by Karen L. Cox
Book Roberts and his team of officers had been working the Merrill murder case since late in the evening of August 4, but by mid-September the sheriff had decided to keep relatively quiet about the case. The national publicity and public speculation had only made his job more difficult, and people gave him unsolicited advice. One person wrote him to say, “You and all the law force are on the wrong track about the murder of Jane Merrill. . . . It seems like you should arrest and question to the fullest extent the man named Duncan Minor.” It was signed “an old resident of Natchez.” An individual from New Orleans also wrote to tell him she was certain that the “guilty party” was Duncan Minor, who had “a tall black negro man” help him. The letter writer was very specific about the details, saying Minor “fired the shots with her [Jennie Merrill’s] 32 cal pistol” and that he hid the gun near his home. “If you search you’ll find it and if you put Mr. Minor through the 3rd degree . . . he’ll admit to this,” the woman wrote, then added, “I am quite an unusual psychologist and am really able to do these things.” Such letters added to the tense climate, a reminder to the sheriff and his deputies to maintain their silence until trial.2
The term of the Adams County Circuit Court finally arrived on Monday, November 14. Sixty-seven-year-old Robert Corban, the presiding judge, instructed the grand jury to fully investigate the cases before them, which included the Merrill murder. It was time to review all of the evidence that had been gathered, including the fingerprint evidence, the ballistic report, material collected from Pine Bluff and Chicago, the notes from interrogations and interviews, and, of course, Emily Burns’s signed confession.3
The work of the grand jury began in the early morning and went late into the day. Attorneys first called Sheriff Roberts in for questioning and to provide a list of the people he had interviewed during his investigation. “A steady stream of witnesses” was called, most of them deputies but also special officers hired for the case, like Hyde Jenkins and John Junkin. The sheriff told reporters he had provided the jurors with “every scintilla of evidence” and expressed confidence that they would return “a number of indictments.” Without saying so, he meant the deceased George Pearls, who all agreed had murdered Jennie Merrill, as well as individuals whom Book considered accessories. This included Emily Burns and Edgar “Poe” Newell, even though the latter had been released from jail a month before. But Book also trusted that the evidence he submitted would “substantiate the drafting of murder charges against Miss Octavia Dockery and Richard H. C. Dana.”4
While the county prosecutor, Joe Brown, shared the sheriff’s confidence, he knew that District Attorney Clay Tucker had different ideas about indicting Dana and Dockery. The two men had shared terse exchanges about the guilt or innocence of Jennie’s neighbors. Tucker had been responsible for helping set the couple free on their own recognizance during their habeas corpus proceeding because he did not believe there was sufficient evidence to keep them in jail. Given this, many locals believed he would not seek indictments against the pair.5
Yet Joe Brown, and not Clay Tucker, had been involved in the investigation throughout its entirety and believed Dick and Octavia were involved. There was the fingerprint evidence. There was Dick’s statement that he knew “nothing of the murder” before Merrill’s body had even been found. There was also the timing of it all, which Jennie’s cousin David McKittrick alluded to in an interview following her death. “Whoever killed [her] timed the crime so perfectly that he was evidently well acquainted with her habits,” he said. McKittrick, who assumed the murderer was male, added, “He staged it so as to arrive after dark, but before Duncan Minor would arrive,” which was “always . . . between 8:30 and 9 o’clock.” The only other people who had any knowledge of her evening habits were blacks who lived and worked at Glenburnie and her neighbors, Octavia Dockery and Dick Dana — not the man who had left Natchez for Chicago nearly twenty years earlier.6
None of it mattered. After three days of reviewing evidence, there was just one indictment. On November 17, the jury returned a true bill against “Lawrence Pinkney Williams, alias George Pearls,” for the murder of Jennie Merrill. The true bill meant that even though Pearls was now deceased, he could still be held accountable, setting the stage for a postmortem conviction. Emily Burns was indicted on two counts — accessory to murder and aiding a murderer to escape. In Mississippi, an accessory to murder was considered the same as having committed the murder in the eyes of the law. So, the indictment read that “Lawrence (Pinkney) Williams alias George Pearls and Emily Burns . . . did willfully, unlawfully, feloniously and of their malice aforethought kill and murder one Jane Surget Merrill, a human being.”7 Neither Ed Newell nor Dick Dana nor Octavia Dockery — the three individuals Emily consistently included in her confessions — was indicted.8
