In the November 30, 2023 edition of the Madill Record, we explored the history of the Aylesworth Prison Farm that was located just south and west of Aylesworth in southeastern Marshall County. The prison farm was opened in 1916 and was the Oklahoma Department of Corrections prison facility for Black inmates during the era of segregation. The prison was operated from 1916 to 1925, when it was closed, and the inmates were movedtotheOklahomaState Penitentiary in McAlester.
In that article, I reported on an incident where an inmate escaped from the farm andeventuallyassaultedand murdered a local woman. At the time the article was printed, the information regarding the murder was based on the memories of a former prison farm guard. At the date of that article, I had not been able to locate any records verifying the incident. However, I recently was conducting research for another article when I stumbled upon records that confirmed the incident and expanded on the escape and subsequent murder. The story is both fascinating and quite sad. This article will explore this newly discovered evidence.
Adding to the intrigue of this story is the mystery surrounding the inmate's identity. Born in the late 1800s, the inmate was the descendant offormerslavesand wasknownbyvariousnames, including Will Garner, Roy Lee, and Luscious McGill. His birthplace and birth date remained a mystery, even to him. Because he was a descendant of former slaves, no records exist to shed light on these details. On his WWI draft registration card, he stated that he was unaware ofwhenorwherehewasborn.
Our story begins in Arkansas. On October 18, 1909, fifty-eight-year-old James Floyd Springer was working on a farm near Booneville, Logan County, Arkansas. At about noon, Springer sent a helper, Will Garner, to the house to get him lunch. Another farmhandworkingwith Springer also left the field to get lunch. When the second man returned from lunch, Springer had disappeared. The man found Garner and asked him where Springer had gone. Garner reported that Springer had left with two men to look at a piece of landbuthadnotyetreturned.
After some time, a search was instituted, and Springer’s body was found in a wooded area near the field where he had been operating a plow. Springer’s head had severe blunt force injuries, and it was clear that he had been beaten to death. Garner was accused of the crime, but he denied any knowledge of Springer’s murder.
Later, it was discovered that Garner had six one-half dollarcoinshiddeninhisshoe and that on the previous day, Springer had paid five dollars in half-dollar coins. Garner also had blood on his clothing. Garner was arrested for Springer’s murder.
At the time of the murder, due to his physical stature and appearance, authorities estimated that Will Garner was about fourteen years of age. He was incarcerated in the Logan County, Arkansas jail, and his preliminary hearing was held a few days after his arrest. At the preliminary hearing, he was bound over for trial, and his trial was scheduled for January 1910.
At the conclusion of the evidentiary portion of the trial, the jury retired to the jury room to begin deliberations, and Garner was returned to the county jail. While the jury was out deliberating, a hypnotist named Charles Green entered Garner’s cell, along with his wife, Ida Green, several Sheriff’s Deputies and some other unknown people.
Green then told Garner that he should confess because the jury was going to convict him. Green then put his wife, Ida, under a hypnotic trance. While under the trance, Ida told Garner that even if the jury acquitted him, he would be lynched by a mob as soon as he was set free, but if he confessed to the murder, the jury would not vote for execution and would give him life in prison instead.
As a final threat, Green told Garner that if he did not confess, they would go back to court, and he would put Ida back under the trance and have her tell the court and jury that she could see what happened on the day Springer was killed and that through clairvoyance, she watched Garner kill Springer. Because of these threats, Garner confessed to the murder.
After Garner confessed, Logan County Sheriff Thomas H. Rogers went to the jury room and, while the jury was still deliberating, told them that Garner had confessed to the murder. The jury then returned a verdict of guilty and recommended that Garner be hanged for the murder of James Floyd Springer.
Garner’s execution was then set for February 21, 1909. Days after the trial, when the allegations regarding the hypnotist were revealed, the jurors were outraged, and they, along with Garner’s lawyers, asked Logan County District Court for a stay of his execution. Thestaywasgranted,andhis execution was rescheduled for March 4, 1909. After the initial stay was granted, Garner’s lawyers filed an appeal with the Arkansas SupremeCourt,andthecourt granted an indefinite stay of execution.
In late November 1910, Garner’s case was argued beforetheArkansasSupreme Court. During this hearing, Garner’s lawyer, Judge Carmichael, argued that the juryhadbeenreadytoconvict Garnerofsecond-degreemurder because they could not agree on the charge of firstdegree murder. But, before theycouldreporttheirverdict to the court, they were interrupted by the Sheriff, who announced that Garner had just confessed to the murder. The jury then changed their verdict, convicted Garner of first-degree murder, and recommended a death sentence.
