December 23, 2024 • 57 mins
The episode delves into the tragic events surrounding the Lawson family murders, which occurred on Christmas Day in 1929 amidst the Great Depression. It highlights the struggles of the family leading up to the horrific act, the psychological motivations behind it, and the community's response to this monumental tragedy, aiming to keep the victims' memories alive.
• Exploring the socio-economic backdrop of the Great Depression
• Uncovering the lives and struggles of the Lawson family
• Detailing the sequence of events on Christmas Day of 1929
• Discussing the psychological aspects of Charlie Lawson's actions
• Examining the aftermath and community response to the tragedy
• Reflecting on lessons regarding mental health and community support
Please keep the Lawson family's memory and names alive. Have a Merry Christmas.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
So welcome to Deviant Criminology.
I'm Richard, I'm Heather, overthere is Nancy, who cannot be
heard, and this is our Christmasepisode.
It is the holiday season, so wewanted to do a special episode
that we'd release here, as isthe basis of our entire podcast.
(01:00):
We want to use this opportunityto remember victims of a
horrific event that had happenedand keep their memories alive.
So this is an important part ofdoing the show, which was a
foundation from the beginning,because, as people who we've
worked in the criminal justicesystem different parts, but we
all feel kind of a connection totrying to keep victims'
(01:23):
memories alive.
We wanted to make sure that wealways present these cases in a
way that can be learningexperiences and not
glorification of crime, and it'salways about keeping the legacy
of the victims going.
And in honor of that, theconcept this week was to do an
(01:43):
episode that we would release atChristmas that had some link to
the holidays.
So our first kind of holidayepisode.
We decided to look at the lossand family murders that occurred
on December 25th of 1929.
And the sad reality of thistragedy was embedded in the
(02:11):
events of the Great Depressionthat had started in August that
same year, with severalfinancial disasters.
This is a very dark and deeptopic to cover and I just want
to make sure that we kind of dogive a trigger warning that this
does involve the death of somechildren.
We won't get into graphicdetail, like always, but we want
(02:34):
to make sure that we do rightby the victims of this horrible
event and do justice to thisstory.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
Do we need to do a DV trigger warning on this one?
You think too.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
I don't know if there's really domestic violence
as much as it's just massacre,because I don't know if there's
any history beforehand theybring up.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
Just because it's like dad versus you know what I
mean.
Or child abuse, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
I mean we can just keep listening to it.
I don't know if there's reallya like the as much as just
talking about like at this timeperiod, I mean, and with a lot
of family annihilations, usuallyit is the father that triggers
that, but I don't know if it'sdomestic violence as much as
patriarchal control, and whenyou lose that control, what can
(03:21):
happen?
I mean, moms do it too so yeah,there I mean we can go through
all the cases, which is odd,because before 1980, I think, in
the entire criminal justicesystem it was seen that women
couldn't murder, or if they did,it was more like that demonic,
like possession, not just thatwomen had the same ability to
kill.
But yeah, in this casespecifically, and we see in
(03:42):
other family annihilations, wemay not know the causes.
We can always come up withideas, but most of the time
these are murder-suicides.
There's very rare cases, johnList, where the father doesn't
kill himself, but I don't know.
I think when you talk about afamily annihilation you're
already talking about domesticviolence and interpersonal.
(04:05):
I don't know, I think that'ssomething we've never kind of
linked to the two, because withthis, this case specifically,
the loss and family murders,there really is no history that
we know of of domestic violence.
But again, back in the 1920s,how was that seen, how was that
reported?
Women were not still seen asequals.
So domestic violence may just Idon't know.
(04:26):
That's a great question.
Speaker 3 (04:27):
Which, like in Colorado at least, it's a
sentence enhancer type ideawhere any crime that is
committed with an intimatepartner for the purposes of
control or any of that like it,doesn't matter what it is, so
like criminal mischief, if we'vebeen in a personal relationship
(04:50):
and I decide I'm going to keyyour car, that's considered
domestic violence.
So it doesn't necessarily haveto be multiple separate events
for it to be classified as that,if that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
Yeah, no, and I mean I definitely think if we're
talking trigger warnings, yeah,I mean there as that, if that
makes sense, yeah, no, I mean Idefinitely think.
If we're talking triggerwarnings, yeah, I mean there is
warning that this isinterpersonal violence, family
annihilation, the death ofadults and children.
I think that's definitelysomething that needs to be
thought of before you continuelistening on to this.
If there is anything that couldpossibly trigger any feelings
(05:24):
and if so, I always say reachout for help and talk to
somebody but most of all, like,don't listen to this episode if
it could trigger you.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
So where were we at?
Speaker 2 (05:40):
So really kind of where this all starts is the
onset of the Great Depression.
So really kind of where thisall starts is the onset of the
Great Depression.
So the Great Depression standsout as one of the most pivotal
events in early 20th centuryhistory, profoundly reshaping
the economic, social andcultural landscape of the United
States.
This period of severe economicdownturn affected millions,
(06:00):
leaving a legacy of hardship andresilience millions, leaving a
legacy of hardship andresilience.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
Now the onset of the Great Depression.
It's commonly associated andattributed with a singular day,
october 29th 1929, known asBlack Tuesday, and that
specifically was the day thatthe stock market crashed
dramatically, and you'll hearpeople relate to different stock
days and trades and things likethat in reference to Black
Tuesday, like when we used tohave all the news going on about
(06:32):
the Great Recession as opposedto the Great Depression and
comparisons there.
But the amount that it crashedis unheard of and people
literally in a day losteverything they had, and it was
horrible for everybody, not justa certain subsection of people,
(06:53):
but, like at least for my agegroup, my grandparents lived
through it, so I heard a lot oftheir stories about it.
I'm sure that for our youngerpeople, they probably don't have
personal accounts from familymembers as to what it was like
then, but it basically impactedeverybody across the entire
country.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
In this day, like why Black Tuesday really stands out
to people of the crash wasthere literally were suicides
that were happening of bankersand stockbrokers and stuff that
day and that's why it was soassociated with that day.
But the reality was that therewere a lot of events that had
happened in 1929, economicevents and agricultural events
(07:38):
and things that were happeningthat all led up to it.
But it was that day that really, finally, was the tipping point
of all these things that hadbeen occurring.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
It was almost like the reflection of all of those
things cumulative into the stockmarket Because, like you said,
there was agricultural thingsand other issues behind it
before we got to that stockmarket crash.
So as you're looking throughthat, all those events come, you
have the crash and then you aregoing into the Great Depression
(08:09):
.
So as you're looking at those,you have the factors that are
contributing to the economicdownturn.
There's too much speculation inthe stock market, which we've
tried to stop, but obviously itstill happens.
You have the agriculturalproblems.
Your banking systems arefailing.
There was also internationaleconomic imbalances because of
(08:31):
World War I and the deaths thatwere associated with that.
So things financially quicklybecame out of control and we
entered into the GreatDepression.
And when we entered into theGreat Depression it happened
swiftly and it became amultifaceted crisis that
affected every aspect ofAmerican life.
Economically it led to a steepdecline in industrial production
and widespread bank failures.
(08:53):
It resulted in peakunemployment rates of around 25
percent by 1933.
Many families lost theirsavings, their homes, their
livelihoods.
There was a dramatic decreasein consumer spending and demand
and basically everything fellapart.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
Well, and I think you know we talked about like there
were stock market and bankersthat were committing and
completing suicide at the timeand you did kind of see like two
major reactions that came outof this.
Major reactions that came outof this One was that sudden
these high, rich people that hadmassive mansions and everything
else, they suddenly had nothing.
(09:30):
And then the people thatalready had nothing now had an
enemy to focus their hatred ofnot having anything on.
And we see at the same timekind of this rise of many
figures that we've alreadytalked about in this podcast
John Dillinger, willie Sutton,van Meter and all these
criminals that blamed thissystem for a lot of their family
(09:52):
farms failing and other things.
The flip side to that wasfarmers that had lost everything
that saw.
The only respite For theirfamily, especially in
communities with strongreligious ties, was death,
because if I can't take care ofmy family, god knows what's
going to happen to them.
(10:13):
And unfortunately that's kindof the story of what happens
here.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
So, amongst the sweeping narratives of national
despair, the smaller, morepersonal stories reflect the
impact of individual communitiesand families.
One such compelling narrativeis the loss in family murders,
and that happens in StokesCounty, north Carolina.
Stokes County during the late1920s encapsulated the plight
(10:42):
and struggles faced by ruralAmerica amidst the cascading
failures of the national economy.
Nestled in the heart of NorthCarolina, it was home to
hardworking families grapplingwith the harsh realities of the
Depression.
Within this setting, theLawsons family story unfolds,
which is a tragic series ofevents that left an indelible
(11:02):
mark on the local community andbeyond.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
So Stokes County, like we said, is located in
north central region of NorthCarolina.
It's characterized by reallylike this picturesque it's North
Carolina this really beautifullandscape, these rolling hills,
is kind of you're getting intothe foothills of the Appalachian
Mountains.
The county at that time waslargely agrarian, with farming
(11:27):
being primarily the occupationfor residents of the county.
The population was relativelysmall, with communities that
were very close-knit and largelyself-sufficient through
agriculture and then small localbusinesses.
The county was founded in 1789,but I tried to do some
(11:48):
statistics through the CensusBureau and then local data and
there's no population statisticsfor 1929, which is not uncommon
when we look at communities,especially rural ones, really
prior to like 1945, post-worldWar II, those stats just aren't
there.
But in 1929, the economic statusof Stokes County mirrored that
of many other rural areas acrossthe United States.
(12:10):
The county's economy again washeavily reliant on agriculture,
but specifically tobacco beingthe principal cash crop, and
that kind of was common acrossNorth Carolina, tennessee, into
Kentucky.
It was just very fertile land.
Now it's other smokable plantsthat are primarily being grown
(12:31):
there, but at this time tobaccowas the cash crop for everybody
and it provided the livelihoodfor many residents and played a
central role in the county'sfinancial infrastructure.
In addition, tobacco farmerscultivated corn and staple crops
, sustaining local food suppliesand trade.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
However, like many other rural communities, during
this time, Stokes County facedconsiderable challenges as the
effects of the Great Depressiontook hold.
Farmers experienced decliningcrop prices and the economic
strain led to decreasedagricultural income and growing
financial instability.
This economic pressure wascompounded by the broader
(13:09):
national economic downturn,which resulted in limited access
to markets and credit.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
And we're already talking about you know, again,
we go back to that specificOctober date in 1929, but rural
areas were already feeling apinch because there was
over-farming across the US, butthen tobacco prices were
dropping already at this time.
So as this event happensDecember of 1929, and people are
like that's only a couple ofmonths after that crash Well,
(13:37):
you've got to take into accountthat this had been something
that was building for a longtime.
So a lot of these ruralcommunities were already being
impacted by the starts of theGreat Depression, well before
the stock market crashed.
And despite these hardships,the residents of Stokes County
exhibited great resilience.
There were a lot of strongcommunity ties and neighbors
often banded together to supportone another through the
(13:57):
economic difficulties.
It's a very spiritual communitythat found solidarity in church
.
