On the day Lawrence Carey died, Logan's news did not stay in Logan. It
went out on the wire the same afternoon, and by the next morning papers across the
country were carrying it. This wall gathers that coverage as it gathers — front pages
first.
Hinton Daily News — Saturday, May 28, 1927.
The front page of the Hinton, West Virginia, paper the day Lawrence Carey died at
Logan, while his trial stood at its noon recess. The Associated Press report in the
center column was wired everywhere: in the days that followed, versions of it ran in
papers from Pittsburgh to Saginaw. The book's Source Notes grade every one of these
wire reports, item by item, against the record — the wires moved fast, and they got
plenty wrong, starting with the dead man's age.
How the story crossed the wires — a taste
Three more clippings from the project's files, hung in the order the story
happened. Tap any of them to read it full-screen. The full wall — the whole wire
week of 1927 and the papers of November 1928 — builds with the finished site.
Associated Press — May 10, 1927.
“Chief of Police At Logan Shot and Killed Avis Today.” The shooting of
Lawrence Avis, wired the same day: the chief had arrested Avis at a restaurant,
a new disturbance broke out on the street, Avis “got away,” and — the
witnesses' version, as the wire carried it — Carey fired once and the shot struck
Avis in the back. Night watchman Hibbard Hatfield and the witnesses were held
pending investigation. What the witnesses actually saw, and how it changed by
the trial, is the work of Chapter Nine; the notes grade this dispatch line by
line.Hinton Daily News — May 13, 1927.
“Two Indicted For Murder of Lawrence Avis.” Three days after the shooting,
a special grand jury jointly indicted Chief Lawrence Carey and Hibbard Hatfield,
the special merchant policeman — Hatfield held as a principal, the dispatch says,
although “it is alleged Carey fired the fatal shot.” Both men were released
on $5,000 bond each. Hatfield would be tried that July, and acquitted.Associated Press — November 21, 1928.
“Scaggs Indicted For Slaying of Brooks Carey.” Eighteen months after
Lawrence's death, the wires carried the family again: a special grand jury
indicted Arthur C. Scaggs — the suspended chief who had succeeded Lawrence — for
the killing of Lawrence's eldest son, Brook, at the Logan firehouse. The same
dispatch records what the grand jury did not do: no indictments against
deputies A. J. White and Milton Perry (the wire's spelling; the project's records
settle the name as Milton Terry), arrested on conspiracy charges in the same
case. Reese Browning, of the Logan force, was named acting chief in Scaggs's
place.
In his own words
One day later, the Pittsburgh Press printed what Lawrence had said — the
closest thing to a statement he ever gave the papers:
“I've done all I can for this town, and now that I am in trouble the whole
town has turned against me.”
— Lawrence Carey, as printed in the Pittsburgh Press,
May 29, 1927.
We do not hold an image of that Press page yet; his words are quoted
here exactly as printed, and the page itself will join this wall when it is pulled.
More front pages are being gathered for the finished site — the wire
week of May and June 1927 in full, and the rest of the November 1928 papers, when
the story of the Careys crossed the wires a second time. Clippings are shown cropped
to the article itself, out of the viewer's frame; the untouched pulls are kept in
the project file.