The Arkansas Supreme Court then overturned the verdict of murder first-degree and the death sentence and returned the case to Logan County for a new trial. The court found that the use of clairvoyance was improper and that the actions of the Sheriff and the Greens violated Will Garner’s rights to a fair trial. In January 1911, Garner was re-tried for Springer’s murder. At the second trial, he was convicted ofsecond-degreemurder,and he was sentenced to serve 21 years in prison. Garner was then transported to the Arkansas State Penitentiary to begin serving his sentence. OnJuly21,1913,WillGarner escaped the Arkansas State Penitentiary.
In July 1914, Garner was arrested in Dodge City, Kansas and charged with robbery. At the time of his arrest, Garner went by the name of Roy Lee. Just days after his arrest, Garner waived his preliminary hearing and confessed to his involvement in the robbery. On July 29, 1914, Garner-Lee was sentenced to ten to twenty years in the Kansas State Reformatory in Hutchinson. After a stay in the reformatory, Garner-Lee was transferred to the Kansas State Penitentiary in Lansing, Kansas. While at the state penitentiary, he was sentenced to hard labor, working in the penitentiary coal mine in Lansing.
While working in the coal mine, Garner-Lee was a ringleader in a revolt by prisoners. The revolt was caused by bad working conditions and poor food quality. The prisoners had taken several guards hostage deep in the mine and demanded certain conditions be met before they would release the guards. The revolt then led to a riot that resulted in the deaths of several prison guards and prisoners. Garner-Lee was not charged for his involvement in the revolt, and in March 1916, he was discharged from his robbery sentence.
Prior to his release, it was determined that he was an escapee from the Arkansas State Penitentiary, and he was held until Arkansas authorities arrived to return him to Arkansas. He was taken back to Arkansas to begin serving the remainder of his 21-year sentence. After several months at the state penitentiary, Garner was transferred to the Tucker County prison work farm.
Afterarrivingattheprison farm, Garner was made a trustee. As a trustee, Garner was placed in charge of a group of other inmates who were picking cotton at the farm. His job was to guard the other inmates while they worked in the fields and to report any issues to prison guards. In November 1917, GarnerledfiveBlackinmates in an escape from the prison farm. Within days of his escape, Garner arrived in Oklahoma.
Garner headed to the area of Logan County, Oklahoma and within hours of his arrival on November 22, 1917, he stole a horse and buggy belongingtoRichardDodgers of Coyle. Garner then sold the horse and buggy at the Tom Reed auction sale south of Seward.
Then,onTuesdayevening, December 4, 1917, Garner stole a horse and buggy belonging to A. M. Battle from the Elks Hotel on Harrison Avenue in Guthrie, Oklahoma. The Battle family was a well-respected and well-liked Black family in Guthrie. The next morning, Battle’s twenty-year-old son, Harrison Battle, went out to search for his father’s buggy and horse. Sometime early that Wednesday morning, Harrison Battle found his father’s horse and buggy, along with the thief, about two miles east of Seward. Sadly, it was the last time Harrison was seen alive.
Also, that Wednesday morning, Logan County Deputy Sheriff Ed Robertson picked up the trail of the stolen buggy and followed it to a point about three miles south and one mile east of Seward. Robertson was driving a car, but he abandoned the car and began following the trail on foot. At some point, Robertson commandeered a horse from another man, and at about four o’clock in the afternoon, he found Will Garner in the buggy with a second stolen horse tied to the rear of the buggy.
Robertson took Garner into custody. But at this time, Garner identified himself as Luscious McGill. When Robertson searched McGill, he found that McGill was armed with a fully loaded .38 caliber revolver. While returning Garner-McGill to his police car, Robertson was stopped by Mrs. Garrett, a woman who lived in the area. Mrs. Garrett told Robertson that earlier in the day, she had heard three gunshots. She then told Robertson where the shots were heard, and he began searching for the site.
While searching the area, Robertson found the naked body of Harrison Battle. Harrison had been shot three times. It then was discovered that Garner-McGill was wearing Harrison Battle’s clothes and shoes. McGill then told Robertson that his father was Lewis McGill of Guthrie. It was at this point it was clear that Will Garner-Roy Lee’s real name was Luscious McGill. He was then jailed at the Logan County Jail to await his arraignment. Interestingly, Lewis McGill had been accused of the murder of a young Black boy in Guthrie in 1904, but he was never apprehended, and he had not been seen or heard from since the murder in 1904.
McGill was arraigned on Thursday,December6,1917, in the Logan County District Court, where he confessed to the murder of Harrison Battle. He was then bound over for trial, and his trial was set for January 2, 1918. During that hearing, McGill confessed to murdering at least four people.
