July 22, 2025 • 33 mins
Season 22 : Family Annihilators Part 2
Charles Lawson told his family he had a surprised planned for the Christmas of 1929. What he would end up doing would not only be a surprise for his family, but for the entire community.
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Charles Lawson told his family he had a surprised planned for the Christmas of 1929. What he would end up doing would not only be a surprise for his family, but for the entire community.
Our Regular Merch Hosted by FourthWall! : https://thisismonsters.com/
GTFOH Doormats : https://this-is-monsters.printify.me/
Socials:
LinkTree : https://linktr.ee/thisismonsters
Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/thisis_monsters/
Threads : https://www.threads.net/@thisis_monsters
My other shows:
This is Monsters YouTube : https://www.youtube.com/@thisisMONSTERS
Vlog : https://www.youtube.com/@jileswithaj
Somewhere Sinister Podcast :
Somewhere Sinister YouTube : https://www.youtube.com/@SomewhereSinister
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Christmas is supposed to be a time of celebration, a
happy time where families come together and enjoy each other's company.
Though money was usually tied as pre Depression era tobacco farmers,
the loss and family still had happy Christmases, making do
with whatever they could. It was just before Christmas of
nineteen twenty nine that the family patriarch, Charles Lawson, announced
(00:23):
that he had a surprise for the family that year,
and a surprise it was something that came as a
shock to his family and everyone else. They knew this
is monsters. Charles Lawson was born on May tenth, eighteen
(01:03):
eighty six, in North Carolina. His family were rural tobacco farmers,
and Charles continued that tradition as he became an adult.
Charles met Fanny Mannering in the fall of nineteen ten,
and they got married on March twelfth, nineteen eleven. Soon
Fanny was pregnant with the first of eight children she
and Charlie would have together. The following year, Charles's younger brother, Maryanne,
(01:28):
would marry Jetty Ashby, and the couple would be a
consistent part of the other laws in family's lives. The
two families lives would run fairly parallel over the years,
as they both had a number of children and worked
on tobacco farms. Marion and Jetty had moved to Germanton,
North Carolina after they married to work a farm there.
(01:48):
The land was good and level and made for better
farming than where they were from. Charles made an agreement
to purchase a forty acre or sixteen hectared tract of
farmland for fifteen hundred about thirty two hundred dollars today.
They loaded up a covered wagon and made the journey
from Lawsonville to german Ten in the fall of nineteen eighteen.
(02:10):
By then they had four children. Arthur was born in
nineteen twelve, Marie in nineteen thirteen, William in nineteen fourteen,
and Carrie was the baby, having been born just over
a year before the move. A neighbor from their new
farm traveled the twenty miles or thirty two kilometers north
to Lawsonville with his wagon to help the family move
(02:33):
the children in. Some lighter housewares were in Charles's wagon
and the heavier items like furniture were in the other wagon.
They left early one morning, stopped to sleep during the
trip and then made it to the property the following day.
Once there, they didn't have a house on the land
they purchased, so they moved into a rented house on
a neighboring property. With the end of the year approaching,
(02:56):
the Lawsons got settled into their home and made preparations
to make it through the winter. In January of nineteen nineteen,
Charles came down with an unknown illness that left him
in pain with symptoms that resembled arthritis. While he was
bedridd and his father, Gus, came down with a cold
that developed into pneumonia. Charles got the news that his
(03:17):
father had died on February twenty second, but he was
too sick to make the trip back to Lawsonville to
attend the funeral. That was a huge loss for Charles,
but the biggest concern was if you would be able
to recover enough to start working the farm when spring arrived. Unfortunately,
it seemed that he struggled that year and was unable
to make the agreed upon payment for the land he
(03:39):
at purchased. The property reverted back to its original owner,
and Charles began working as a sharecropper on the property.
There rented cabin was on. There was a span of
six years after Carrie was born that the Lawsons didn't
have another child. They still had four children on November tenth,
nineteen twenty, when they celebrated Willilliam's sixth birthday. The boy
(04:03):
came down with a bad cold on his birthday, and
it progressively got worse over the days that followed. Over
the weekend of November thirteenth and fourteenth, William developed a
fever and was only getting worse. On Monday morning, Charles
traveled six miles or nine and a half kilometers to
the nearby town of Walnut Cove and found the local doctor.
