.  This was done, in spite of the protests of Mrs. Rickey and Day.  Clyde Rickey took his arrest rather non-chalantly.   The investigators had refrained from persistent questioning of Clyde because they believed he would prove the most difficult to handle and be least likely to give information.

With the men in custody it was a simple matter to check the shoes they were with the footprints found at the death mound.  The comparison was a direct blow to their theory.  Clyde Rickey’s shoes did not fit the prints, but those of Jim Andy Day did.

This indicated that regardless of who had committed the crime, Day must have known about it.  In all probability, he had been the man who had conveyed the dead boy to the tree and hung him there.

When accused of this, Day called attention to the fact that he had discovered the body and said  that out of curiosity he had walked backward and forward, between the tree and the mine opening.  That sounded convincing.

Thus the matter stood at the end of August 1932. The officials had three people in jail, held under suspicion of murder, but they had no evidence by which they could hope to convict any one of them for the most dastardly crime that had ever occurred in Carter County.

The first week in September, a report came to the County Attorney that seemed to complicate matters.  He learned that Herbert Rickey, an older brother of the dead Roy, had mysteriously disappeared several weeks prior to the tragedy. Had he been slain also?  That was another point to clear up.

Horror Among The White Oaks: The Strange Case of Roy Rickey: Part 5: Following The Inquest

  The day following the inquest, Prosecuting Attorney McGill, Coroner Henderson, and Deputy Sheriff Stephens discussed the case together.  Suspicion naturally centered on the father whom they believed might have killed his young son unintentionally during one of his severe beatings.

“I’m inclined to agree with you,” said the Coroner, “but I’ll not be satisfied until I learn just what the setup in that household has been.  I didn’t tell you, but when old man Rickey told me about  Jim Day being a boarder, there was something in his voice that suggested things.”

“That so?” commented McGill. “Why don’t you work at it from that angle and let Tony see what he can dig up at the place where the body was found.”

Deputy Stephens went immediately to what had become known as the “death mound” near the abandoned mine.  Dropping on his knees, he went over the ground under the tree from which the body had been suspended.  He found drops of blood on the blades of grass, but what interested him most were some footprints impressed heavily into the loose gravel leading from the tree to the entrance of the mine.  He followed these carefully and they led to the opening where he saw more bloodstains.  Footprints from the same shoe backtracked from the mine to the death mound.  Deputy Stephens measured these carefully and made a note of the size.

There being nothing further that seemed of value, he made his way toward the Rickey home, feeling sure that he would find Coroner Henderson there.  However, hoping to obtain information that might help, he stopped at various homes in the vicinity and made inquiries about the Rickey family, Jim Andy Day, and the strange crime at the death mound.

There was much gossip, he found, concerning the relations of Jim Andy Day and Mrs. Rickey.  Also, a neighbor of the Rickeys, Mrs. Hattie Binion, revealed that on various occasions Clyde Rickey had whipped his boy brutally with heavy boards, even going so far as to fell him to the ground.

Meeting the Coroner, Stephens told him of his discovery of the tracks between the mound and the mouth of the mine.  He also related the gossip he had heard concerning Jim Andy Day and Mrs. Rickey.

“I’ll tell you what you do, Tony,” said Henderson.  “I’m going to call upon Mrs. Rickey again and question her.  I wish you’d see the Reverend Richard Short, who I understand, conducted a prayer meeting in the Rickey home the Friday night before the body of the boy was found.”
Coroner Henderson had not forgotten that on his first visit he had seen a pallet made of quilts lying on the floor of one of the rooms.  The quilts had been soiled by dark stains and he wanted, among other things, to satisfy his curiosity about them.

When he met Mrs. Rickey, one of his first questions was:

“Who made up that pallet in the front room that I saw when I was here before?”

“One of the men”, she answered.

“Which one?” persisted the Coroner.

“I don’t remember,” was the woman’s reply.

“There were bloodstains on those quilts, Mrs. Rickey,” said the officer severely. “Where did they come from?”

“I don’t know nothing about it,” she answered sulkily.

“Where does Mr. Rickey work?”

“At the brick-yard.  He goes to work about five o’clock every evening.”

“Did he work last Friday night?”

“No.”

“That was the night you had a prayer meeting here, wasn’t it?”

“Yes. Clyde laid off for prayer meeting.”

“Did you go to bed after the guests left?”

