Like all worthwhile stories, there is a good reason or reasons for telling them. The original idea for this story came from a friend who told me that he had heard about a law enforcement official having been murdered by people who he had once served. The murder was thought to be the result of the alleged treatment of some teenagers who ended up with whip marks on their backs while in custody under the police officers charge. Who pulled the trigger is the mystery … or could it have been something different after all?

       My friend said he had heard the story from a lady whose husband worked for the railroad that serviced the area which included Waxhaw. I suppose the husband could have told his wife about the story. I further suppose he could have heard it from men he worked with. The real source of it all is unknown.    

 

                                                                         The mid to late 1940s

                                                                                           ****

     Two recently hired Lancaster County, SC, sheriff’s deputies were on a routine patrol in the upper, panhandle, region of the county. Expectations were that all was supposed to be normal – nothing serious. ​

      

     How could two rookie deputies ever know that they would soon be involved in a mystery which might be impossible to solve?

     

     “Didn’t we just go by the place where they found them bodies up here?” One deputy asked the other.

     “Yeah, it’s that place right back there on the right as you start down the road toward Waxhaw – out from that old shack. Some people still live there. The road crews found the bodies when they was building the road to Waxhaw.” The second deputy responded.

 

        “All cars be on the lookout for a speeding car leaving the vicinity of Waxhaw. It is a bank robber who has just held up the Waxhaw bank.”

     “Where’d that come from?” one of the deputies asked the other.

     “Well, it didn’t come from Lancaster ‘cause they can’t reach this far,” the other deputy responded.

 

       “It must have come from Waxhaw. That’s not too far away for a radio signal to carry.”

     “How far are we away from the road that goes to Waxhaw? And, maybe do you think we ought to go back there and ride down that way?”

 

     “I think we need to stop before we get too close. Stop… stop… we done got too close…The deputies slowly dismounted their patrol car. Look, he is getting out of his car. He is reaching for something under his coat,” Potts frantically said.

 

         A shot rang out. The thought to be bank robber fell to the ground.

     “Why the hell did you do that?” Ervin shouted to Potts.

     “I thought he was reaching for a gun!” Potts excitedly replied.

 

     Each of the rookies turned to the other with a worried, wondering look on their faces. They made a makeshift bandage from an undershirt to press on a bullet hole to help slow the bleeding. Unfortunately, as they would find out later, a bullet had found its target and had done what might be mortal damage.

 

          The sheriff and his chief deputy went closer, looked at the body and the sheriff turned to his chief deputy and said as he straightened up, “step over here for a minute.”

     When they were clear of the ambulance crew, the sheriff asked his deputy, “Is that who it looks like?”

     The chief deputy replied with, ”It certainly looks like him.”

     “What the hell has just happened here?” the sheriff asked, not completely sure of whether to be mad or not – startled - not 100% sure of who he thought the person lying on the ground was.

 

          What had prompted the sheriff to act in such a strange manner? He looked at his chief deputy and his chief deputy agreed with what the sheriff had said. The sheriff knew he could trust his chief deputy to keep his mouth shut about what had happened.

 

        The four people had realized that there was no way possible that the bullet could have been fired by one of the deputies and the sheriff knew he had to keep it quiet until he had a grasp of it in his mind and decided what to do. He had to ascertain some facts before he said or did anything else. The body would be taken to Lancaster and it would be protected until the sheriff and his experts had looked at it again and he might know what to do.