The Woolfolk Family Murders

Once again I have dug down deep into history to find a case. I like doing these for many reasons. One is that there is generally not a lot out there about them as they have been lost in history. While often the crimes are similar to what we see today in modern times, the forensics and the laws are generally what we see today. I do admit that while in our modern death penalty cases it sometimes leaves me irritated that they can drag for decades in the appeals process, let alone at the point in which we are now where there are so many arguments in the states regarding not just the practice itself but the “medications” used. But, in the same respect the “swift” justice that was handed out in the 1800's and well into the mid-1900's sometimes also bothers me. So often there would be a simple matter of just a few months between the crime and the death of the accused. In my opinion, not to mention time has shown us this to be true, there is no doubt innocent people were put to death. As I am writing this the case of fourteen year old George Stinney Jr. who was executed in the electric chair in 1944 immediately comes to mind. He was convicted of murdering two young girls. In 2014, seventy years after his death the courts overturned his conviction (obviously that was in name only since they could not bring him back to life) saying he had not received a fair trial. It was later vacated completely. Today he would have escaped execution if for no other reason his age and he remains the youngest person legally put to death by a government.

All of that does not mean that I believe all perpetrators that were put to death in a fast manner were innocent by any means. But I also do not think the short time periods afforded anyone the time to adequately present a defense of any kind even if it was simply over the legality of things. Nor does it allow time for the crime scenes and evidence to be thoroughly examined by whatever, or whomever, was available at the time depending on the era. With all of that said, this case is actually a bit different than some of the cases of this era. The defendant actually received two trials after the first conviction was overturned when the courts decided he had not received a fair trial. That does not always guarantee that the second trial was any more fair as we have seen many cases overturned more than once, and although that did not happen here, the fact that it happened at all was a bit of a rarity of the times. So, lets actually get to the case.

Thomas “Tom” Woolfolk was born in 1860 in a farmhouse in Bibb County Georgia. He was the youngest of three children and only son of Richard and Susan Woolfolk. Susan would die in 1965 just a few days after Tom's fifth birthday. Tom and his sisters would go live with an aunt til their father remarried a woman by the name of Mattie in 1967. Richard and Mattie would go on to have six children together it would seem.

It was said that Tom was “quarrelsome by nature” and many called him “mentally deranged” even at a small age. At some point when he was grown Tom married a woman named Georgia Bird but it was said that after three weeks of marriage she divorced him. She was quoted as saying, “He is not crazy, it is simple meanness. He is the meanest man I ever saw and there is nothing too mean for him to do.” It was also said that Tom despised his step-mother and the six children she had bore his father. He believed Mattie and “her” children stood between him and an inheritance the would eventually receive from his father and his properties.

In the early morning of August 6, 1887 Tom went to a neighbor's home and said that someone had come into the family farmhouse and had attacked his family. He claimed that he had escaped by jumping out a window, waiting a while and returning to the home to find everyone dead in the home. He also claimed he had heard the killer or killers go out the back door and that he then washed himself up and threw his blood stained clothing down a nearby well.

The “authorities,” that of which they were at that time were summoned to the home along with the coroner, who was really the biggest person basically when it came to indictments in those days. They would find the bodies of fifty-four year old Richard Woolfolk, his wife, forty-one year old Mattie, twenty year old Richard, seventeen year old Pearl, ten year old Anne, seven year old Rose, five year old Charles, eighteen month old Mallie and Mattie's eighty-four year old aunt, Temperance West. All nine victims had been attacked and murdered with an ax. In this time period an ax seemed to be the most common weapon of choice for murderers, especially family annihilators.

Suspicion immediately fell onto Tom and the coroner asked for an inquest on the spot. Although Tom had claimed to have washed up it appears that he missed several areas. It was said that he still had specks of blood in or on his ears and a bloody hand print was on his leg. The spectators, which had grown to more than just a few as things went on, thought his behavior was odd in that he seemed to show little to no emotion to the fact that his entire family, save his two older sister, who were long ago married, had been murdered. It seems that the sheriff of Bibb County could tell where this was going and as the inquest was being done he had decided to sneak Tom out of the area and to the local jail. Based on the information at hand, including no signs of forced entry the coroners jury decided that Tom was guilty. The sheriff had been fearful that the townspeople may have conducted a lynching on the spot and he may have been correct and smart to remove him from the area. Tom was indicted on nine counts of murder and was nicknamed “Bloody Woolfolk.”

Although he was indicted for all of the murders Tom was only tried for the murder of his father. His trial began on December 5, 1887. For the times, the fact that it had been four months since the crime had been committed and he had been taken into custody was actually a long period of time. The trial lasted ten days and after “twelve minutes” of deliberations the jury pronounced Tom guilty of murder and sentenced him to death.

In February of 1889 the Supreme Court of Georgia overturned his conviction and ordered a new trial. Their reasons were that the court had “permitted damaging but inadmissible testimony” and the fact that during the closing arguments the spectators in the gallery chanted “Hang him! Hang him!” and the judge had not intervened. I have to give the courts credit for this because I have seen cases of the era, and much, much later that were clearly unfair trial and not reversed. That being said, despite a “change of venue” to Perry County, the second trial began less than four months after the case had been overturned. After a twenty-one day trial and forty-five minutes of deliberations on June 24, 1889 once again Tom Woolfolk was convicted and the following day he was sentenced to death. The following MONTH (yes I purposely capitalized this) the George Supreme Court upheld the conviction and sentence.

On October 29, 1890 Thomas Woolfolk entered the gallows in Perry County Georgia. Again, it is kind of amazing that while the appeal may have been denied within the month following the trial, he was executed by hanging for more than a year. It was said that even on the gallows Tom was proclaiming his innocence.