“No, me and Jim Andy went out and looked for Roy,” she said resentfully, looking at him out of the corner of her eye.

Henderson studied the dark-eyed woman as he carefully framed the next question.

“Mrs. Rickey, you and Jim Andy like each other pretty well, don’t you?”

“Yes, I guess we do.  There’s nothing wrong in that , is there?”

The Coroner ignored the question and continued in an accusing tone.

“Roy must have been in the way a lot, when you and Jim Andy wanted to be alone, wasn’t he?”

The woman made no answer.

He decided to startle her into an admission of some kind.  Starting to his feet and pointing a finger at the black-eyed mother, he said sternly:

“You’re lying Mrs. Rickey.  I know you’re lying. You know Roy did not commit suicide.  You or Jim Andy Day killed him because he was in your way.  You were having a love affair with Jim and you were afraid that Roy would tell.”

Mrs. Rickey drew back aghast, stunned by the vehemence of Henderson’s words.  Her lips trembled as she tried to speak.  Finally she said, almost in a whisper:

“Mr. Henderson, that’s not so. I loved Roy as if he was my own child.”

“Your own child?” repeated the surprised official.  “You mean you were not  Roy’s real mother?”

“I’m his stepmother,” she faltered. Then, her voice gaining strength, she continued:

“Jim Andy isn’t a bad man.  He just boards here and helps pay expenses.”

“If Jim Andy isn’t a bad man, then who killed Roy, Mrs. Rickey?  Why don’t you tell me the whole truth?”

“I’ve told you all I know, Mr. Henderson.”

“And you still think your stepchild committed suicide?”

“yes.”

Horror Among The White Oaks: The Strange Case of Roy Rickey: Part 4: The Coroner's Inquest

  “Think we’d better hold the inquest anyway, while we’ve got these people here.  I see you’ve had Mrs. Rickey come along.  We can make our investigation afterwards.  Inasmuch as there seems to be a good deal of mystery about the boy’s death, it’s better not to have the Coroner’s jury cast suspicion on anyone until we have our facts together and are ready to act.”

A Coroner’s jury of six men was then selected, but little helpful information was elicited from the evidence.

Among those heard was Dr. Dan Fortune, a local physician, who testified that he had examined the boy’s body and concluded that little Roy had been dead about three days.  He felt quite sure the lad was dead before he had been hanged.  The youngster’s parents and Jim Andy Day told of the boy’s strange disappearance, but stated that they had no knowledge of what had happened to him between Wednesday evening and Saturday morning, when his body had been found.

In further verification of the officials’ suspicions that it was a case of homicide, not suicide, Earl Adams, Sam Barker and Ersel Maggard, all residents of Soldier, stated that they had been within sixteen feet of the scrub oak which served as a gallows, as late as two o’clock Friday afternoon, and that they were sure no body was hanging there at that time.  If the boy had been dead three days, he must have been killed first and then hung from the tree sometime between two o’clock Friday afternoon and six o’clock Saturday morning, when the tragedy was discovered.

Clyde Rickey,  father of the dead child, heard neighbors tell the jury how he had lashed Roy unmercifully only a few days before the boy’s death, causing blood to  trickle down the little fellow’s arms and drip from his finger-tips.  There were murmurs from the crowd, and a movement toward the parent, but they subsided as additional testimony was given.

Having heard all the information that was forthcoming, the jury returned the verdict that:  “Roy Rickey came to his death by unnatural means at the hands of a person or persons unknown.”

Thus was thrown into the lap of the officials the mystery of who had killed Roy Rickey – and why?  The poignant question reiterated earlier in the day in childish treble. “What’s Roy doing hanging there?” had now to be answered by the county’s investigators.

The verdict of the Coroner’s jury was not without its effect on the residents of Carter County.  Among those who had seen the pathetic picture of the youngster hanging dead in the sunshine and shadow of that Saturday morning, the tales of parental brutality were a constant topic of conversation.   If the germ that lay in the minds of many were ever matured it would have provided all that was needed to sweep the feelings of the community into a lynching fever.

Horror Among The White Oaks: The Strange Case of Roy Rickey: Part 3: The Initial Interview With Mrs. Rickey

  Coming to the point quickly, the Coroner asked:

“Mrs. Rickey, what do you suppose caused your boy’s death?”