The following day Emily Burns was arraigned before Judge Corban in circuit court. She felt weak in both body and spirit. The anxiety of the past three months had caused her to lose twenty pounds, and knowing that she alone would be put on trial for the murder of Jennie Merrill was beyond comprehension. When called upon, all she had to tell the judge was that she had no attorney. Neither could she afford one. Judge Corban appointed Wilfred A. Geisenberger, Gerard Brandon, and William E. Logan to represent her and then set her trial date for November 25, leaving them barely a week to prepare Emily’s defense.9
On Thursday, November 24, the court was adjourned for Thanksgiving, but Sister had little to be thankful for. Although she had not pulled the trigger that resulted in Jennie Merrill’s death, the local white community wanted justice. And since the man who committed the crime was also dead, killed by an Arkansas deputy during an unrelated incident, her conviction would have to do. Emily had every reason to fear the worst possible outcome. Her attorneys likely advised her that DA Clay Tucker, who would present the state’s case, planned to seek the death penalty. In Mississippi, this meant hanging. So if this became Sister’s fate, she would be moved to death row on the jail’s second floor in a cell that overlooked the gallows, where she would meet her fate.10
At forty years old, Wilfred Geisenberger was only a few years older than his client. He was a World War I veteran who had attended the University of Mississippi Law School and was a member of Temple B’Nai Israel. His father, Abraham Geisenberger, had also been an attorney, including for Jennie Merrill during one of her trespassing cases over Octavia Dockery’s hogs. Wilfred maintained a successful law practice in Natchez and eventually went on to serve as the president of the Mississippi Bar Association. For now, though, he had the challenge of defending a black woman in a case in which the person murdered belonged to the last generation of the town’s antebellum elite. Although two young attorneys in their mid-thirties, Gerard Brandon and William Logan, were also assigned to the case, Brandon bowed out. With very little assistance, Geisenberger was faced with a nearly impossible task.11
On the morning of Friday, November 25, Emily Burns, accompanied by officers and her attorneys, made the short walk from the jail across State Street to the Adams County Courthouse, which was filled to capacity to observe the trial. The State v. Emily Burns, case number 4708, began at 8:30 A.M. with the selection of jurors. A special venire of fifty white men had been subpoenaed for jury duty, but it took quite awhile to select jurors because several of the men admitted to having fixed opinions in the case. After twelve jurors were finally seated, the trial began with Judge Corban presiding.12
Before Emily Burns could be tried, the deceased Lawrence (Pinkney) Williams, alias George Pearls, received a postmortem conviction for murdering Jennie Merrill. Then the state’s attorney, Clay Tucker, moved swiftly to try Emily Burns, and the first witness was Chief Deputy Joseph Stone of the sheriff’s department. Tucker began the questioning with Stone because the deputy had been involved in the investigation since the night of August 4 and was credited with securing Emily Burns’s confession. Stone testified that she made her statement on the evening of August 22, although it had come after midnight on
August 23, when she was taken to the “residence part of the jail” for questioning. He claimed that she “fell on her knees” and said, “I want to tell the truth.” The deputy then relayed how she told him that Pink, who he referred to as George Pearls, along with Ed Newell, Dick Dana, and Octavia Dockery were all at Glenburnie when Pearls shot Merrill. Her original confession, Stone said, was made to him alone, but she repeated it to former sheriff Walter Abbott and Special Deputies John Junkin and Hyde Jenkins. The next day “a written confession was made in Jackson.”13
Stone then testified that Burns confessed that Pearls had asked her to go for a walk, during which time he told her of his plans to rob Jennie Merrill. He said she confessed to the timeline of details — that they went through Duncan Park and stopped at Glenwood, where Dick Dana gave Pearls the overcoat, after which they walked through the woods until they arrived at Glenburnie. Stone then testified that Emily confessed to hiding with Pearls under the house until he went inside, after which she heard a scuffle and the shots. Then, Stone said, “they all went into the house.” This was untrue. Emily had never confessed to having gone inside the house. For her, “they” had always meant Pink, Poe, Dana, and Dockery. Stone then said she told him how Pearls and Newell took the body out of the home and that “she was given a lamp, which she threw away in the yard,” which suggests she had remained outside.14