The backdrop against kind ofcomes this tragic event
involving the Lawson family, andit further kind of showed the
struggles but also theendurances of rural life during
the Depression era.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
So the Lawson family and that's the family we're
going to be talking about and isat the center of this tragic
narrative comprised of CharlieLawson, the patriarch, his wife
Fanny and their seven children.
Originating from a humblebackground, the Larsons were
emblematic of many ruralfamilies struggling against the
(14:40):
odds of economic adversityduring the Great Depression.
To understand the magnitude ofthe tragedy, it is essential to
delve into the biographicaldetails of the family members,
and we want to make sure that wetalk about their lives before
the harrowing events that wouldthrust them into this horrible
notoriety that they now have.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
So, and I think one of the first things to take into
account is that Charlie Lawsonhimself came from a family of
sharecroppers.
So you already have anindividual that saw his family
kind of come from nothing earntheir place.
Then he gets his chance, hestarts his own farm and then, as
(15:24):
the Great Depression rolls in,suddenly you face the
possibility of losing all this,so that patriarchal, the man's
responsibility is to take careof his family.
He saw his father rise fromthat, but now there's the
possibility and we don't knowfor sure.
He will talk about it later,but it's now.
I'm looking at myself as anindividual that can't do and I'm
(15:48):
not a man like my father was.
So there's obviously going tobe some psychological stuff that
comes up.
But Charlie Lawson was born onMay 10th 1886 at Lawsonville,
north Carolina.
He was the head of the familyand the individual whose actions
would leave a lasting impact onthe community of Stoke County,
(16:08):
on the community of Stoke County.
Raised in a farming environment, charlie followed in the
footstep of his father and thosethat came before him with a
deeply rooted agrarian lifestylethat permeated much of the
region.
Despite growing up in modestcircumstances, charlie was known
as a hardworking individualdedicated to providing for his
family and maintaining theirfarm, providing for his family
and maintaining their farm.
Speaker 3 (16:26):
Oh, fanny Larson.
She was the mother, fannyManring Larson.
She was born on December 25thfunny enough, 1897, and she was
Charlie's devoted wife.
She dedicated herself to thehousehold, her children.
Fanny played a vital role inthe family's daily life,
managing the home, supportingthe farm's operations alongside
(16:50):
her husband and basically hadthat typical role that women had
at that point in time in ruralAmerica.
Knowing of her nurturing nature, fannie was a central, beloved
figure within her family circle.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
And so again, charlie and Fannie Lawson had seven
children, ranging from, at thetime of this incident, infancy
to young adulthood, and eachkind of played their part in the
family unit.
Of course, at this time, likeeven the youngest at six and
seven, would have had somechores on the family farm.
That's kind of why you seethese big families at that time
Like seven kids wasn't unusual,because you needed that extra
(17:27):
help.
Unlike as we would startgetting to more industrial
cities and as we developedtechnologies, families started
having a lot less.
But you had Marie, who is theeldest, was born on June 27th of
1912.
And she often tookresponsibilities that surpassed
her years assisting withhouseholds and basically raising
(17:51):
her siblings.
Arthur, who was born December31, 1913, was a pivotal figure
in the family's story and wouldbe destined to be the sole
survivor of the Lawson FamilyMassacre.
The remaining children wereCarrie, who was born March 12,
1916, mabel, born January 10,1920, james, who was born July 3
(18:17):
, 1921, raymond, who was bornSeptember 15, 1923, and finally
the infant child Mary Lou, whowas born August 1927.
Experiencing the joys andchallenges typical of childhood
in the 1920s.
So they lived on the farm.
They would have gone to churchin the community.
(18:38):
This was a tight-knit ruralarea.
Speaker 3 (18:42):
So, economically, the Lawsons were reflective of many
families in the Stokes Countyarea during that era.
Their livelihood wasintrinsically tied to the land
that they cultivated and, likemany families, they faced
financial uncertainties whichwere exacerbated by the
Depression.
During these struggles, theywere considered relatively
prosperous compared to some oftheir neighbors, as indicated by
(19:05):
their ability to afford newclothes and luxuries on occasion
, a testament to Charlie'sdiligence and tireless work on
their farm.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
Socially, though, the Lawsons were integrated into
the fabric of their communityand did participate in local
church activities and maintainrelationships with extended
family members in the area.
Their outward appearance ofnormalcy and contribution to the
community life furtheramplified kind of the shock that
was felt and despair after thetragic events that would occur
(19:38):
shortly.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
So when we're talking about their farm, as we
mentioned, they were farmers.
Their property was located neara small community of Germantown
, north Carolina, and that was asymbol of the family's hard
work and a crucial source oftheir livelihood.
The farm consisted of severalacres dedicated primarily to the
(20:01):
cultivation of tobacco, which,as in much of Stokes County, was
the primary cash crop which wetalked about briefly.
Tobacco farming requiredintensive labor and you had to
plant it, harvest it, cure it,and it was a crucial component
of the local economy.
The Lawsons' involvement intobacco cultivation not only
(20:21):
underlined their integrationinto the county's primary
industry, but also underscoredthe economic pressures they
faced due to fluctuating cropprices during the Great
Depression.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
And like.
If you look at pictures andthey're available, we'll try and
put links in on the website.
But it was a modest farmhouse.
This wasn't some fancy mansionor anything.
It's a very simple building andthen even the drying sheds like
(20:53):
this wasn't like a state of theart type of facility.
This is just a wood barn.
That's got you know a veryalmost.
In the pictures I've seen,which are right after the
massacre, the roof's kind ofcoming down a little bit.
So they were prosperous as faras the community would see, but
(21:14):
when you look at the actualenvironment they lived in it was
very modest.
So in addition to tobacco, theLawson farm supported the growth
of other stable crops such ascorn and various vegetables.
This diversification wastypical of rural farms of the
area and would providesustenance for the family and
compensation for the volatilemarket prices of cash crops.
(21:35):
So you know you would grow yourbig main crop, which is in this
case tobacco, and then youwould have kind of your side
projects for your side like farmbusiness or you sell at the
market and stuff and then justsustain yourself through the
winter months and everythingelse.
So they were taking care oftheir family through farming and
also having a slight diversity.
(21:57):
But really at that time youwould have most of your land
would have been used for tobaccoproduction, hoping that that
was going to be what brought inthe most money.
But as the economy starts todownturn, tobacco is a luxury,
it's not a staple food item.
So there's already got to besome pressures coming from those
economic changes.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
And I'm not a farming expert, but from what I
understand, in those areas it'sdifficult to get very many crops
to grow and tobacco is one ofthose rare things that you know.
I don't want to say it's easyto grow, but it's easier to grow
than some of the other cropsthat are grown in other regions
of the country, from what Iunderstand.
Again, I'm not a farming expert, but that's my understanding of
(22:36):
the area.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
And another problem that was happening.
Like they said, tobacco was anormal crop in a lot of like
you're talking a lot of NorthCarolina, kentucky, so there's
almost a saturation of it to apoint like there's a lot of like
you're talking a lot of NorthCarolina, kentucky, so there's
almost a saturation of it to apoint like there's a lot of it.
So if you're starting to see aslight downturn in purchasing,
anyway, it's an oversaturatedmarket for a luxury item and
(23:00):
that becomes volatile.
When you start seeing thisdownturn in the stock markets
and banking finance, everythingis people aren't going to buy
your crop.
This is what you have to liveoff of and it doesn't take long
at this time period to go fromsurviving as a farmer to not
being able to survive at all.
And then I don't know aboutthis area, so we can't speak
(23:21):
that this impacted thiscommunity.
But we also know out in theDust Bowl and areas there's also
a lot of over-farming land, socrops that were being grown were
starting to come in lessquality, lower quality or just
not growing at all.
So there's also those impacts.
Again, I can't say thathappened in North Carolina, I
don't know that well, but thatis something that had to be
(23:42):
taken into account at that timeas well.
Speaker 3 (23:45):
And the little bit again that I do know about
farming is that a lot of it'svery specific.
So it's not like, if I know howto grow, let's just say, corn
in Kentucky, I can't just takethat knowledge to someplace in
North Carolina and have theexact same success that I had in
the other place.
And I can't look at my farm andsay, well, I've grown tobacco
here for 10 years, I'm justgoing to plant corn and it's all
(24:07):
going to be okay.
So it's.
There's a complication to it.
It's not very simple.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
No, absolutely, and sometimes just the crop you grew
before can take away so manynutrients that would not allow
another crop to grow.
I know a little bit from likelittle gardens my dad had
growing up was nothing like whatyou're talking, a lot of acres
here of land.
But even then, like if you grewa certain like tomatoes in one
(24:32):
area and try to grow somethingelse the next year, the soil had
been stripped of nutrients soyou couldn't really grow and
that's kind of that problem withover farming anyway.
And we have suddenly become agardening podcast.
So let's get back to this.
So the physical infrastructureof the farm was, as I said, kind
of a modest farmhouse.
There was a barn that wouldhave been used for storing like
(24:54):
farming equipment and thenoutbuildings, a lot of which
would have been used for curingand processing tobacco, which
reflected again the Lawson'seconomic status that they could
not only afford just a farmhousebut these barns and the
outbuildings that were neededfor processing their tobacco.
Despite the broader financialinstability of the period, the
(25:15):
family's ability to maintain andinvest in farming resources
suggested a relative degreeagain of prosperity compared to
the less fortunate neighborsthey would have had around them.
So getting into the details ofthis homicide and this massacre.
First I was brought to thisagain I've talked about in other
(25:36):
episodes the more I've beenembedding myself in Eastern
Kentucky and culture.
I've gotten kind of intobluegrass and older folk music
and stuff and I had heard theloss and family murder song but
not realizing that this was atrue story.
And it's something that I'velearned being out there and
making friends with themusicians and stuff, that a lot
(25:56):
of these songs are very muchembedded in the truth.
So when I realized that thissong that's very graphic song
and very details a very short,brief overview of what happened
here, just how tragic this was,and the more I researched it the
more I was like I want to dojustice to these individuals,
especially coming up on 100years since this horrible event
(26:19):
happened To me.
It's just interesting how musiccan impact you like that.
Speaker 3 (26:29):
But then that second wind when you realize that the
song that's impacting you hasgot history behind it.
So the Lawson family murdersrepresent one of the most
shocking and tragic events toemerge from the Great Depression
era, and it captures theattention not just within Stokes
County but nationwide, Becauseit really was just an
unimaginable tragedy and theevents unfolded on December 25th
(27:07):
1929, which forever marksChristmas Day in the heart of
the Lawson family saga as justthe tragic day that it ended up
turning out to be.
This chapter provides achronological account of the
heart-wrenching events that tookplace and the impact on each
family member involved.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
So the Christmas morning Charlie Lawson gets his
family up.
They do their normal routineand then he makes the decision
and tells them that he wants totake them into town to buy new
clothes, which again they talkabout how this is a sign of
their economic prosperity.
But it also may be a sign ofexactly what he's got planned to
(27:42):
come, because he also takesthem to do something that is
extremely rare and expensive atthis time and that's take a
family portrait.
So he gets the family up, hasthem go buy new clothes, they
get their new clothes on, theyget a family portrait taken and
then they return home Followingthis outing.