“He committed suicide, I guess.”
“But it doesn’t look like suicide to me, Mrs. Rickey.”

“You think . . . “ she began in a startled voice.

“Yes,” said Henderson. “I think it’s murder. You know, it’s rather unusual for a boy his age to commit suicide.”

“Well—Mr. Henderson, he was an odd child.”

“You mean you think he committed suicide because he was odd?”

“No, but he took things different from other kids.  He was afraid of his pa and his pa was always whipping him.  He whipped him something awful just a few days ago.”

“What for?”

“I dunno.  Sometimes I thought his pa liked whipping him.  Then Wednesday, he stole a watermelon and when I told him what a beating he was going to get when his pa heard of it, I reckon he just got s cared and hanged himself.”

“When did you last see Roy, Mrs. Rickey?”

“About five o-clock Wednesday.”

“And you looked for him when he didn’t come back?”

“Yes, we looked everywhere, and when Jim Andy and me couldn’t find him, we thought he’d run away.”

“How long has Jim Andy Day been staying here?”

“About a month.”

“Do you have any other boarders, Mrs. Rickey?”

“Nobody but him.”

“And you can’t suggest any other reason for the suicide than that the youngster was afraid of his father?”

“No, Mr. Henderson.”

Convinced that there was nothing more to be learned for the present from Mrs. Rickey, he instructed her to follow him so she could testify at the inquest.  Then he returned thoughtfully to the scene of the tragedy.

“Learn anything, Henderson, about this boy’s suicide?” asked the County Attorney, John R. McGill, who had arrived and viewed the body.

“No,” the Coroner replied.  “Nothing—except that it wasn’t a suicide.”

“What makes you say that?”

“That youngster was dead, Mac, when he was strung up.  Of that I’m sure.  If someone had hanged him there he would have struggled.  If he had struggled, there would be marks on his neck, and the bark of the limb would show signs of rubbing.  Besides, I doubt if any youngster could have hanged himself in that way.”

“That’s the way it struck me,” agreed the County Attorney, “but everybody in that crowd is talking suicide.”

“It’s a good thing they are,” commented the Coroner. “Otherwise we’d have a lynching party here, and they might hang the wrong person.”

“Guess you saw those bruises on little Roy’s face?” queried McGill.

“Yes”, answered Henderson.  “They’re further evidence to me that the youngster was killed, either purposely or accidentally.  And we’ll have to find out which.  I understand his father is rather brutal.  Perhaps he doesn’t know his own strength.  They tell stories of him beating the kid up just for the hell of it.  The youngster, I guess, was a queer, sensitive boy, and from what I have heard, he probably said and did things that angered his father because he didn’t understand him. “

“What does Mrs. Rickey say, Henderson? That was where you went, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, but she doesn’t seem to know anything.  She thinks the youngster hung himself through fear.   She says he stole a watermelon Wednesday and having been beaten up badly for doing nothing, he was afraid he’d  get a severe whipping since he really had done something wrong.”

Horror Among The White Oaks: The Strange Case of Roy Rickey: Part 2: The initial interview with Mr. Day

  According to Rickey, his wife was at home, and ascertaining where the family lived, Henderson started in that direction.

He was stopped by Deputy Stephens with: 

Deputy Sheriff Tony Stephens

“Coroner, everybody’s talking about this man Jim Andy Day. I understand he found the body.  He’s a boarder in the Rickey home and should know what caused little Roy to commit suicide – if he did commit suicide.  Don’t you think it would be a good idea to question him?  He’s over there.”

Henderson nodded and walked toward a short, stocky man, about five feet six inches tall, dressed in a pair of blue overalls.  As he drew near, he noticed the man’s face bore deep lines, which made him look older than he really was.

“Are you Jim Day?” asked the Coroner.

“Yes.”

“You found the body of little Roy Rickey hanging from the tree, Mr. Day?”

“Yes, sir, I found it this morning about six o-clock when I fetched the cow to the spring.”

“Where do you live, Mr. Day?”

“I stay up at the Rickeys,” the stocky man answered.

“When did you last see Roy?”

“Last Wednesday evening about five-o’clock, when his mother told him to take the cow to water.”

“Where were you then?”

“I was sitting in the front yard whittling.  Mrs. Rickey was in the house.”

“Have you any idea to the cause of Roy’s death?”

“No, I haven’t, Mr. Henderson.”