(04:25):
He was late in the day by the time they
made it to the Lawson's cabin, and William was even worse.
The doctor determined that he had come down with pneumonia
and gave him a high dose of vitamin A, which
was considered the latest and greatest treatment for pneumonia at
the time. I could only find opposing opinions on the
effectiveness as it's considered today. With that diagnosis and treatment plan,
(04:48):
the doctor told the parents that it didn't look good.
They continued with the treatment throughout the following day, but
on the sixteenth William succumbed to his illness. The family
was able to mourn Willlliam's death over the winter and
were back out in the fields come spring to continue
farming tobacco. In nineteen twenty two, the family moved to
(05:09):
another farm in Germanton. Like before, they rented a house
and farmed a portion of land for a share of
the crop. That house was even closer to Charles's brother
Marian and his family. Fannie and the children were able
to walk to their house and visit with their relatives.
They had their fifth child, Mabel, that spring, but in
(05:29):
those days, child morality was much higher than it is now.
In November, one of Charles's nieces burned to death after
having something from the fireplace fall on to her. Then
Marion's youngest child, ten month old Chester, got sick and
suddenly stopped breathing. He died in late nineteen twenty two
or early nineteen twenty three. Throughout the twenties, the Lawson
(05:54):
brothers would move farms and continue adding to their families.
Marian and Hattie had a son named Eugene. In nineteen
twenty four. Charles and Fanny had a son named James
in nineteen twenty five, and then another one named Raymond
in nineteen twenty seven. In April of that year, Charlie
purchased a farm on brook Cove Road for thirty two
(06:15):
hundred dollars. He was able to get a bank loan
for that amount, with annual payments of five hundred dollars
until the loan was paid off. The land was good
and there was already out buildings in great shape, but
the house itself was not ready to be lived in.
After the purchase was complete, Charles and Fanny got to
work updating the log cabin and making it at least
(06:37):
comfortable for the time being. Once they removed, Charles planned
on building them a new house on the property, and
they would all just have to make do until then.
During the summer, the tobacco crop was growing and Charles
was continuing to make improvements to the farm. An important
aspect of the farm was a storehouse for the tobacco
(06:57):
after it was harvested, to be the correct humidity to
allow the tobacco to dry just the right amount well.
The storehouse had not been used in some time before
he bought the property, so the drainage ditch inside had
become clogged with weeds. Charles was using a pickaxe to
break up the dirt and the ditch when the tool
(07:18):
got caught up on a wire. When it was released,
the pickaxe flew back and hit Charles in the forehead.
Charles had not lost consciousness, which is a good sign
for a head injury. Still, he went into town and
saw the local doctor just in case. The doctor said
it looked worse than it was. There was a bleeding
wound on his scalp and one side of his face
(07:40):
turned black and blue, but he seemed to have escaped
any serious injury and was able to continue working the farm.
The first year of owning his own farm, Charles was
able to bring a very respectable crop to market in
Winston Salem, where he made a comfortable profit. The Lasson
spent years successfully working the farm, but tragedy continued to strike.
(08:01):
In April of nineteen twenty eight, Jetty laws and went
into early labor with her last child. The local doctor
rushed to the house, but it was unfortunately a deadly
time for women and infants. The doctor determined that the
baby wasn't in the correct position to be born, so
he reached inside of Jetty and manually turned the baby.
(08:22):
Marian would later say that he thought the doctor had
been drinking and that he never saw him wash his
hands before he turned the baby. Eventually, the baby, Hailey,
was born about a month premature. Unsurprisingly, Jetty got an
infection and her condition deteriorated. When she came down with
a fever, the doctor suggested they sweat the sickness out
(08:45):
of her. They surrounded her with hot corn cobs and
covered her with blankets. Of course, we know now that
that method is not helpful to someone with a fever,
and this case was no different. Jetty continued to get worse,
and on May first, she finally succumbed to her illness.
Baby Haley was taken in by Charles and Marian's sister
(09:05):
in law, who had just lost twins of her own.
