HORRIBLE FATE OF A DESPERADO.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XIX, Issue 6566, 2 December 1882, Page 2 (Supplement)

HORRIBLE FATE OF A DESPERADO.

IIUY. gaol at Nashville, Nash county, in which Jerry Cox, notable (says ths Chicago Times) as one of the most desperate criminals ever known in the State, was confined under sentence of death, was fired by him on the night of October 2, and entirely destroyed. About midnight the people were awakened by the roar ot" flames, aud rushed to the scene, but on arriTal found the wa!i3 ami bars glowing red with heat; while ths murderer within was screaming iu the death agony. In an hour the gaol was a mass of ruins, aud this inoriiiiiy' the bones of Cox were found, and n great crowd stood appalled at the terrible fate which had overtaken the brutal murderer. Cox was one of the leaders in the famous Warley murder, near Goldsboro, iu the early spring of IS7S. One night ho and others of a ga:ig of a desperate stamp murdered Air. Warley by beating out his brains, after enticing"him into the yard of his house. Then they caught his wife, who rushed out on hearing the dying groars of her husband, outraged her repeatedly in the presence of her little children, and then beat her brains out with clubs aud left her on the floor iu a pool of blood. The whole State rang -with the story of the crime, and after a hot pursuit the murderers were captured and four of them executed, on one gallows at Goldsboro, being convicted principally upon the testimony of Jerry Cox, the State's evidence, -yrho escaped the gallows but narrowly missed lynching, and had to be removed secretly by the authorities. For four years the whereabouts of Cox was a mystery, but he finally turned up near jj-.ttleboro. where, on .November 19 last, he committed a horrible murder. For n year before that time Cox, who was a coal-blcck nciiro of most repulsive form aud feature, had lired with a degraded white womaD, Mary Kliza Hawkins. Maddened by drink and jealousy, ho, on several occasions, nearly killed her, and she, at all times, performed the most menial offices for him. Bedoubted her faithfulness. He met her at the house of a negro woman. They quarrelled and he struck her and then went away, bhc followed him to where he slept under a water tank, when he took her to a secluded place near the railroad track and beat out her brains. For hours lie watched by the side of the body, and before daylight placed it on the track of the Wilmington and Weldon Railroad. The wheels of the lightning express mangled it horribly, cutting of!" the head. The station-keeper saw the body and not far aw.-iy Jerry Cox and a negro woman watching. Cox being interrogated, said the Hawkins woman had walked on the track while drunk. He became greatly excited, and was at once arrested. At the trial the evidence of Cox's guilt was overwhelming, and in a few minutes after being charged the jury rendered a verdict of guilty of murder. He was sentenced to be hanged at Nashville on September 20, but took an appeal to the Supreme Court. While in gaol Cox made a desperate attempt to murder the gaoler with pieces of a chain and a padlock. He was beaten into submission, but several times afterward broke his chains and handcuffs, which could not be kept on him. He shouted out ciMitimtiilly that the Lord broke his bands. Frequent threats at lynching him were made during his imprisonment, for negroes and whites alike hated and feared him.