Stone continued, claiming that Burns told him that all five people were in Merrill’s house after Jennie was shot — Pearls, Newell, Dana, Dockery, and the defendant. Initially, everyone she implicated went back to the Dana property — a detail not provided in her signed confession, though she had made several confessions and Stone may have been referring to a particular answer she gave during one of her many interrogations. He concluded his testimony by relaying Burns’s description of how she and Pearls made their way home from the crime scene, to her place on St. Catherine Street, where he burned his bloody clothing, changed into clean clothes, and said he was leaving for Chicago.15
Wilfred Geisenberger cross-examined Deputy Stone for the defense. His first question was meant to determine the length of time and frequency with which Emily Burns had been questioned. The deputy responded that officers questioned her daily, usually for two hours at a time. Geisenberger then asked pointedly, “Was Emily Burns questioned in a room with a whip on the table in clear view and told to tell the truth?” Stone denied it and testified that even Emily Burns said she had been treated “fine.” It is true that Emily signed a confession that read, in part, “While I’ve been in jail I couldn’t have been treated no better if I’d been a white lady . . . and nobody has threatened me since I’ve been in jail.” Yet such a statement absolving officers raises the question of why it would need to be included if, in fact, they had not threatened her. It was particularly unlikely that a black woman would willingly use language comparing herself to a “white lady,” especially in the Jim Crow South.16
Several other members of the “sheriff’s posse” testified about their search during the night of August 4. All stated that they began their search as soon as Merrill was reported missing. They each described evidence of bullet marks in the door facing of Merrill’s dining room, a bloody slipper on the dining room floor, and bloody fingerprints on the walls. Each testified to the trail of blood that continued out and around the porch and then down the front stairs. They all attested to finding a second slipper and hair combs in a large pool of blood near the driveway, noted that Jennie Merrill’s body was found about three hundred feet from her home, and told of the use of bloodhounds in the search that led to locating the lamp “some distance from the house” and yet on her property. Dr. E. E. Benoist, the physician summoned for the coroner’s inquest, was called next. He testified that Merrill was shot twice — once in the breast and a second time through the neck, adding that he “couldn’t be certain but she could have been shot from behind.”17
The state’s next three witnesses were local black citizens, all of whom could identify the man who went by Lawrence Williams and place him as having been in Natchez since July. Barney Johnson was the first called to the stand. He testified that he drove Williams to Zula Curtis’s boardinghouse on Beaumont Street. He also testified that the trunk Williams had with him was the same one he saw at the county jail. The state then called Zula Curtis. Her testimony confirmed that a man named W. C. Williams stayed with her for one week in July before moving away. She testified that after seeing his photo in the paper, she recognized him as the man who had stayed at her house. Louis Winston, who picked up the trunk from Curtis’s home and delivered it to Nellie Black’s place, also testified that the photo of George Pearls in the paper was the man he knew to call himself Williams.18
The state planned to call Maurice O’Neill, the New Orleans detective, to the witness stand, but he had a bad case of the flu and had yet to make it to Natchez. Clay Tucker did, however, call Dr. W. E. Clark to the stand. Tucker had anticipated that Geisenberger might employ an insanity defense. Clark was an “alienist,” the contemporary term for a psychologist, and the assistant superintendent of the state’s insane asylum. He testified that Emily Burns was sane and had never been to the state asylum.19
Testimony lasted until 9:30 in the evening. The state had subpoenaed several witnesses, many of whom had not testified. Witnesses for the defense had yet to be called. And Clay Tucker’s intuition about an insanity defense was correct. But it was late, and Judge Corban ordered the trial to be adjourned until the following morning, a Saturday, beginning at 8:30 A.M.