(28:02):
After they return home, thefirst thing that Charlie does is
he has Arthur go back into townto do some more errands for
them, as the family's eldestdaughter, marie, remained at the
home to bake a cake incelebration of the festive day.
Carrie and Maybel go to visitan uncle and aunt nearby an
(28:23):
uncle and aunt nearby.
As they're returning back tothe property, charlie intercepts
Carrie and Maybel and they arethe first two victims of this
massacre.
He shoots them in the yard andthen he shoots them in the back
of the car.
The methodic nature of thismurder was kind of chilling.
As Charlie proceeded to thehouse, his wife Fanny comes out
(28:46):
to the front porch and he shootsher on the front porch.
The terror continues as he goesinside where he kills Marie,
followed by his youngest child,james, then Raymond and then
unfortunately kills his infantchild.
Each of these innocent liveswere exhausted in their most
(29:09):
tender stages of life, leaving ascar on the entire community.
But after these heinous acts,charlie disappears in the nearby
woods where the anticipation ofhis next move gripped his
neighbors and family friends.
So the massacre's happening andit has happened.
People hear it, people arecoming to the farm, but
(29:32):
Charlie's disappeared.
They don't know where he's at.
The last he was seen was goinginto the woods.
So during this time, localcommunity members, including
relatives and friends, they'releft in this stage of shock and
apprehension and I can onlyimagine, like the family of him,
the extended family, like he'smassacred his family, is he
going to come after us next?
(29:53):
What's going on?
Speaker 3 (29:55):
And many feared what he might do next and the
atmosphere around the area wasone of tension and dread around
the area was one of tension anddread, which, of course, makes
sense, because these are thepeople that he's supposed to be
taking care of and protectingabove all else.
And if he does that to them youknow, as a neighbor or anybody
(30:15):
else in the community why wouldhe not do the same thing to me?
If he's doing that to thepeople he's supposed to be
protecting, what's going to stophim's doing that to the people
he's supposed to?
Speaker 2 (30:25):
be protecting what's going to stop him from doing
that to anybody else?
And I think at this time periodyou know, sadly, today mass
shootings and mass violence arenot uncommon, but in this time
period this is rare Like this,and especially in such a
tight-knit community.
What has happened, especiallyin a strongly religious
community on Christmas?
Like is the devil taking overCharlie?
And especially when the firsttwo children are killed coming
(30:49):
back from an aunt and uncle likewhat are the fears of those
aunt and uncle?
Is he going to come after us?
I couldn't really find anythingthat talked about the distances
.
We're talking here Like you canfind the distance from, like
the town to the house, but itdoesn't really say in any of the
stuff I found how far the auntand uncle lived.
Like did they live near thesame property?
If they walked there you wouldthink it was somewhat close by.
(31:10):
So people are hearing this,they're responding, but they're
responding also with thisapprehension of how close do we
want to get?
Because we don't know where heis.
Law enforcement neighbors begana search, scouring the area for
Charlie.
The search culminates whengunshots were heard echoing from
the wooded area.
Upon advancing to the sourcesof the noise, searchers
(31:38):
discovered Charlie Lawson'slifeless body alongside a pair
of letters and notes.
I was not able to find any likedepth or detail, but everything
I read said that the notesoffered little in terms of
definitive explanations ormotives, instead contributing to
the ongoing speculation aboutwhat drove Charlie to commit
such horrendous acts.
(31:59):
So he's killed all his immediatefamily, except Arthur, but
doesn't really explain why, andthere's a lot of speculation.
Some of it is really grotesqueand very it doesn't deserve any
airtime from us because it can'tbe verified.
But one of the things that candefinitely be taken into account
(32:22):
is that there was a lot offinancial things that were going
on.
It was very common for men tosee themselves as the
breadwinners, and if he feltthat he wasn't able to perform
the duties of keeping his housetogether, keeping the farm, let
me take my family into town, getthem nice clothes, have a
(32:43):
picture to remember us by, andthen if I can't take care of my
family, god knows what's goingto happen to them.
It's better to deliver them toheaven than for them to somehow
end up destitute in God knowswhere and for me to be seen as a
failure to my family.
Speaker 3 (33:04):
Which, of course, then there wasn't a lot known
about mental illness either.
So it's not like you're goingto have any type of diagnosis or
evaluation that we can, youknow, use any of that as
information to figure out what'sgoing on with Charlie.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
Oh, absolutely.
And even back then, like menwere stoic, like men didn't talk
about their emotions there wasno, and women weren't really
seen as talking about the homelife outside of the house.
So everything was always keptvery inside and a guy's not
going to say I'm not feelingright, I'm depressed.
You see, and I mean we see iteven now that they more lash out
(33:42):
than they are willing to talkabout their feelings and we
don't know I didn't see recordsagain of it but what the
financial status of the farm andthemselves was.
We don't know if he was on theverge of destitution and this
was a last grip effort and thiswas a last grip effort.
I do think the timing's kind ofweird that it's Christmas
(34:04):
because there is, as we talkedabout in another episode, like
this is a time that you do seean increase in domestic violence
and issues like that, butespecially because the pressures
put on a family member, andespecially the men, to like
presents for your kids andthings like that, because they
don't really talk about that andany of this stuff is all like
the kid's presents or anything.
(34:25):
You just took them out to buyclothes, get this picture done,
and that picture is availableonline.
It is a 1929 picture.
It is kind of, in a way,disturbing to look at.
Speaker 3 (34:38):
And as far as like the Christmas gifts and things
like that, my grandparents wouldhave been the ages of the
children in this story and Iknow from their stories about
what things were like then youmight maybe at Christmas get an
orange and that would be theextent of your Christmas gift.
So if you're thinking aboutlike Christmas gifts like in a
(34:59):
modern sense it's not going tobe like the trees overflowing or
there's gifts laid out orpresents wrapped it literally
might just be an orange for eachchild and that might be
Christmas.
That might be it.
Speaker 2 (35:12):
A hoop and a stick pushing down a dirt road.
Yes, one of the greatest oldthings that I used to hear old
people say.
When I was your age, I used topush a hoop with a stick down a
dirt road and I always thoughtthat wasn't real.
And then I started seeing oldtime pictures where people were
moving a hoop with a stick downa dirt road.
Speaker 3 (35:30):
And I was like, well, son of a bitch, that's a real
thing.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
Absolutely so.
In this story, though,remarkably, arthur was spared
the fate that befell his familydue to this errand that his
father sent him on befell hisfamily due to this errand that
his father sent him on.
On the morning of the murders,charlie Lawson sent Arthur into
town on a task, a decision thatinadvertently saved his life,
but I don't know if it was likea lot of the things that you
(35:53):
read like.
Well, it inadvertently savedhis life, but I very much think
that Arthur was spared.
He was 16 at the time, whichwould have been considered an
adult.
He was the adult heir toeverything, so he would have
been seen as being able to takecare of himself.
So I don't know if this Charliedoesn't seem like the type of
guy that forgets he has a kidthat he sent to town before he
(36:15):
massacres the rest of his family.
They'd already been to town,bought clothes, gotten this
photo taken, so I don't thinkthis was an act of God saved me.
I think this was Charlie.
Let his son live.
Speaker 3 (36:31):
Yeah, if he had a plan at the point when he went
in and they bought the clothesand took the picture, if he
already had that plan going,then I would think sending his
son off to town would have beena decision, like you said,
either to choose for him to liveor possibly a strategic
decision.
Maybe he looked at his son andthought if anybody here can stop
me, it's him, so I'm going tosend him off to town.
(36:53):
So then that way, nobody herecan stop me.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
And I think if you can find the family photo again,
I'll try to put a link on ourwebpage in the blog.
But Charlie, everybody else,except one of the little kids
and Charlie, everybody else isvery stoic face, which is very
common for that time.
But Charlie has a smirk.
So something in his bodylanguage shows that he's at
(37:20):
peace and there's definitelysomething going on in his head.
It's not that stoic 1929 photo,it's very much.
I've made a plan, I'm at peace,everything's going the way I
see it going.
As the details of the familymurders unfolded, arthur's
survival kind of became acentral point of interest in
speculation.
(37:40):
The community, as you wouldexpect in rural North Carolina,
really rallied around him as hegrappled with the shock and
sorrow of losing his entireimmediate family.
Local businesses andindividuals provided financial
support to assist Arthur duringthe immediate aftermath, in
highlighting the community'sempathy and solidarity in the
(38:01):
face of unthinkable loss.
And one of the pictures that welooked at which to me was kind
of mind-boggling and you kind ofhad a different view on it, but
to me it was mind-boggling thatthey buried them all together-
and, when I look at it, that'swhat they did back then.
Speaker 3 (38:18):
They put everybody together.
You were a family, and that wasjust the way it was, through
and through.
Speaker 2 (38:25):
To me like and again, I guess this just goes off my,
I'm a bitter, bitter man, but ifyou annihilated my family, I'm
not burying you with the samepeople that you massacred.
And you look at the headstone,it's got him as the patriarch at
the top, and probably one ofthe most chilling photos that
(38:50):
you can find is just all thecaskets laid out and you can
read about something like this.
But it's not until you seesomething like that and this row
of seven caskets laid out thatit really hits close to home of
just the extent and the victimsthat were taken in this one, I
want to say selfish acts of malemachismo.
Speaker 3 (39:09):
And the sizing of it too.
It's not just that there'sseven.
Like you can see that there aredistinctly some that are small,
yeah, which is difficult.
Speaker 2 (39:19):
Yeah, it is very difficult, and when we talk
about mental health and anyfamily annihilation, I mean
there's some of the worst casesto read when I look at mass
murders.
But just the ability to kill achild is, to me, harm yourself.
You know an adult's, adult youhave a fighting chance, but a
(39:42):
two-year-old child, just that iswho I really want us to
remember more than anything.
And why this story to me was soimportant was to remember those
six, five children no, it wassix children that were murdered
at this man's hands because theydidn't have an option, they
didn't have a choice.
So the tragic sequence ofevents, witnessed in part by
(40:12):
Arthur, revealed a familydynamic overridden, with
potentially hidden turmoil,overshadowed by the economic
problems at the time and,emotionally, by the pressures of
the time period on,specifically, men to be
providers.
While investigators andhistorians have tried to piece
together the motivations behindCharlie's actions, the
inexplicable nature of themurders challenges understanding
(40:35):
and leaves many questionsunanswered.
This chapter in history kind oflays bare the progression of
the crime and things that werehappening at that time period,
while also trying to memorializethe hands and hearts that were
snatched away from us by such anevil act.
Speaker 3 (40:58):
Charlie's death by suicide also did not bring
closure to the community.
Rather, it intensified themisery and disbelief surrounding
the tragedy.
Theories emerged, ranging fromfinancial stress to familial
discord and mental healthstruggles, but no singular
explanation could encapsulatethe breadth of Charlie's actions
(41:18):
, and I don't think that that'ssomething that we can ever
really figure out for thisspecific case or any of the
cases that are like this.
I don't think it's somethingthat we can even wrap our minds
around.
Speaker 2 (41:30):
No, and I mean part of it is it's very rare.
These are usually murdersuicides, so it's usually rare.
You can't talk to theindividuals.
They're all gone.