On December 11, 1917, McGill, along with four other inmates,escapedfromtheLogan County jail. The escape occurred when McGill asked the jailer for a drink of water. When the jailer opened the door to the cell block, McGill blocked the cell door with his foot, and the other four inmates overpowered the jailer and disarmed him. Luscious McGill was able to find a place to hide out in Oklahoma City. McGill was caught by officers from the Oklahoma County Sheriff’s office after they received a tip from Deputy Ed Robertson. McGill was found asleep in a bed at a friend’s house in Oklahoma City. He was returned to the Logan County jail to await trial.
On January 2, 1918, Mc-Gill pled guilty to the murder of Harrison Battle and on January 4, he was sentenced to life in prison. After his sentencing, McGill was transported to the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester. Shortly after arriving at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary, McGill was transferredtotheAylesworth Prison Farm. He was at the Aylesworth prison farm by the end of January 1918.
On June 29, 1918, McGill was on a work detail cutting woodattheprisonfarmwhen he, along with two other inmates, escaped. During their flight from the farm, the three inmates separated, andMcGillheadedsoutheast.
Just east of the Marshall County, Bryan County line was the farm of Norman and Sarah Dawson. The Dawsons had six children: five daughters and one son ranging in age from eight to twenty-three.
On June 29, Sarah and one of her daughters, twelveyear- old Allie, were at a spring on their farm doing laundry. While at the spring, Luscious McGill approached them and demanded money. WhenSarahDawsonrefused, McGill began to assault her. While the news reports from 1918 do not mention a sexual assault, the former guard wrote years later that McGill raped or attempted to rape Mrs. Dawson. Regardless, when Mrs. Dawson fought back, McGill pulled out a pocketknife and stabbed Sarah in the chest, side, and he then slit her throat.
When McGill began attacking Sarah, her daughter, Allie, ran to their house to find her father, Norman, and get help. By the time Norman and Allie returned to the scene, McGill was gone, and Sarah was seriously wounded.
When McGill and the others escaped, George Kendrick, the superintendent of the prison farm, started a search for the escapees with the aid of bloodhounds. The first two escapees were found quickly and returned to the prison. The prison guards, along with Kendrick, then began searching for McGill. Within a few hours, the bloodhoundscaughtthescent of McGill and Kendrick and his guards found and apprehended him about six miles east of the Dawson farm. The Dawsons’ daughter, Allie, was then summoned to identify McGill, and she positively identified him as the man who assaulted her mother.
When the news got out that McGill had assaulted and murdered Sarah Dawson, a mob of about five hundred men and women from Madill and Aylesworth began searching for him. As Superintendent Kendrick was en route back to the prison with McGill in chains, the mob met them just east of town. The mob demanded that Kendrick turn McGill over, but Kendrick refused. When Kendrick refused, the mob became even more enraged, and they threatened to kill Kendrick and all his men if he did not turn McGill over to them. Fearing for the life of his men and himself, KendrickorderedthatMcGill be turned over to the mob.
The mob then took McGill to the nearest tree, where they tied a rope around his neck. They then threw the ropearoundalargebranchon the tree; several men pulled him up into the air until he was hanging by his neck. Before McGill was dead, dozens of the mob took turns shooting McGill. He was shot dozens of times as he hung from the tree.
After the mob was satisfied that McGill was dead, they then returned to their homes in Aylesworth and Madill. Afterthemobheaded home, prison officials retrieved McGill’s body, and he was buried in the prison cemetery. At the time the prison was closed in 1925, nine inmates were buried in unmarked graves in the prison cemetery. When Lake Texoma was constructed, those graves were moved to the Aylesworth Cemetery. Their graves were marked by rocks. A metal marker with a brass plate was placed at the cemetery, and it stated that the persons buried in each grave were unknown. The persons buried there are known only to God. In addition to McGill’s grave, two othergravesholdtheremains of two other inmates who were killed during an escape attempt. One from illness, and one killed in a prison fight. The cause of death of the others is unknown.
Sarah Dawson lived for a few more days but finally succumbed to her injuries on July 6, 1918. At the time of her death, Sarah was fortysix years of age.
By the time he was killed, McGillhadmurderedorbeen partly responsible for the murders of up to ten people. He also had escaped from jail or prison four times.
Interestingly, just eight and a half years earlier, when McGill was on trial for the murder of James Floyd Springer in Logan County, Arkansas, he was coerced into confessing to that murder by threats from a hypnotist that if he did not confess to the murder, he would be released from jail and a mob of people would lynch him. It appears the hypnotist was partly right. McGill confessed to a murder in Logan County, Oklahoma and was sentenced to life in prison. A few months later, McGill released himself from prison and was then lynched byamobofpeople. Intheend, thehypnotistandclairvoyant did predict McGill’s fate.
What an ironic and tragic twist of fate. As the old saying goes, “You can’t make this stuff up!”