Deciding to leave further questioning of Jim Day until later, the Coroner climbed the narrow trail that led to the Rickey place.  Pushing his way through a gate which hung by one hinge to a post of the dilapidated picket fence, he made his way to the unpretentious Rickey home.

With the absence of ceremony common in these rural districts, Henderson crossed the porch and entered the small, unpainted house without knocking. Here he came upon three women who told him that they had called on Mrs. Rickey to tell her the sad news.  While he awaited the appearance of little Roy’s mother, his eye noted everything in the room.  He saw something which attracted his attention and was about to make an examination when a door opened and there stood before him a plump little woman in her late thirties, with black, sparking eyes, so arresting they were unforgettable.  The shining black hair, bobbed like a school-girl’s, and the olive complextion were such as would have provoked attention in communities more populous than Soldier.  Her chubby face, rather too well rouged, though now streaked by tears, and her carmined lips added to the impression that she was a woman who never stinted effort to look her best.

Her eyes were dimmed as the Coroner introduced himself and expressed his sympathy.

“I know how you feel, Mrs. Rickey, and I know how valueless attempts at consolation are, but I want you to try and put aside your feelings for the present, and help me find out just how little Roy came to his death.”

The woman dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief as she asked him to follow her.  She then led the way through the kitchen out into the back yard.  Here they sat down on a bench at some distance from the house.

Horror Among The White Oaks: The Strange Case of Roy Rickey Part 1

Written by Bert Brun and John McGill, Jr.

Published in the August 1938 edition of “True Detective Mysteries”

It was a beautiful Saturday morning in the Kentucky hills.  August sunshine glinted through the leaves of the trees, making little golden patches on the ground.  It gilded a group of twisted, stunted white oaks, surrounding a clayey mound from which jagged rocks protruded.

But the beauty of the morning had not brought this motley mob of two hundred to the abandoned mine shaft. It was evident by their dress, and occasionally by the lack of it,  that these people had hurried to the spot on receiving startling news; news which had caused them to drop their daily tasks at once and hasten to view the horror for themselves.

The crowd surged forward, partly from curiosity and partly because it was impelled in that direction by those arriving tardily to the scene.  A gradually increasing murmur like the sound of approaching locusts hovered over it.  Men, women and children milled around a particular tree among the dwarfed group.  Over the sea of heads loomed a dismal figure that swung suspended from one of its branches.  It was the body of a boy hanging by a short cord, one end of which was twisted around his neck, and the other fastened to the limb.

Exclamations of horror mingled with words of pity rose above the awe-hushed whispers.  Amidst the whimpering of children and their bewildered questioning, one voice stood out, because of its high-pitched intensity.

“Mom, what’s Roy doing hanging there?”

The words came from a seven-year-old youngster, tugging at the skirt of a woman who, with mouth agape, seemed fascinated by the body swinging slightly in the morning breeze.  She appeared unable to take her attention from the spectacle to quiet her questioning child.

“Mom…Mom…what’s Roy doing hanging there?”

“Hush,” said another woman who stood near. “Here,” she added, lifting him up almost automatically to let him see for himself and end his annoying prattle.

“Mom…”

The question died on his lips as with curiosity-widened eyes, he concentrated on the dangling corpse.

The youngster was heavy and the woman did not hold him long.  Putting him down, she said to a neighbor:

“Poor Mrs. Rickey. Has she been told?”

“I don’t know, answered a third.  “It’s going to be an awful shock to her.  Anyone seen the boys father?”

“Not that I know of.  Wonder what made the youngster kill himself?”

“Don’t know. He was a queer little kid”

“I’ve heard said his father often beat him badly.”

“That so?”

One of the most significant things about the tragedy is its ability to transfigure everyday incidents into outstanding emotional events.  To the onlookers, everything about this normally accepted scene had suddenly become imbued with feeling.   The abandoned mine, the dwarfed oaks, with their background of leafy trees and hazy blue vistas, had been viewed by everyone a hundred times or more with unobserving eyes. Each had often passed that peaceful spot wrapped in his own thoughts, with only a casual glance at its quiet beauty.   Now the picture had become filled with absorbing impressions.  The placement of the oaks among the taller trees with their background of varied landscape, and the conformation of the impromptu gallows with its leafy branches, became an unforgettable painting, in which each insignificant detail was starkly outlined.