A lot of this stuff, especiallythis time period, was kept, like
we said, in-house.
Nobody talked about things, soyou couldn't really go to
neighbors.
The shitty thing to me is thatusually after crimes like this,
(41:55):
you always have people that comeout oh, I think, or I heard, or
somebody said, andunfortunately you don't.
That's not helping anything.
It tarnishes the names ofpeople.
Or I heard, or somebody said,and unfortunately you don't.
That's not helping anything.
It tarnishes the names ofpeople Because, charlie, being a
murderer or not, you stilldon't want somebody to tarnish
the reputation, because you canbe two things at the same time.
(42:16):
You can be a good person and amass murderer it's possible.
But also the victims shouldn'tbe dragged through the mud as
examples of well, well, this badthing was happening or this bad
thing was happening.
That led to why he did this,and I think that's probably the
worst thing that you see,especially when you start
looking at cases, usually within10 minutes after them happening
now because of social media andeverything, but back then and
(42:39):
kind of the tabloids and news,because whatever was well,
whatever was most shocking iswhat got the front page and if I
was the person that said it, myname got in the paper and that
was a big deal.
So unfortunately, I thinksometimes horrific, very extreme
, random rumors Thank you,exactly I was about to say,
(43:02):
couldn't find the words thoughBecame kind of folklore in this
and I do respect that.
A lot of the stuff I've lookedat tried not to or did not delve
into those rumors andspeculations.
It really, in my mind,tarnished the victims more than
helped them.
Speaker 3 (43:18):
And I think part of that too is people again trying
to make sense out of nonsense.
Because you look at this andyou can take it from one extreme
to the other.
Right, you could say, well, herealized that his family was
going to have nothing, they weregoing to be impoverished if
they had no food.
There weren't the social safetynets that we have today.
If they didn't have food, maybehis family would starve to
(43:40):
death.
You know who knows where theywould end up if he couldn't take
.
You know he had an olderdaughter like.
Who knows what would end uphappening to her if he, you know
, if he couldn't provide for her.
So maybe if you're looking onlike the I don't know if you
want to call it like thepositive spin of him, maybe you
could try to say he was tryingto protect them from those fates
(44:03):
that were worse than death inhis mind, and maybe he was
trying to protect them fromthose things.
It's hard to say because Ican't make my mind to think that
way, and maybe it's just.
You know, I've seen so many badthings that I can't look at
somebody like Charlie and try tosee a good part of him.
(44:26):
But you know, maybe it wassomething like that, some type
of misguided protective instinct, but it's hard to say.
I think more likely in my mindit'd be more like a mental
illness control type thing.
He's losing control.
He's losing financially.
(44:47):
The whole country's fallingapart.
The future is uncertain.
I don't know what's going tohappen.
But if I do this, I know what'shappening and I'm taking
control of the situation.
Speaker 2 (44:58):
Yeah, and I think that that's a big thing is, when
we say control, we're not justtalking about like him
controlling his family, it's himhaving control over life and
taking a little bit back, notnot again as bad terminology,
not in the normal like murder orhaving control of life, but
having control of destiny andfate.
Like at this time you'rewatching everything around you
(45:20):
collapse, your family'sdependent on you, you have to
try and feed an infant, smallchildren, your wife, and I think
, like you said, there's a bigpart of me that, being a former
police officer and having dealtwith and studied all these
horrible crimes and seenhorrible things, that again is
(45:42):
like 700 episodes in themselvesof just that type of trauma.
But then also coming from thesocial work side and being able
to say, like I said, that youcan be two things at once, like
you can be a good father andhave the best intentions, but
they are horribly misplaced andyou massacre innocent people in
your mind, which I think againgoes back to mental health.
(46:04):
You think is the only optionyou have and I think here later
I kind of will mention how thatcan be addressed.
But in the years following thistragedy, arthur himself, the
sole survivor of this sadmassacre.
His life was significantlymarked by the events of that
(46:25):
Christmas day and he facedchallenges, rebuilding his life
amidst the lingering publicattention and his own personal
grievances.
While Arthur rarely spokepublicly about the murders, he
did continue to reside in thecommunity, tackling the
intricate process of coping withunforeseen circumstances
tackling the intricate processof coping with unforeseen
circumstances.
But sadly, his life just endedup being marred by tragedy.
(46:48):
In 1945, arthur Lawson waskilled in a motor accident and
he left behind a wife and fourchildren.
So 19 years after his familywas, 16 years after his family
was killed, he sadly lost hisown life.
Speaker 3 (47:08):
The local reaction was characterized by a mix of
shock and sorrow and confusion.
Understandably, the sudden lossof the Lawson family, coupled
with the brutal manner in whichthe events transpired, left
neighbors and relativesdevastated, which of course it
would.
Members were often seengathering at local churches and
(47:30):
homes, seeking solace andcomfort in shared mornings, and
vigils and memorials were held,attended by large crowds who
came together in an effort tosupport each other and honor the
memory of the victims.
Speaker 2 (47:48):
The emotional impact on local residents also was
profound, as many struggle withfeelings of fear and
vulnerability heightened by thistragedy, which is
understandable.
That's a major shock.
These were close-knitcommunities, not like now where
I may see my neighbor but Idon't know many things about him
.
A lot of these small-knitcommunities were related somehow
(48:09):
, or related within threedegrees of separation.
So it's very understanding thatthey would have fear themselves
, especially because the impactsin some of the things they
thought may have influenced himwere happening to other families
in the community.
So the understanding that suchviolence could erupt within a
familiar and presumably safeenvironment was deeply
(48:31):
unsettling and this led toheightened anxiety and
protective instincts amongfamilies in the area.
And the media coverage also atthe time didn't help.
But one thing that did come outof that is that the family was
memorialized in different waysthrough culture and music.
(48:51):
So one of the most poignantrepresentations of loss and
family tragedy has been found inmusic.
There are over 10 songs alonethat have been written about the
horrific events and these songskind of capture the sorrowful
and haunting details of themurder and emerge as part of
kind of Americans' full-scoremusic tradition and especially
(49:14):
kind of sadly titled like themurder ballads of American folk
music, notably the song themurder of the Lawson family, was
a ballad performed by theCarolina Buddies and it became
emblematic reflective of theera's response to the
sensational nature of this crimeand then the plight of kind of
(49:34):
rural Americans at the time.
The song's lyrics recount theevents with stark clarity,
serving as both a memorial and acommentary on the societal
tensions of the time.
The musical rendition provideda platform for storytelling and
embedded the loss and tragedy inthe collective memories through
oral tradition.
Me personally, there's aversion available on streaming
(49:58):
services.
I played it kind of for all ofus before we started, called the
Murder of the Lawson Family,and it's by Dave Alvin and I
listen to it kind of often.
It's kind of a reminder of whyI do the research I do, because
the biggest thing to me and whyI got in this again is just
victims.
And how do we keep the memoryof victims alive and also learn
(50:21):
from these tragedies to try anddecrease the ability and more
victims coming in the future?
Speaker 3 (50:29):
And I think that's hopefully what we learned from
all of these tragic events, andI think sometimes that's why
people study these and we talkabout media attention and how
almost a fascination with thesetypes of cases.
I think part of it goes back totrying to figure out why did
this happen and what can we doso that it doesn't happen again.
Speaker 2 (50:53):
Absolutely.
And again, it's hard and inthis case it's one of those like
, he didn't leave a lot ofinformation.
It's almost now 100 years ago,so going back and trying to get
the details that we would wantnow as researchers, it's really
hard.
We can't even find census data,we're not probably going to
find the exact letters and we'renot going to find actual
witness accounts that reallygive us the information we want.
Speaker 3 (51:20):
Again, you got those rumors out there, but we can't
get cold hard facts.
And even if that stuff wasavailable, as far as like if we
could see everything that theyhad and in an evidentiary
standpoint now that they hadbeen, that still doesn't mean
we'd know yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (51:35):
Again, you know this better than I do as a former
prosecutor.
There's their side, there's aoffender side, the victim side
and then the truth, and we wouldnever be able to get that in
between.
But in the the Lawson familymurders in the historical
context underscore the complexintertwining of personal tragedy
(51:57):
with broader societal forceswhich were characteristic of the
Great Depression era and, Ithink, other eras that have
happened in the United States,especially political and
financial turmoil.
The examination has providedinsight into how devastating
economic pressures and societaldynamics during one of America's
most challenging times canmanifest in profound personal
(52:18):
loss and turmoil, era hardshipsand reflective both the
universal struggles of ruralcommunities and the individual
human experience that historyoften overshadows Like.
Again, this was something I'vestudied mass murder, family
(52:43):
annihilation, serial crimes fora long time.
I had to learn about thisthrough a song, it's just not
one that I'm sure more peopleknow about it.
But also I'm not from NorthCarolina, so.
But the comprehensive look atLawson's family, their farm and
the ensuing tragedy highlightsagain these economic, social and
cultural factors thatcontribute to and were affected
(53:05):
by the events of December 25,1929, from the implication of
patriarch Charlie Lawson'sactions to the community
responses and the portrayal ofthe murders in popular culture.
The analysis demonstrates themulti-faceted impacts of such
tragedies and can be a reminderof why mental health, community
(53:26):
support and adequate resourcesare needed.
Do you have anything you wouldlike to add to this?
Speaker 3 (53:36):
Nothing that I can think of that's particularly
helpful.
It's just one of those supersad, super tragic, horrible
things that happened that youwant to look for it and you want
to try to say what can we learnfrom this or what's the silver
lining.
But I struggle to see anythingfrom that.
I really don't see one of thoselearning experiences because,
(53:58):
like you said, from the outsidenone of the neighbors knew what
was going on.
None of the other familymembers knew what was going on
and, like you said, that stuffwas all contained in the home in
that time period.
But also, like you said,everybody knew everybody else.
There were people who knew thisfamily for their entire lives,
people who had grown up withthem and probably felt like they
(54:19):
knew Charlie as well as theyknew themselves or anybody else.
And so it's kind of scary whenyou think about you know that
he's just in their community andnobody knew that something was
wrong.
Speaker 2 (54:34):
Yeah, I think that's the biggest part and kind of a
wake up call to all of us.
Maybe the more technology hasgotten to us and the farther we
spread out from our roots andeverything else, the easier it
is for these type of developingsituations to go unnoticed and
(54:56):
for us to kind of lose thoseconnections.
And when people lose humanconnections they lose access to
support, to connectivity withtheir community, and it becomes
easier to see yourself not onlydisconnected but that when a
hard time does come, that youdon't have any real options.
So I think let this, ifanything, a silver lining is
(55:22):
take this as a warning of whentimes are getting tough and
there are problems to look outfor each other and look out for
your neighbors.
And you know, maybe thisChristmas, you know, remember
Marie Fanny, baby Mary Lou,carrie, raymond, mary Bell and
James, and even Arthur though hesurvived, I'm sure he was never
(55:46):
whole again.
For sure.
So thank you for listening tothis episode.
Please keep the Lawson family'smemory and names alive and have
a Merry.
Christmas.
I want to thank you all so muchfor listening to our little
podcast.
This is created with love andpassion for criminal justice and
(56:07):
true crime.
