TRAGIC SUICIDE OF L. C. BROCK, ALIAS JOE JACKSON--HE LEAPS FROM THE
FOURTH STORY OF THE PRISON INTO THE OPEN COURT, SIXTY FEET BELOW,
CAUSING INSTANT DEATH--HIS LAST STATEMENT.
L. C. Brock, _alias_ Joe Jackson, was placed in the penitentiary at
Jackson, Miss., for safe keeping, on the twenty-first day of July,
pending his appearance for trial at the November Term of the Federal
Court. He had elected to plead guilty, and receive a sentence of life
imprisonment for the offense of robbing the United States mail at
Buckatunna, Miss., September 25, 1889, rather than be taken to Duck
Hill, because the penalty of death by hanging he knew would be his
fate. Again, he felt that the outraged friends of Chester Hughes, the
heroic passenger who had, in assisting Conductor Wilkinson on that
fateful night, been shot down in cold blood, would probably mob him
if taken there for trial, and fearless and bold as he was, his heart
quaked within him whenever the alternative of being taken to Duck
Hill was presented to him. Again and again he had been told by the
officials of the Southern Express Company that whenever he repented of
the conclusion he had made to plead guilty to the Buckatunna robbery
and testify against Smith, that the confession he had made could be
withdrawn, and he could elect a trial for the murder at Duck Hill.
Meantime Rube Smith, unaware that Brock had made a confession, had
notified the officials of the Express Company that he would turn
state’s evidence against Brock, provided a _nolle pros._ could be
entered in his case in the Federal Court. Rube Smith’s proposition
was, however, rejected, but Brock was told of Smith’s offer to testify
against him, and thus he found the coils tightening, day by day, about
him. On August 22d Brock, under the assumed name of Winslow, the name
he at first gave when captured, wrote the following letter to his
uncle, at Pleasant Hill, La.
JACKSON, MISS., August 22, 1890.
_J. T. Harrell, Pleasant Hill, La._
Dearest ----:
I wrote to you some time ago, but as you neither come nor wrote I
will write again. I have some very important business, would like
to have you attend to and if you will come I will pay your expences
and pay you any price beside. the business I want you to do for me
is to sell my land. I do not think it will be any trouble to sell
it for the cash. if you can come please come soon. if not write and
let me know if you will come. remember I will pay you well besids
expences. I am very anxious to see you as I wrote you before if you
come come to the penitentiary and call for J. B. Winslow or if you
do not come address letter to J. B. Winslow, care M. L. Jenkins,
Jackson, Miss. My health is very bad. Guess it will puzzle you to
read this, am writing on my knee, not even a book to lay my paper
on. I will not put my right name to this. I am sure you will know
the writing anyhow. So I will close, hoping to see you soon.
Respectfully &c.
J. B. WINSLOW.
N. B. Be sure to come and come in a very few days. I want my land
sold now rite away and I will pay you a hansome price to go and
make the trade for me. Come as soon as you get this.
Goodbye, Your friend.
Mr. Harrell called on his nephew, Brock, about September 1st,
succeeding the date of his letter, and for the first time learned that
his nephew was charged with murder and train robbery. He had no idea
who J. B. Winslow was until he met his nephew face to face, within
the walls of the state-prison. The scene was an affecting one. The
conversation between the two occurred in the presence of Sergeant
Montgomery, of the prison. Brock made no effort to secure counsel, or
to summon any witnesses, but merely expressed a desire to have his
uncle sell his land, a tract of two hundred acres owned by him in
Coffee County, Ala., and turn the proceeds over to his mother.
On the 16th of October, by appointment, the U. S. District Attorney,
A. M. Lea, Col. J. H. Neville, Special Counsel employed by the
Government to assist in the trial, and the express officials, who were
familiar with the facts, all met at Jackson, Miss., to arrange for the
approaching trial of L. C. Brock and Rube Smith. All of these gentlemen
called in company upon Brock, in his cell at the penitentiary, and
District Attorney Lea told Brock if he had any witnesses he desired
summoned he would have subpœnas issued, and that he was free to choose
as to whether he would plead guilty or employ counsel. Brock then and
there reiterated his determination to plead guilty, so frequently made
prior to that time to the author, and said he had no money, and did not
intend to employ any counsel. He said he was willing to testify against
Smith, but remarked:
“What will people think of me for doing that--see how the world looks
upon Bob Ford?”
When told that all fair-minded and Christian people would applaud him
for standing on the side of honesty and truth, he added:
“Well, the Bible does not give Judas Iscariot a very fair name.”
And so it was easily discovered that the ill-fated criminal was
battling against opposing ideas. On the one hand he was confronted with
the certainty of conviction and an ignominious death at the hands of
the hangman, on the other life imprisonment, with the added alternative
of standing as a witness against his copartner in crime and assisting
to fasten guilt upon him. He had often said:
“I prefer death to imprisonment for life, for what is life without
liberty.”
On Saturday, the 8th of November, two days before his suicide, he said
to a fellow prisoner, whose hat was worn and old:
“You need a new hat; you may have mine Monday.”
Brock had evidently made up his mind, as indicated by these remarks, to
take his own life. About nine o’clock on the morning of November 10,
1890, the day set for his trial, Detective Thomas Jackson and United
States Marshal Mathews went to the penitentiary building to bring the
prisoner to the Federal Court, as he had been notified would be done.