It wasn't long before Haley returned to her father and siblings,
but after arriving home, she fell ill and died a
few days later. Marian and his family did the best
they could, with Stella stepping in to help raise the children.
She was only thirteen years old, but as the oldest girl,
(09:26):
she was expected to pick up the maternal slack. Ever
since Charles had been struck in the head with the
pick axe, he was suffering from headaches. He was known
to have a short temper, and the headaches only made
it worse. On top of that, people who knew Charles
said he started acting strange. He always seemed troubled, and
he would stare off into the distance. Once he was
(09:48):
in the middle of a conversation with his brother Marian,
when he just turned and walked away. Fanny told others
that Charles wasn't sleeping. Once she found him sitting in
the cornfield in the cold, praying, holding his shotgun, she
convinced him to go back into the house. In August
of nineteen twenty nine, Fanny gave birth to their last child,
(10:11):
Mary Lowe. In the months that followed, Charles's behavior became
even more erratic. Fanny would find him up in the
middle of the night cleaning his guns. He was said
that Arthur would sleep in his clothes in case he
needed to get up at night due to a problem,
but I couldn't find any examples of what those problems
might have been. Fanny had said that Charles would sit
(10:32):
in his favorite chair near the fire with his guns
on the wall nearby. He would suddenly jump up, grab
a rifle in sight down the barrel out the front window.
He was repeatedly checking on the guns and his ability
to react with them. He would clean them over and
over again, obsessing over if anyone else had used them.
But nobody knew why Arthur had his own guns, and
(10:55):
everybody knew not to touch their father's guns. As Chris
nineteen twenty nine approached, Fanny asked Charles about gifts for
the children. They hadn't always been able to afford to
get the kid's presence, but their farm was doing well,
so Fanny asked her husband if they would be able
to afford it that year. He responded that he had
(11:15):
a surprise for the family and he was taking care
of it. About a week and a half before Christmas,
he announced that he was taking everyone into the city
to each get a new set of clothes, and then
they were going to get a family portrait. That was
a big undertaking in nineteen twenty nine. Getting nine people
thirteen miles or twenty kilometers away to Winston Salem all
(11:37):
at the same time wasn't easy. Charles, Fanny holding the
baby James, and Raymond squeezed into the cab, while the
other three children would have to ride in the back
of Charles's truck for forty five minutes in December, so
the trip was a big deal to say the least.
When they arrived, they stopped into a clothing store and
each picked out a brand new outfit. Fanny was concerned
(12:00):
about how much it would cost, but Charles told her
it was no problem. He said he had the money
for it. The family bagged up the clothes they had
worn into the store and headed to a photography studio
to have a family portrait taken. They all changed back
into their old clothes for the long journey back to
the farm, where they completed their chores and ate dinner.
(12:21):
Fanny had no idea that Charles had been planning the trip,
so she thought it must have been the surprise he
had been talking about. It was a surprise, but it
turned out that Charles had something even more shocking in store.
The winter of nineteen twenty nine was a cold one.
There was heavy snowfall in the days leading up to Christmas.
(12:42):
Despite there being no crops, there was still a lot
of chores on the farm. Charles maintained the farm so
it would be ready for spring, and made sure he
had supplies to keep the family warm through winter. He
and Arthur also regularly hunted rabbits to keep the family
in fresh meat for their meals. Christmas morning was no different.
(13:03):
Charles got up and did the morning chores. Everyone said
he seemed pretty normal, which by then might have actually
been unusual. Arthur and some friends went out hunting rabbits
and then had a shooting contest. They would throw an
old can into the air and see who could put
the most holes in it before it hit the ground.
Marie was baking a cake to have with Christmas dinner
(13:26):
when Arthur and his friend started running low on ammunition.
Arthur went into the house and asked his father if
he could borrow some. Charles said he was also running
low and everyone wanted to do some hunting later that day,
so he suggested the teenagers walk into Germanton to pick
up some more. Arthur and his buddies headed out of
the house and treked down the railroad tracks through the
(13:48):
snow and into town. It seemed that Charles was not
only suffering ill effects from his head injury, but he
was losing control of his family. For a strict man
with a short temper, it was likely not making his
outlook on life positive. When he came into the house
after doing his morning chores, he saw Marie standing in
front of her mirror getting fixed up with hair curlers
(14:10):
and makeup. When he asked her what she was doing,
she told him she was going to the church Christmas
party and that a boy she liked was going to
be there. Well, apparently Charles wasn't a fan of that boy,
and he told Marie that she couldn't go. Marie, who
was seventeen years old at the time, told her father
that she was going and that he couldn't stop her.