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(56:28):
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(56:49):
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(57:09):
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So again, thank you for takingthe time to listen and have a
good week.
So welcome to Deviant Criminology.
I'm Richard, I'm Heather, overthere is Nancy, who cannot be
heard, and this is our Christmasepisode.
It is the holiday season, so wewanted to do a special episode
that we'd release here, as isthe basis of our entire podcast.
(01:00):
We want to use this opportunityto remember victims of a
horrific event that had happenedand keep their memories alive.
So this is an important part ofdoing the show, which was a
foundation from the beginning,because, as people who we've
worked in the criminal justicesystem different parts, but we
all feel kind of a connection totrying to keep victims'
(01:23):
memories alive.
We wanted to make sure that wealways present these cases in a
way that can be learningexperiences and not
glorification of crime, and it'salways about keeping the legacy
of the victims going.
And in honor of that, theconcept this week was to do an
(01:43):
episode that we would release atChristmas that had some link to
the holidays.
So our first kind of holidayepisode.
We decided to look at the lossand family murders that occurred
on December 25th of 1929.
And the sad reality of thistragedy was embedded in the
(02:11):
events of the Great Depressionthat had started in August that
same year, with severalfinancial disasters.
This is a very dark and deeptopic to cover and I just want
to make sure that we kind of dogive a trigger warning that this
does involve the death of somechildren.
We won't get into graphicdetail, like always, but we want
(02:34):
to make sure that we do rightby the victims of this horrible
event and do justice to thisstory.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
Do we need to do a DV trigger warning on this one?
You think too.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
I don't know if there's really domestic violence
as much as it's just massacre,because I don't know if there's
any history beforehand theybring up.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
Just because it's like dad versus you know what I
mean.
Or child abuse, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
I mean we can just keep listening to it.
I don't know if there's reallya like the as much as just
talking about like at this timeperiod, I mean, and with a lot
of family annihilations, usuallyit is the father that triggers
that, but I don't know if it'sdomestic violence as much as
patriarchal control, and whenyou lose that control, what can
(03:21):
happen?
I mean, moms do it too so yeah,there I mean we can go through
all the cases, which is odd,because before 1980, I think, in
the entire criminal justicesystem it was seen that women
couldn't murder, or if they did,it was more like that demonic,
like possession, not just thatwomen had the same ability to
kill.
But yeah, in this casespecifically, and we see in
(03:42):
other family annihilations, wemay not know the causes.
We can always come up withideas, but most of the time
these are murder-suicides.
There's very rare cases, johnList, where the father doesn't
kill himself, but I don't know.
I think when you talk about afamily annihilation you're
already talking about domesticviolence and interpersonal.
(04:05):
I don't know, I think that'ssomething we've never kind of
linked to the two, because withthis, this case specifically,
the loss and family murders,there really is no history that
we know of of domestic violence.
But again, back in the 1920s,how was that seen, how was that
reported?
Women were not still seen asequals.
So domestic violence may just Idon't know.
(04:26):
That's a great question.
Speaker 3 (04:27):
Which, like in Colorado at least, it's a
sentence enhancer type ideawhere any crime that is
committed with an intimatepartner for the purposes of
control or any of that like it,doesn't matter what it is, so
like criminal mischief, if we'vebeen in a personal relationship
(04:50):
and I decide I'm going to keyyour car, that's considered
domestic violence.
So it doesn't necessarily haveto be multiple separate events
for it to be classified as that,if that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
Yeah, no, and I mean I definitely think if we're
talking trigger warnings, yeah,I mean there as that, if that
makes sense, yeah, no, I mean Idefinitely think.
If we're talking triggerwarnings, yeah, I mean there is
warning that this isinterpersonal violence, family
annihilation, the death ofadults and children.
I think that's definitelysomething that needs to be
thought of before you continuelistening on to this.
If there is anything that couldpossibly trigger any feelings
(05:24):
and if so, I always say reachout for help and talk to
somebody but most of all, like,don't listen to this episode if
it could trigger you.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
So where were we at?
Speaker 2 (05:40):
So really kind of where this all starts is the
onset of the Great Depression.
So really kind of where thisall starts is the onset of the
Great Depression.
So the Great Depression standsout as one of the most pivotal
events in early 20th centuryhistory, profoundly reshaping
the economic, social andcultural landscape of the United
States.
This period of severe economicdownturn affected millions,
(06:00):
leaving a legacy of hardship andresilience millions, leaving a
legacy of hardship andresilience.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
Now the onset of the Great Depression.
It's commonly associated andattributed with a singular day,
october 29th 1929, known asBlack Tuesday, and that
specifically was the day thatthe stock market crashed
dramatically, and you'll hearpeople relate to different stock
days and trades and things likethat in reference to Black
Tuesday, like when we used tohave all the news going on about
(06:32):
the Great Recession as opposedto the Great Depression and
comparisons there.
But the amount that it crashedis unheard of and people
literally in a day losteverything they had, and it was
horrible for everybody, not justa certain subsection of people,
(06:53):
but, like at least for my agegroup, my grandparents lived
through it, so I heard a lot oftheir stories about it.
I'm sure that for our youngerpeople, they probably don't have
personal accounts from familymembers as to what it was like
then, but it basically impactedeverybody across the entire
country.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
In this day, like why Black Tuesday really stands out
to people of the crash wasthere literally were suicides
that were happening of bankersand stockbrokers and stuff that
day and that's why it was soassociated with that day.
But the reality was that therewere a lot of events that had
happened in 1929, economicevents and agricultural events
(07:38):
and things that were happeningthat all led up to it.
But it was that day that really, finally, was the tipping point
of all these things that hadbeen occurring.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
It was almost like the reflection of all of those
things cumulative into the stockmarket Because, like you said,
there was agricultural thingsand other issues behind it
before we got to that stockmarket crash.
So as you're looking throughthat, all those events come, you
have the crash and then you aregoing into the Great Depression
(08:09):
.
So as you're looking at those,you have the factors that are
contributing to the economicdownturn.
There's too much speculation inthe stock market, which we've
tried to stop, but obviously itstill happens.
You have the agriculturalproblems.
Your banking systems arefailing.
There was also internationaleconomic imbalances because of
(08:31):
World War I and the deaths thatwere associated with that.
So things financially quicklybecame out of control and we
entered into the GreatDepression.
And when we entered into theGreat Depression it happened
swiftly and it became amultifaceted crisis that
affected every aspect ofAmerican life.
Economically it led to a steepdecline in industrial production
and widespread bank failures.
(08:53):
It resulted in peakunemployment rates of around 25
percent by 1933.
Many families lost theirsavings, their homes, their
livelihoods.
There was a dramatic decreasein consumer spending and demand
and basically everything fellapart.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
Well, and I think you know we talked about like there
were stock market and bankersthat were committing and
completing suicide at the timeand you did kind of see like two
major reactions that came outof this.
Major reactions that came outof this One was that sudden
these high, rich people that hadmassive mansions and everything
else, they suddenly had nothing.
(09:30):
And then the people thatalready had nothing now had an
enemy to focus their hatred ofnot having anything on.
And we see at the same timekind of this rise of many
figures that we've alreadytalked about in this podcast
John Dillinger, willie Sutton,van Meter and all these
criminals that blamed thissystem for a lot of their family
(09:52):
farms failing and other things.
The flip side to that wasfarmers that had lost everything
that saw.
The only respite For theirfamily, especially in
communities with strongreligious ties, was death,
because if I can't take care ofmy family, god knows what's
going to happen to them.
(10:13):
And unfortunately that's kindof the story of what happens
here.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
So, amongst the sweeping narratives of national
despair, the smaller, morepersonal stories reflect the
impact of individual communitiesand families.
One such compelling narrativeis the loss in family murders,
and that happens in StokesCounty, north Carolina.
Stokes County during the late1920s encapsulated the plight
(10:42):
and struggles faced by ruralAmerica amidst the cascading
failures of the national economy.
Nestled in the heart of NorthCarolina, it was home to
hardworking families grapplingwith the harsh realities of the
Depression.
Within this setting, theLawsons family story unfolds,
which is a tragic series ofevents that left an indelible
(11:02):
mark on the local community andbeyond.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
So Stokes County, like we said, is located in
north central region of NorthCarolina.
It's characterized by reallylike this picturesque it's North
Carolina this really beautifullandscape, these rolling hills,
is kind of you're getting intothe foothills of the Appalachian
Mountains.
The county at that time waslargely agrarian, with farming
(11:27):
being primarily the occupationfor residents of the county.
The population was relativelysmall, with communities that
were very close-knit and largelyself-sufficient through
agriculture and then small localbusinesses.
The county was founded in 1789,but I tried to do some
(11:48):
statistics through the CensusBureau and then local data and
there's no population statisticsfor 1929, which is not uncommon
when we look at communities,especially rural ones, really
prior to like 1945, post-worldWar II, those stats just aren't
there.
But in 1929, the economic statusof Stokes County mirrored that
of many other rural areas acrossthe United States.
(12:10):
The county's economy again washeavily reliant on agriculture,
but specifically tobacco beingthe principal cash crop, and
that kind of was common acrossNorth Carolina, tennessee, into
Kentucky.
It was just very fertile land.
Now it's other smokable plantsthat are primarily being grown
(12:31):
there, but at this time tobaccowas the cash crop for everybody
and it provided the livelihoodfor many residents and played a
central role in the county'sfinancial infrastructure.
In addition, tobacco farmerscultivated corn and staple crops
, sustaining local food suppliesand trade.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
However, like many other rural communities, during
this time, Stokes County facedconsiderable challenges as the
effects of the Great Depressiontook hold.
Farmers experienced decliningcrop prices and the economic
strain led to decreasedagricultural income and growing
financial instability.
This economic pressure wascompounded by the broader
(13:09):
national economic downturn,which resulted in limited access
to markets and credit.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
And we're already talking about you know, again,
we go back to that specificOctober date in 1929, but rural
areas were already feeling apinch because there was
over-farming across the US, butthen tobacco prices were
dropping already at this time.
So as this event happensDecember of 1929, and people are
like that's only a couple ofmonths after that crash Well,
(13:37):
you've got to take into accountthat this had been something
that was building for a longtime.
So a lot of these ruralcommunities were already being
impacted by the starts of theGreat Depression, well before
the stock market crashed.
And despite these hardships,the residents of Stokes County
exhibited great resilience.
There were a lot of strongcommunity ties and neighbors
often banded together to supportone another through the
(13:57):
economic difficulties.
It's a very spiritual communitythat found solidarity in church
.
The backdrop against kind ofcomes this tragic event
involving the Lawson family, andit further kind of showed the
struggles but also theendurances of rural life during
the Depression era.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
So the Lawson family and that's the family we're
going to be talking about and isat the center of this tragic
narrative comprised of CharlieLawson, the patriarch, his wife
Fanny and their seven children.
Originating from a humblebackground, the Larsons were
emblematic of many ruralfamilies struggling against the
(14:40):
odds of economic adversityduring the Great Depression.
To understand the magnitude ofthe tragedy, it is essential to
delve into the biographicaldetails of the family members,
and we want to make sure that wetalk about their lives before
the harrowing events that wouldthrust them into this horrible
notoriety that they now have.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
So, and I think one of the first things to take into
account is that Charlie Lawsonhimself came from a family of
sharecroppers.