When morning came, the Adams County Courthouse was again packed with spectators. The state continued its case against Emily Burns by calling former sheriff Walter Abbott to the stand. Abbott testified that Burns had implicated herself, Pearls, Newell, Dana, and Dockery but that during the reenactment of the crime at Merrill’s home she “failed to include Newell, Dana and Dockery.” He also emphasized that she had not been “coached or aided” and had been given plenty of time to reenact the crime.20
Maurice O’Neill felt well enough by this time to return to Natchez from New Orleans and take the witness stand. He first testified that he had conducted the ballistics test proving that the bullets found at the crime scene matched those fired from the gun found on Pearls in Arkansas. Then, in dramatic fashion, he “brought with him a small machine for comparing bullets and gave a demonstration for the jury in the courtroom.” O’Neill also presented the bullets fired at the test range as well as those found at Merrill’s home. Last, he testified to having gone to Chicago with Sheriff Roberts along with Louis Terrell to identify Pearls’s body “along with members of Pearls[’s] family.” He then showed a photograph he had taken of Pearls’s body at the Chicago funeral home, which was then introduced into evidence. Despite many objections to O’Neill’s testimony, all were overruled.21
To confirm O’Neill’s testimony, Louis Terrell and Sheriff Roberts were called to the stand. Terrell testified that he had gone to Chicago with the sheriff and identified the body, while Book Roberts testified that he gave the bullets to O’Neill for comparison and that the New Orleans detective had accompanied him to Chicago.
Officer Robert Henslee, the Pine Bluff police deputy, and John Junkin, who had been sworn in as a special sheriff’s deputy, were also called to the stand. Henslee, who later filed a claim for the $100 reward for capturing George Pearls, testified that he shot and killed Pearls for resisting arrest and then removed his gun and the bundle of clothes he was carrying. Junkin, who happened to be a close personal friend of Sheriff Roberts, testified next. He confirmed that he had gone to Pine Bluff to collect Pearls’s gun and his clothing, adding that Emily Burns had identified the clothes as belonging to the man she new as Pinkney Williams. Junkin also testified that Emily had given several confessions in his presence, but when cross-examined he denied making any threats with a bullwhip.22
The final witnesses for the prosecution did little to help Emily’s case. First, A. E. Sims, a mail carrier, testified th
at he delivered a letter postmarked from Pine Bluff, Arkansas, to Emily Burns. His testimony was then followed by that of Herbert Kingsberry, described as the “Negro trusty at the county jail.” Kingsberry said that Emily had given him a letter to give to a man named Ben Johnson to be taken to Annie Reed, one of her neighbors on St. Catherine Street. There was a reason Kingsberry was called a “trusty,” because rather than deliver Emily’s letter to Johnson, he gave it to the jailer, Laurin Farris. Farris and Special Deputy Hyde Jenkins both testified to the contents of the letter addressed to Annie Reed in which Emily urged Reed to go to her house and “get out of it a pistol, rifle, overcoat, and hat and some letters from [Pink]” and either “destroy or hide them.” With this damning testimony, the prosecution rested its case.23
Wilfred Geisenberger faced an uphill battle in his defense of Emily Burns. Her association with Lawrence Williams was clear — he had boarded at her home, and there were the letters from Pine Bluff indicating that their relationship had been more personal. She had kept quiet to protect him until the day the bullwhip became part of the interrogation, and she had written an incriminating letter asking Annie Reed to remove Williams’s belongings. Emily’s attorney knew that she was likely to be convicted, so just as Clay Tucker predicted, he did what he could to save her life by making the case that she was mentally unstable.
Geisenberger first called Sheriff Roberts to the stand to establish a simple point of fact: did he hear Emily Burns make a confession to the Reverend Charles Anderson, her minister at Antioch Baptist Church? Roberts claimed he was in the cell but did not hear a confession. This set the stage for Pastor Anderson, as Sister knew him, to be called to the stand. And when he testified, it was the most detailed account of what happened after the murder that anyone had yet heard.