Even the children were not immune to this all-powerful sweep of tragedy.  They had played in that sylvan spot on many a sunny morning, laughing, and shrieking among those trees.  Now there was no thought of play.  The hush of death was over them.  Something from their silent, swinging playmate had entered their innocent hearts, and natural gaiety was submerged in feelings never known before.

Suddenly, as if swept away by the wind, the murmurs of the excited crowd ceased.  Word had gone around that Coroner Clarence Henderson accompanied by Deputy Sheriff Tony Stephens and a man recognized as a newspaper publisher, had arrived from Olive Hill.  They were seen approaching from the roadway a scant sixty feet away.

The Coroner had been notified by telephone that his presence was required for an inquest at Soldier, Kentucky.  This village being in the western part of Carter County where mining accidents are not infrequent, he had taken it as a matter of course that another tragedy of this nature had occurred.  Driving through Olive Hill, he had picked up Deputy Sheriff Stephens and the newspaperman.  Within twenty minutes they had arrived at Soldier.

They needed no directions to discover the scene of the tragedy, for stragglers were still hastening toward it.

The crowd about the tree made way for the Coroner as, with his two companions, he walked toward the object of horror, shocked into grim silence himself by the gruesome picture.

Coroner Clarence Henderson

 The dead boy was small, apparently undersized and underfed. He was clad only in a faded blue shirt and blue denim overalls.  Blond, tousled hair straggled down over his eyes.  He hung from the tree by a twisted cord that had been looped around this neck.  The cord was not more than thirty inches in length, and the youngster’s small, bare feet almost touched the ground.  Owing to the shortness of the rope, with only about six inches of play, his head had been forced sidewise until it rested slightly on the tree limb.

The Coroner examined the body carefully before cutting it down.  He felt sure it must have been hanging there for some time as decomposition had set in.  The youngster’s right eye had been gouged out, and there was a large bruise on the right side of his wan, drawn face.  Henderson noted with interest that there were no welts on the boy’s neck, around which thee cord was tightly wound.  Running his eye up to where the rope was attached to the branch, he observed that the bark on the limb had not been disturbed, as he thought it most certainly would have been if the child had struggled during the hanging.

“Very curious. Very curious, indeed,” he said more to himself than to his companions.

“Guess there is nothing more we can do here, Tony,” he remarked to the Deputy.  “ Have the body taken down.”

“What do you think of it, Mr. Henderson?” asked Tony, a police officer of forty years experience.

“Frankly, I don’t know,” answered the Coroner.  “There are some very strange things about this case and I don’t like to say anything definite until I have more facts.  But the whole business certainly strikes me as being most peculiar.”

“I’ll say it is,” assented the Deputy.

“There’s more behind this than appears.”

“Don’t allow anybody to touch the body, Tony,” said Henderson.   I’ll get in touch with the County Attorney.”

Within ten minutes the Coroner was back at the scene, and began questioning those nearest him.

“Who was the youngster?” he asked.

“Little Roy Rickey,” said several.

“That’s his father over there,” volunteered a bystander, indicating a man who stood well back from the crowd smoking a corncob pipe.

             Clyde Rickey, Father of Roy Rickey.

Henderson noted that Rickey was over six feet tall.  Heavy, bushy eyebrows gave an almost Mephistophelian appearance to his face. Thick unkempt hair showed under a wide-brimmed straw hat, and his long arms and horny hands hung listlessly from his shoulders.

Well accustomed to the nonchalance of mountain people, the Coroner approached the fifty-year-old parent of the youthful victim.

“Are you the boy’s father?” he asked sympathetically.

“Yes.” The word came from the side of the man’s mouth, as he took another draw from the brown-stained cob pipe.

“How do you explain the death of your boy, Mr. Rickey?”

“I dunno,” was the answer.  “Can’t explain it.”

“When did you last see him alive?”

“Last Wednesday evening.”

“What time Wednesday?”  Coroner Henderson pressed.

“Dunno. Roy took the cow to the field and he didn’t come back. That’s the last we saw of him.”

“Did you look for him?” asked the official

“Yes. His ma and Jim Andy looked all over but couldn’t find hide nor hair of him.”

“Who’s Jim Andy?”

“He’s a boarder up to our house.”

The officer thought he caught a slight tone of resentment in the words, but he could not be sure.  Further questioning revealed nothing of value.