So you already have anindividual that saw his family
kind of come from nothing earntheir place.
Then he gets his chance, hestarts his own farm and then, as
(15:24):
the Great Depression rolls in,suddenly you face the
possibility of losing all this,so that patriarchal, the man's
responsibility is to take careof his family.
He saw his father rise fromthat, but now there's the
possibility and we don't knowfor sure.
He will talk about it later,but it's now.
I'm looking at myself as anindividual that can't do and I'm
(15:48):
not a man like my father was.
So there's obviously going tobe some psychological stuff that
comes up.
But Charlie Lawson was born onMay 10th 1886 at Lawsonville,
north Carolina.
He was the head of the familyand the individual whose actions
would leave a lasting impact onthe community of Stoke County,
(16:08):
on the community of Stoke County.
Raised in a farming environment, charlie followed in the
footstep of his father and thosethat came before him with a
deeply rooted agrarian lifestylethat permeated much of the
region.
Despite growing up in modestcircumstances, charlie was known
as a hardworking individualdedicated to providing for his
family and maintaining theirfarm, providing for his family
and maintaining their farm.
Speaker 3 (16:26):
Oh, fanny Larson.
She was the mother, fannyManring Larson.
She was born on December 25thfunny enough, 1897, and she was
Charlie's devoted wife.
She dedicated herself to thehousehold, her children.
Fanny played a vital role inthe family's daily life,
managing the home, supportingthe farm's operations alongside
(16:50):
her husband and basically hadthat typical role that women had
at that point in time in ruralAmerica.
Knowing of her nurturing nature, fannie was a central, beloved
figure within her family circle.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
And so again, charlie and Fannie Lawson had seven
children, ranging from, at thetime of this incident, infancy
to young adulthood, and eachkind of played their part in the
family unit.
Of course, at this time, likeeven the youngest at six and
seven, would have had somechores on the family farm.
That's kind of why you seethese big families at that time
Like seven kids wasn't unusual,because you needed that extra
(17:27):
help.
Unlike as we would startgetting to more industrial
cities and as we developedtechnologies, families started
having a lot less.
But you had Marie, who is theeldest, was born on June 27th of
1912.
And she often tookresponsibilities that surpassed
her years assisting withhouseholds and basically raising
(17:51):
her siblings.
Arthur, who was born December31, 1913, was a pivotal figure
in the family's story and wouldbe destined to be the sole
survivor of the Lawson FamilyMassacre.
The remaining children wereCarrie, who was born March 12,
1916, mabel, born January 10,1920, james, who was born July 3
(18:17):
, 1921, raymond, who was bornSeptember 15, 1923, and finally
the infant child Mary Lou, whowas born August 1927.
Experiencing the joys andchallenges typical of childhood
in the 1920s.
So they lived on the farm.
They would have gone to churchin the community.
(18:38):
This was a tight-knit ruralarea.
Speaker 3 (18:42):
So, economically, the Lawsons were reflective of many
families in the Stokes Countyarea during that era.
Their livelihood wasintrinsically tied to the land
that they cultivated and, likemany families, they faced
financial uncertainties whichwere exacerbated by the
Depression.
During these struggles, theywere considered relatively
prosperous compared to some oftheir neighbors, as indicated by
(19:05):
their ability to afford newclothes and luxuries on occasion
, a testament to Charlie'sdiligence and tireless work on
their farm.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
Socially, though, the Lawsons were integrated into
the fabric of their communityand did participate in local
church activities and maintainrelationships with extended
family members in the area.
Their outward appearance ofnormalcy and contribution to the
community life furtheramplified kind of the shock that
was felt and despair after thetragic events that would occur
(19:38):
shortly.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
So when we're talking about their farm, as we
mentioned, they were farmers.
Their property was located neara small community of Germantown
, north Carolina, and that was asymbol of the family's hard
work and a crucial source oftheir livelihood.
The farm consisted of severalacres dedicated primarily to the
(20:01):
cultivation of tobacco, which,as in much of Stokes County, was
the primary cash crop which wetalked about briefly.
Tobacco farming requiredintensive labor and you had to
plant it, harvest it, cure it,and it was a crucial component
of the local economy.
The Lawsons' involvement intobacco cultivation not only
(20:21):
underlined their integrationinto the county's primary
industry, but also underscoredthe economic pressures they
faced due to fluctuating cropprices during the Great
Depression.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
And like.
If you look at pictures andthey're available, we'll try and
put links in on the website.
But it was a modest farmhouse.
This wasn't some fancy mansionor anything.
It's a very simple building andthen even the drying sheds like
(20:53):
this wasn't like a state of theart type of facility.
This is just a wood barn.
That's got you know a veryalmost.
In the pictures I've seen,which are right after the
massacre, the roof's kind ofcoming down a little bit.
So they were prosperous as faras the community would see, but
(21:14):
when you look at the actualenvironment they lived in it was
very modest.
So in addition to tobacco, theLawson farm supported the growth
of other stable crops such ascorn and various vegetables.
This diversification wastypical of rural farms of the
area and would providesustenance for the family and
compensation for the volatilemarket prices of cash crops.
(21:35):
So you know you would grow yourbig main crop, which is in this
case tobacco, and then youwould have kind of your side
projects for your side like farmbusiness or you sell at the
market and stuff and then justsustain yourself through the
winter months and everythingelse.
So they were taking care oftheir family through farming and
also having a slight diversity.
(21:57):
But really at that time youwould have most of your land
would have been used for tobaccoproduction, hoping that that
was going to be what brought inthe most money.
But as the economy starts todownturn, tobacco is a luxury,
it's not a staple food item.
So there's already got to besome pressures coming from those
economic changes.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
And I'm not a farming expert, but from what I
understand, in those areas it'sdifficult to get very many crops
to grow and tobacco is one ofthose rare things that you know.
I don't want to say it's easyto grow, but it's easier to grow
than some of the other cropsthat are grown in other regions
of the country, from what Iunderstand.
Again, I'm not a farming expert, but that's my understanding of
(22:36):
the area.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
And another problem that was happening.
Like they said, tobacco was anormal crop in a lot of like
you're talking a lot of NorthCarolina, kentucky, so there's
almost a saturation of it to apoint like there's a lot of like
you're talking a lot of NorthCarolina, kentucky, so there's
almost a saturation of it to apoint like there's a lot of it.
So if you're starting to see aslight downturn in purchasing,
anyway, it's an oversaturatedmarket for a luxury item and
(23:00):
that becomes volatile.
When you start seeing thisdownturn in the stock markets
and banking finance, everythingis people aren't going to buy
your crop.
This is what you have to liveoff of and it doesn't take long
at this time period to go fromsurviving as a farmer to not
being able to survive at all.
And then I don't know aboutthis area, so we can't speak
(23:21):
that this impacted thiscommunity.
But we also know out in theDust Bowl and areas there's also
a lot of over-farming land, socrops that were being grown were
starting to come in lessquality, lower quality or just
not growing at all.
So there's also those impacts.
Again, I can't say thathappened in North Carolina, I
don't know that well, but thatis something that had to be
(23:42):
taken into account at that timeas well.
Speaker 3 (23:45):
And the little bit again that I do know about
farming is that a lot of it'svery specific.
So it's not like, if I know howto grow, let's just say, corn
in Kentucky, I can't just takethat knowledge to someplace in
North Carolina and have theexact same success that I had in
the other place.
And I can't look at my farm andsay, well, I've grown tobacco
here for 10 years, I'm justgoing to plant corn and it's all
(24:07):
going to be okay.
So it's.
There's a complication to it.
It's not very simple.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
No, absolutely, and sometimes just the crop you grew
before can take away so manynutrients that would not allow
another crop to grow.
I know a little bit from likelittle gardens my dad had
growing up was nothing like whatyou're talking, a lot of acres
here of land.
But even then, like if you grewa certain like tomatoes in one
(24:32):
area and try to grow somethingelse the next year, the soil had
been stripped of nutrients soyou couldn't really grow and
that's kind of that problem withover farming anyway.
And we have suddenly become agardening podcast.
So let's get back to this.
So the physical infrastructureof the farm was, as I said, kind
of a modest farmhouse.
There was a barn that wouldhave been used for storing like
(24:54):
farming equipment and thenoutbuildings, a lot of which
would have been used for curingand processing tobacco, which
reflected again the Lawson'seconomic status that they could
not only afford just a farmhousebut these barns and the
outbuildings that were neededfor processing their tobacco.
Despite the broader financialinstability of the period, the
(25:15):
family's ability to maintain andinvest in farming resources
suggested a relative degreeagain of prosperity compared to
the less fortunate neighborsthey would have had around them.
So getting into the details ofthis homicide and this massacre.
First I was brought to thisagain I've talked about in other
(25:36):
episodes the more I've beenembedding myself in Eastern
Kentucky and culture.
I've gotten kind of intobluegrass and older folk music
and stuff and I had heard theloss and family murder song but
not realizing that this was atrue story.
And it's something that I'velearned being out there and
making friends with themusicians and stuff, that a lot
(25:56):
of these songs are very muchembedded in the truth.
So when I realized that thissong that's very graphic song
and very details a very short,brief overview of what happened
here, just how tragic this was,and the more I researched it the
more I was like I want to dojustice to these individuals,
especially coming up on 100years since this horrible event
(26:19):
happened To me.
It's just interesting how musiccan impact you like that.
Speaker 3 (26:29):
But then that second wind when you realize that the
song that's impacting you hasgot history behind it.
So the Lawson family murdersrepresent one of the most
shocking and tragic events toemerge from the Great Depression
era, and it captures theattention not just within Stokes
County but nationwide, Becauseit really was just an
unimaginable tragedy and theevents unfolded on December 25th
(27:07):
1929, which forever marksChristmas Day in the heart of
the Lawson family saga as justthe tragic day that it ended up
turning out to be.
This chapter provides achronological account of the
heart-wrenching events that tookplace and the impact on each
family member involved.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
So the Christmas morning Charlie Lawson gets his
family up.
They do their normal routineand then he makes the decision
and tells them that he wants totake them into town to buy new
clothes, which again they talkabout how this is a sign of
their economic prosperity.
But it also may be a sign ofexactly what he's got planned to
(27:42):
come, because he also takesthem to do something that is
extremely rare and expensive atthis time and that's take a
family portrait.
So he gets the family up, hasthem go buy new clothes, they
get their new clothes on, theyget a family portrait taken and
then they return home Followingthis outing.
(28:02):
After they return home, thefirst thing that Charlie does is
he has Arthur go back into townto do some more errands for
them, as the family's eldestdaughter, marie, remained at the
home to bake a cake incelebration of the festive day.
Carrie and Maybel go to visitan uncle and aunt nearby an
(28:23):
uncle and aunt nearby.
As they're returning back tothe property, charlie intercepts
Carrie and Maybel and they arethe first two victims of this
massacre.
He shoots them in the yard andthen he shoots them in the back
of the car.
The methodic nature of thismurder was kind of chilling.
As Charlie proceeded to thehouse, his wife Fanny comes out
(28:46):
to the front porch and he shootsher on the front porch.