Sergeant Montgomery sent the officer of the prison charged with the
special surveillance of Brock to bring him into his office, where the
detective and marshal awaited him. At night he was confined in one
of the cells on the ground floor of the prison, but was permitted to
occupy during the day one of the guard rooms situated on the third
floor of the building. The prisoner was in this room when the keeper
went after him to bring him to the sergeant’s office. Just as the
keeper was in the act of unlocking the door, Brock walked to the iron
barred window of the room, and beckoning to a fellow convict standing
in the yard of the prison, threw out of the window the following note:
NOVEMBER 10th, 1890.
To all who may read this, I write this to inform you that my name
is L. C. Brock; was born and raised in Coffee county, southeast
Ala. and I am not guilty of the crime for which I am imprisoned. I
am innocent, the God of Heaven knows it. I have suffered all the
while for the crime of some one else. On the 29th of September I
wrote to L. B. Moseley, Deputy U. S. Marshal, Jackson Miss. to
come and get the names of my witnesses. he has not come yet. I do
not believe the letter was mailed to him at all. through August I
had fever and nothing to lay on up stairs (daytime) but the floor,
fainted 25 or 35 times from weakness. I am telling this to show or
give you an idea of how I have been treated. They entend to force
me to a trial without my witnesses. You show this to any and all if
you wish.
Respectfully,
L. C. BROCK.
The officer, unlocking the room door, announced that he had come to
take him to the sergeant’s office, where the marshal and Detective
Jackson were in waiting to take him to the courtroom. “All right,” said
Brock, and immediately followed the officer out.
The penitentiary cells are four deep, one above the other, around a
large corridor, eighty feet long, making an open court sixty feet deep.
When the prisoner reached the head of the stair-way, in front of the
door of his room, instead of descending with the officer he turned
down the hall-way and commenced to ascend the stair-way leading to the
fourth floor. At the same time he drew a murderous looking knife, which
he had secured and secreted in some unaccountable manner, and bade
the guard stand back or he would cut him. Sergeant Montgomery was at
once notified of the unusual conduct of the prisoner, and, in company
with Detective Jackson and Marshal Mathews, immediately repaired to
the rotunda of the court and inquired of the prisoner what he meant
by such conduct. Brock was then calmly walking to and fro along the
floor of the fourth story brandishing his knife, and at once declared
his intention to jump to the ground beneath and kill himself. Meantime
the note thrown from the window had been handed to the officers of the
prison, and Brock was asked to name the party to whom he had given
letters, asking that witnesses be summoned. This he refused to do, but
stated that the Southern Express Company intended to “railroad” him
either to the gallows or to life imprisonment without giving him even
the shadow of a showing, whereupon Marshal Mathews assured him that
he should not go to trial without counsel, and further stated that he
would see that all the witnesses he desired should be summoned.
Brock refused to come down, and, despite the assurances and entreaties
of the officers, continued to repeat his intention to take the fatal
leap. The stern and determined expression upon the desperate man’s
face, his cool and collected demeanor, convinced all who saw and heard
him that an awful tragedy would soon be enacted.
At this juncture the prisoner placed a table near the balcony railing,
mounted it, declared he was alone and friendless in the world, and
preferred death to life imprisonment. He asked that his uncle, Mr.
Harrell--then at Jackson, although the prisoner did not know it--be
telegraphed the information of his death, and that his body be sent to
his mother.
Sergeant Montgomery, meantime, had conceived the idea of climbing the
latticed walls of the court, and while the other officers diverted
his attention, would reach the fourth story, directly under him, and
overturn the table, and before the prisoner could regain his footing
he would pinion him and prevent his suicide. Divesting himself of coat
and hat, the Sergeant climbed as far as the third story, when he was
prevailed upon not to risk his life in such a hazardous feat, as the
prisoner would undoubtedly knife him before he could carry out his
project. He then came down.
The officers vied with each other in appealing to the prisoner’s
manhood, and entreating him to forego the fatal project. Finally
Detective Jackson and Marshal Mathews noiselessly went up the stair-way
until they stood on the landing just behind and about six feet from the
prisoner, urging him all the while to put away his knife and come down
stairs. Detective Jackson, approaching within three or four feet of the
prisoner, said:
“Joe, you are not going to jump, are you?”
“Yes, I am,” replied the prisoner, and stepping from the table to the
railing, he sprang head foremost into the awful space. Vaulting over
and over in his rapid flight to the stone-covered corridor, sixty feet
below, he fell, crushed and bleeding, with a sound that reverberated
through the long tiers of cells, from which the gaping eyes of his
fellow prisoners looked, in speechless horror, upon a tragedy so
appalling as to make strong men shudder and turn pale. The unfortunate
victim of his own desperation lingered for about one hour, unconscious,
his body writhing in horrible contortions until death ensued. He was
buried in the prison cemetery at Jackson at five o’clock on the evening
of his death.
The author, having repeatedly visited Brock while confined at Jackson,
takes pleasure in acquitting the officers of the State penitentiary of
any maltreatment of the prisoner.
The prisoner made no attempt to secure witnesses; in fact, repeatedly
stated he had none. The statement written and thrown from the window,
is, therefore, not entitled to credit. A few minutes before his suicide
he freely confessed to having received fair treatment at the hands of
the prison officials.
The following lines were found on his person after death, indicating
that the bold outlaw, in his hours of retrospection, had garnered the
bitter fruitage of despair and remorse so aptly depicted:
“How wise we are when the chance is gone,
And a glance we backward cast.
We know just the thing we should have done
When the time for doing is past.”