The terror continues as he goesinside where he kills Marie,
followed by his youngest child,james, then Raymond and then
unfortunately kills his infantchild.
Each of these innocent liveswere exhausted in their most
(29:09):
tender stages of life, leaving ascar on the entire community.
But after these heinous acts,charlie disappears in the nearby
woods where the anticipation ofhis next move gripped his
neighbors and family friends.
So the massacre's happening andit has happened.
People hear it, people arecoming to the farm, but
(29:32):
Charlie's disappeared.
They don't know where he's at.
The last he was seen was goinginto the woods.
So during this time, localcommunity members, including
relatives and friends, they'releft in this stage of shock and
apprehension and I can onlyimagine, like the family of him,
the extended family, like he'smassacred his family, is he
going to come after us next?
(29:53):
What's going on?
Speaker 3 (29:55):
And many feared what he might do next and the
atmosphere around the area wasone of tension and dread around
the area was one of tension anddread, which, of course, makes
sense, because these are thepeople that he's supposed to be
taking care of and protectingabove all else.
And if he does that to them youknow, as a neighbor or anybody
(30:15):
else in the community why wouldhe not do the same thing to me?
If he's doing that to thepeople he's supposed to be
protecting, what's going to stophim's doing that to the people
he's supposed to?
Speaker 2 (30:25):
be protecting what's going to stop him from doing
that to anybody else?
And I think at this time periodyou know, sadly, today mass
shootings and mass violence arenot uncommon, but in this time
period this is rare Like this,and especially in such a
tight-knit community.
What has happened, especiallyin a strongly religious
community on Christmas?
Like is the devil taking overCharlie?
And especially when the firsttwo children are killed coming
(30:49):
back from an aunt and uncle likewhat are the fears of those
aunt and uncle?
Is he going to come after us?
I couldn't really find anythingthat talked about the distances
.
We're talking here Like you canfind the distance from, like
the town to the house, but itdoesn't really say in any of the
stuff I found how far the auntand uncle lived.
Like did they live near thesame property?
If they walked there you wouldthink it was somewhat close by.
(31:10):
So people are hearing this,they're responding, but they're
responding also with thisapprehension of how close do we
want to get?
Because we don't know where heis.
Law enforcement neighbors begana search, scouring the area for
Charlie.
The search culminates whengunshots were heard echoing from
the wooded area.
Upon advancing to the sourcesof the noise, searchers
(31:38):
discovered Charlie Lawson'slifeless body alongside a pair
of letters and notes.
I was not able to find any likedepth or detail, but everything
I read said that the notesoffered little in terms of
definitive explanations ormotives, instead contributing to
the ongoing speculation aboutwhat drove Charlie to commit
such horrendous acts.
(31:59):
So he's killed all his immediatefamily, except Arthur, but
doesn't really explain why, andthere's a lot of speculation.
Some of it is really grotesqueand very it doesn't deserve any
airtime from us because it can'tbe verified.
But one of the things that candefinitely be taken into account
(32:22):
is that there was a lot offinancial things that were going
on.
It was very common for men tosee themselves as the
breadwinners, and if he feltthat he wasn't able to perform
the duties of keeping his housetogether, keeping the farm, let
me take my family into town, getthem nice clothes, have a
(32:43):
picture to remember us by, andthen if I can't take care of my
family, god knows what's goingto happen to them.
It's better to deliver them toheaven than for them to somehow
end up destitute in God knowswhere and for me to be seen as a
failure to my family.
Speaker 3 (33:04):
Which, of course, then there wasn't a lot known
about mental illness either.
So it's not like you're goingto have any type of diagnosis or
evaluation that we can, youknow, use any of that as
information to figure out what'sgoing on with Charlie.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
Oh, absolutely.
And even back then, like menwere stoic, like men didn't talk
about their emotions there wasno, and women weren't really
seen as talking about the homelife outside of the house.
So everything was always keptvery inside and a guy's not
going to say I'm not feelingright, I'm depressed.
You see, and I mean we see iteven now that they more lash out
(33:42):
than they are willing to talkabout their feelings and we
don't know I didn't see recordsagain of it but what the
financial status of the farm andthemselves was.
We don't know if he was on theverge of destitution and this
was a last grip effort and thiswas a last grip effort.
I do think the timing's kind ofweird that it's Christmas
(34:04):
because there is, as we talkedabout in another episode, like
this is a time that you do seean increase in domestic violence
and issues like that, butespecially because the pressures
put on a family member, andespecially the men, to like
presents for your kids andthings like that, because they
don't really talk about that andany of this stuff is all like
the kid's presents or anything.
(34:25):
You just took them out to buyclothes, get this picture done,
and that picture is availableonline.
It is a 1929 picture.
It is kind of, in a way,disturbing to look at.
Speaker 3 (34:38):
And as far as like the Christmas gifts and things
like that, my grandparents wouldhave been the ages of the
children in this story and Iknow from their stories about
what things were like then youmight maybe at Christmas get an
orange and that would be theextent of your Christmas gift.
So if you're thinking aboutlike Christmas gifts like in a
(34:59):
modern sense it's not going tobe like the trees overflowing or
there's gifts laid out orpresents wrapped it literally
might just be an orange for eachchild and that might be
Christmas.
That might be it.
Speaker 2 (35:12):
A hoop and a stick pushing down a dirt road.
Yes, one of the greatest oldthings that I used to hear old
people say.
When I was your age, I used topush a hoop with a stick down a
dirt road and I always thoughtthat wasn't real.
And then I started seeing oldtime pictures where people were
moving a hoop with a stick downa dirt road.
Speaker 3 (35:30):
And I was like, well, son of a bitch, that's a real
thing.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
Absolutely so.
In this story, though,remarkably, arthur was spared
the fate that befell his familydue to this errand that his
father sent him on befell hisfamily due to this errand that
his father sent him on.
On the morning of the murders,charlie Lawson sent Arthur into
town on a task, a decision thatinadvertently saved his life,
but I don't know if it was likea lot of the things that you
(35:53):
read like.
Well, it inadvertently savedhis life, but I very much think
that Arthur was spared.
He was 16 at the time, whichwould have been considered an
adult.
He was the adult heir toeverything, so he would have
been seen as being able to takecare of himself.
So I don't know if this Charliedoesn't seem like the type of
guy that forgets he has a kidthat he sent to town before he
(36:15):
massacres the rest of his family.
They'd already been to town,bought clothes, gotten this
photo taken, so I don't thinkthis was an act of God saved me.
I think this was Charlie.
Let his son live.
Speaker 3 (36:31):
Yeah, if he had a plan at the point when he went
in and they bought the clothesand took the picture, if he
already had that plan going,then I would think sending his
son off to town would have beena decision, like you said,
either to choose for him to liveor possibly a strategic
decision.
Maybe he looked at his son andthought if anybody here can stop
me, it's him, so I'm going tosend him off to town.
(36:53):
So then that way, nobody herecan stop me.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
And I think if you can find the family photo again,
I'll try to put a link on ourwebpage in the blog.
But Charlie, everybody else,except one of the little kids
and Charlie, everybody else isvery stoic face, which is very
common for that time.
But Charlie has a smirk.
So something in his bodylanguage shows that he's at
(37:20):
peace and there's definitelysomething going on in his head.
It's not that stoic 1929 photo,it's very much.
I've made a plan, I'm at peace,everything's going the way I
see it going.
As the details of the familymurders unfolded, arthur's
survival kind of became acentral point of interest in
speculation.
(37:40):
The community, as you wouldexpect in rural North Carolina,
really rallied around him as hegrappled with the shock and
sorrow of losing his entireimmediate family.
Local businesses andindividuals provided financial
support to assist Arthur duringthe immediate aftermath, in
highlighting the community'sempathy and solidarity in the
(38:01):
face of unthinkable loss.
And one of the pictures that welooked at which to me was kind
of mind-boggling and you kind ofhad a different view on it, but
to me it was mind-boggling thatthey buried them all together-
and, when I look at it, that'swhat they did back then.
Speaker 3 (38:18):
They put everybody together.
You were a family, and that wasjust the way it was, through
and through.
Speaker 2 (38:25):
To me like and again, I guess this just goes off my,
I'm a bitter, bitter man, but ifyou annihilated my family, I'm
not burying you with the samepeople that you massacred.
And you look at the headstone,it's got him as the patriarch at
the top, and probably one ofthe most chilling photos that
(38:50):
you can find is just all thecaskets laid out and you can
read about something like this.
But it's not until you seesomething like that and this row
of seven caskets laid out thatit really hits close to home of
just the extent and the victimsthat were taken in this one, I
want to say selfish acts of malemachismo.
Speaker 3 (39:09):
And the sizing of it too.
It's not just that there'sseven.
Like you can see that there aredistinctly some that are small,
yeah, which is difficult.
Speaker 2 (39:19):
Yeah, it is very difficult, and when we talk
about mental health and anyfamily annihilation, I mean
there's some of the worst casesto read when I look at mass
murders.
But just the ability to kill achild is, to me, harm yourself.
You know an adult's, adult youhave a fighting chance, but a
(39:42):
two-year-old child, just that iswho I really want us to
remember more than anything.
And why this story to me was soimportant was to remember those
six, five children no, it wassix children that were murdered
at this man's hands because theydidn't have an option, they
didn't have a choice.
So the tragic sequence ofevents, witnessed in part by
(40:12):
Arthur, revealed a familydynamic overridden, with
potentially hidden turmoil,overshadowed by the economic
problems at the time and,emotionally, by the pressures of
the time period on,specifically, men to be
providers.
While investigators andhistorians have tried to piece
together the motivations behindCharlie's actions, the
inexplicable nature of themurders challenges understanding
(40:35):
and leaves many questionsunanswered.
This chapter in history kind oflays bare the progression of
the crime and things that werehappening at that time period,
while also trying to memorializethe hands and hearts that were
snatched away from us by such anevil act.
Speaker 3 (40:58):
Charlie's death by suicide also did not bring
closure to the community.
Rather, it intensified themisery and disbelief surrounding
the tragedy.
Theories emerged, ranging fromfinancial stress to familial
discord and mental healthstruggles, but no singular
explanation could encapsulatethe breadth of Charlie's actions
(41:18):
, and I don't think that that'ssomething that we can ever
really figure out for thisspecific case or any of the
cases that are like this.
I don't think it's somethingthat we can even wrap our minds
around.
Speaker 2 (41:30):
No, and I mean part of it is it's very rare.
These are usually murdersuicides, so it's usually rare.
You can't talk to theindividuals.
They're all gone.
A lot of this stuff, especiallythis time period, was kept, like
we said, in-house.
Nobody talked about things, soyou couldn't really go to
neighbors.
The shitty thing to me is thatusually after crimes like this,
(41:55):
you always have people that comeout oh, I think, or I heard, or
somebody said, andunfortunately you don't.
That's not helping anything.
It tarnishes the names ofpeople.
Or I heard, or somebody said,and unfortunately you don't.
That's not helping anything.
It tarnishes the names ofpeople Because, charlie, being a
murderer or not, you stilldon't want somebody to tarnish
the reputation, because you canbe two things at the same time.
(42:16):
You can be a good person and amass murderer it's possible.
But also the victims shouldn'tbe dragged through the mud as
examples of well, well, this badthing was happening or this bad
thing was happening.
That led to why he did this,and I think that's probably the
worst thing that you see,especially when you start
looking at cases, usually within10 minutes after them happening
now because of social media andeverything, but back then and
(42:39):
kind of the tabloids and news,because whatever was well,
whatever was most shocking iswhat got the front page and if I
was the person that said it, myname got in the paper and that
was a big deal.
So unfortunately, I thinksometimes horrific, very extreme
, random rumors Thank you,exactly I was about to say,
(43:02):
couldn't find the words thoughBecame kind of folklore in this
and I do respect that.
A lot of the stuff I've lookedat tried not to or did not delve
into those rumors andspeculations.
It really, in my mind,tarnished the victims more than
helped them.
Speaker 3 (43:18):
And I think part of that too is people again trying
to make sense out of nonsense.
Because you look at this andyou can take it from one extreme
to the other.
Right, you could say, well, herealized that his family was
going to have nothing, they weregoing to be impoverished if
they had no food.
There weren't the social safetynets that we have today.
If they didn't have food, maybehis family would starve to
(43:40):
death.
You know who knows where theywould end up if he couldn't take
.
You know he had an olderdaughter like.
Who knows what would end uphappening to her if he, you know
, if he couldn't provide for her.
So maybe if you're looking onlike the I don't know if you
want to call it like thepositive spin of him, maybe you
could try to say he was tryingto protect them from those fates
(44:03):
that were worse than death inhis mind, and maybe he was
trying to protect them fromthose things.
It's hard to say because Ican't make my mind to think that
way, and maybe it's just.
You know, I've seen so many badthings that I can't look at
somebody like Charlie and try tosee a good part of him.
(44:26):
But you know, maybe it wassomething like that, some type
of misguided protective instinct, but it's hard to say.
I think more likely in my mindit'd be more like a mental
illness control type thing.
He's losing control.
He's losing financially.
(44:47):
The whole country's fallingapart.
The future is uncertain.
I don't know what's going tohappen.
But if I do this, I know what'shappening and I'm taking
control of the situation.
Speaker 2 (44:58):
Yeah, and I think that that's a big thing is, when
we say control, we're not justtalking about like him
controlling his family, it's himhaving control over life and
taking a little bit back, notnot again as bad terminology,
not in the normal like murder orhaving control of life, but
having control of destiny andfate.
Like at this time you'rewatching everything around you
(45:20):
collapse, your family'sdependent on you, you have to
try and feed an infant, smallchildren, your wife, and I think
, like you said, there's a bigpart of me that, being a former
police officer and having dealtwith and studied all these
horrible crimes and seenhorrible things, that again is
(45:42):
like 700 episodes in themselvesof just that type of trauma.
But then also coming from thesocial work side and being able
to say, like I said, that youcan be two things at once, like
you can be a good father andhave the best intentions, but
they are horribly misplaced andyou massacre innocent people in
your mind, which I think againgoes back to mental health.
(46:04):
You think is the only optionyou have and I think here later
I kind of will mention how thatcan be addressed.
But in the years following thistragedy, arthur himself, the
sole survivor of this sadmassacre.
His life was significantlymarked by the events of that
(46:25):
Christmas day and he facedchallenges, rebuilding his life
amidst the lingering publicattention and his own personal
grievances.
While Arthur rarely spokepublicly about the murders, he
did continue to reside in thecommunity, tackling the
intricate process of coping withunforeseen circumstances
tackling the intricate processof coping with unforeseen
circumstances.
But sadly, his life just endedup being marred by tragedy.
(46:48):
In 1945, arthur Lawson waskilled in a motor accident and
he left behind a wife and fourchildren.
So 19 years after his familywas, 16 years after his family
was killed, he sadly lost hisown life.
Speaker 3 (47:08):
The local reaction was characterized by a mix of
shock and sorrow and confusion.
Understandably, the sudden lossof the Lawson family, coupled
with the brutal manner in whichthe events transpired, left
neighbors and relativesdevastated, which of course it
would.
Members were often seengathering at local churches and
(47:30):
homes, seeking solace andcomfort in shared mornings, and
vigils and memorials were held,attended by large crowds who
came together in an effort tosupport each other and honor the
memory of the victims.
Speaker 2 (47:48):
The emotional impact on local residents also was
profound, as many struggle withfeelings of fear and
vulnerability heightened by thistragedy, which is
understandable.
That's a major shock.
These were close-knitcommunities, not like now where
I may see my neighbor but Idon't know many things about him
.
A lot of these small-knitcommunities were related somehow
(48:09):
, or related within threedegrees of separation.
So it's very understanding thatthey would have fear themselves
, especially because the impactsin some of the things they
thought may have influenced himwere happening to other families
in the community.
So the understanding that suchviolence could erupt within a
familiar and presumably safeenvironment was deeply
(48:31):
unsettling and this led toheightened anxiety and
protective instincts amongfamilies in the area.
And the media coverage also atthe time didn't help.
But one thing that did come outof that is that the family was
memorialized in different waysthrough culture and music.
(48:51):
So one of the most poignantrepresentations of loss and
family tragedy has been found inmusic.
There are over 10 songs alonethat have been written about the
horrific events and these songskind of capture the sorrowful
and haunting details of themurder and emerge as part of
kind of Americans' full-scoremusic tradition and especially
(49:14):
kind of sadly titled like themurder ballads of American folk
music, notably the song themurder of the Lawson family, was
a ballad performed by theCarolina Buddies and it became
emblematic reflective of theera's response to the
sensational nature of this crimeand then the plight of kind of
(49:34):
rural Americans at the time.
The song's lyrics recount theevents with stark clarity,
serving as both a memorial and acommentary on the societal
tensions of the time.
The musical rendition provideda platform for storytelling and
embedded the loss and tragedy inthe collective memories through
oral tradition.
Me personally, there's aversion available on streaming
(49:58):
services.
I played it kind of for all ofus before we started, called the
Murder of the Lawson Family,and it's by Dave Alvin and I
listen to it kind of often.
It's kind of a reminder of whyI do the research I do, because
the biggest thing to me and whyI got in this again is just
victims.
And how do we keep the memoryof victims alive and also learn
(50:21):
from these tragedies to try anddecrease the ability and more
victims coming in the future?
Speaker 3 (50:29):
And I think that's hopefully what we learned from
all of these tragic events, andI think sometimes that's why
people study these and we talkabout media attention and how
almost a fascination with thesetypes of cases.
I think part of it goes back totrying to figure out why did
this happen and what can we doso that it doesn't happen again.
Speaker 2 (50:53):
Absolutely.
And again, it's hard and inthis case it's one of those like
, he didn't leave a lot ofinformation.
It's almost now 100 years ago,so going back and trying to get
the details that we would wantnow as researchers, it's really
hard.
We can't even find census data,we're not probably going to
find the exact letters and we'renot going to find actual
witness accounts that reallygive us the information we want.
Speaker 3 (51:20):
Again, you got those rumors out there, but we can't
get cold hard facts.
And even if that stuff wasavailable, as far as like if we
could see everything that theyhad and in an evidentiary
standpoint now that they hadbeen, that still doesn't mean
we'd know yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (51:35):
Again, you know this better than I do as a former
prosecutor.
There's their side, there's aoffender side, the victim side
and then the truth, and we wouldnever be able to get that in
between.
But in the the Lawson familymurders in the historical
context underscore the complexintertwining of personal tragedy
(51:57):
with broader societal forceswhich were characteristic of the
Great Depression era and, Ithink, other eras that have
happened in the United States,especially political and
financial turmoil.
The examination has providedinsight into how devastating
economic pressures and societaldynamics during one of America's
most challenging times canmanifest in profound personal
(52:18):
loss and turmoil, era hardshipsand reflective both the
universal struggles of ruralcommunities and the individual
human experience that historyoften overshadows Like.
Again, this was something I'vestudied mass murder, family
(52:43):
annihilation, serial crimes fora long time.
I had to learn about thisthrough a song, it's just not
one that I'm sure more peopleknow about it.
But also I'm not from NorthCarolina, so.
But the comprehensive look atLawson's family, their farm and
the ensuing tragedy highlightsagain these economic, social and
cultural factors thatcontribute to and were affected
(53:05):
by the events of December 25,1929, from the implication of
patriarch Charlie Lawson'sactions to the community
responses and the portrayal ofthe murders in popular culture.
The analysis demonstrates themulti-faceted impacts of such
tragedies and can be a reminderof why mental health, community
(53:26):
support and adequate resourcesare needed.
Do you have anything you wouldlike to add to this?
Speaker 3 (53:36):
Nothing that I can think of that's particularly
helpful.
It's just one of those supersad, super tragic, horrible
things that happened that youwant to look for it and you want
to try to say what can we learnfrom this or what's the silver
lining.
But I struggle to see anythingfrom that.
I really don't see one of thoselearning experiences because,
(53:58):
like you said, from the outsidenone of the neighbors knew what
was going on.
None of the other familymembers knew what was going on
and, like you said, that stuffwas all contained in the home in
that time period.
But also, like you said,everybody knew everybody else.
There were people who knew thisfamily for their entire lives,
people who had grown up withthem and probably felt like they
(54:19):
knew Charlie as well as theyknew themselves or anybody else.
And so it's kind of scary whenyou think about you know that
he's just in their community andnobody knew that something was
wrong.
Speaker 2 (54:34):
Yeah, I think that's the biggest part and kind of a
wake up call to all of us.
Maybe the more technology hasgotten to us and the farther we
spread out from our roots andeverything else, the easier it
is for these type of developingsituations to go unnoticed and
(54:56):
for us to kind of lose thoseconnections.
And when people lose humanconnections they lose access to
support, to connectivity withtheir community, and it becomes
easier to see yourself not onlydisconnected but that when a
hard time does come, that youdon't have any real options.
So I think let this, ifanything, a silver lining is
(55:22):
take this as a warning of whentimes are getting tough and
there are problems to look outfor each other and look out for
your neighbors.
And you know, maybe thisChristmas, you know, remember
Marie Fanny, baby Mary Lou,carrie, raymond, mary Bell and
James, and even Arthur though hesurvived, I'm sure he was never
(55:46):
whole again.
For sure.
So thank you for listening tothis episode.
Please keep the Lawson family'smemory and names alive and have
a Merry.
Christmas.
I want to thank you all so muchfor listening to our little
podcast.
This is created with love andpassion for criminal justice and
(56:07):
true crime.
So if you're enjoying thepodcast, please follow us, like
or rate us on whatever systemyou're listening to us on,
subscribe to our podcast anddownload episodes.
Downloads are important for ourgrowth, as is growing our
listeners.
So if you wouldn't mind, takethe time to ask your friends,
(56:28):
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social media I don't care if youeven scream at strangers on the
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If you're interested in learningmore, you could visit our
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There you'll find some stuffabout our backgrounds,
(56:49):
references, show notes for eachepisode.
You can also follow us on ourFacebook page at Deviant
Criminology.
We also have an Instagram page,which is Deviant underscore
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as we grow, we hope to developa community that will grow with
(57:09):
us.
So again, thank you for takingthe time to listen and have a
good week.
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