(14:32):
That seemed to be the final straw for Charles. In
spring of that year, Arthur had also stood up to
him while working in the fields. Charles believed that Arthur
wasn't doing a good job with the cultivator and was
giving him a piece of his mind. When Arthur stood
up for himself, which was seen as talking back to Charles,
the father grabbed a young sapling and threatened his son
(14:55):
with a whipping. Arthur, at nineteen years old, was having
none of it. When Charles swung the switch Arthur grabbed
it and broke it over his knee. Arthur told his
father that he wasn't going to whip him, and that
he would never be man enough to whip him ever again.
That was a strong blow to a proud traditional man
in the early twentieth century. It was the first sign
(15:18):
that he was losing control of his family, and then
Marie's defiance just compounded it. Charles picked up his rifle
and shotgun and walked out of the house. He went
into the tobacco barn and grabbed another shotgun he had
hidden there sometime prior. He hid behind the barn and
waited for two of his daughters to leave the house.
(15:39):
They had been getting ready to walk to their uncle's
house nearby, and Charles decided they would be the first
victims in his plan to annihilate his family. As Carrie
and Mabel approached the barn, Charles stepped out and pointed
his rifle at them. A neighbor later said she thought
she heard a girl yell quote, Papa, don't shoot us
(15:59):
before a in the air. He fired around to carry first,
and she must have realized what was going on at
the last minute, because she raised her hand in front
of her face. The bullet went through her hand and
into her head, killing the twelve year old. Mabel turned
and ran, and Charles tried to fire around at her,
but the rifle jammed. He immediately switched to a shotgun
(16:22):
and hit her in the left side of her back.
The shot destroyed one long, killing the seven year old.
Other people in the area heard the shots, but of course,
at the time, it wasn't unusual to hear gunshots in
the area. People in the area were regularly hunting for
small games, so there was no reason to think anything
bad was happening. Charles was taking no chances at leaving
(16:46):
any of his victims alive. He picked up a large
stick that was propped up beside the barn and beat
both girls on the head repeatedly until he was certain
they couldn't survive. Then he dragged each of their bodies
into the tobacco farm, placed a rock under their heads,
and folded their arms across their chests. As he was
coming out of the barn, Fanny had stepped out onto
(17:07):
the porch to grab some more wood for the stove.
With an armload of wood, she noticed that Charles was
raising a shotgun to aim right at her, so she
turned to run back into the house, but it was
too late. A shotgun blast entered her body and destroyed
half of her heart, leaving a gaping hole in her
That shot was much closer to the house, and it
(17:28):
startled Marie enough that she ran to look out the
front window. From that vantage point, she couldn't see what
was going on outside, so she opened the front door
to see her father dragging her mother's body across the
front porch. Chunks of firewood scattered around her. She screamed.
As reported by neighbors, some boys who were playing catch
(17:50):
nearby ran to the house to investigate the commotion. They
entered the back door of the house and saw Charles
drag Fanny's body completely into the house to the front door,
closed the door behind him. Marie was still screaming about
the murder of her mother by her father. Marie finally
stood and went for the fireplace poker while Charles was
(18:10):
reloading the shotgun, but she wouldn't make it in time.
She was shot at close range in the back, and
the force pushed her forward so hard that her face
hit the fireplace mantle and snapped her neck as it
whipped her head back. Charles looked right at the boy
in the back door and he ran off. Then the
father took the butt of his shotgun and beat Marie's
(18:31):
head until he was sure she was dead. By then,
four year old James and two year old Raymond had
witnessed the ongoing slaughter and had found hiding places. Charles
found Raymond hiding behind the stove, and he tried to
use the shotgun as leverage to move the heavy stove,
but it only bent the weapon sparrel. When he was
(18:51):
able to pull the toddler out from behind the stove,
he didn't shoot him. He used the butt of the
shotgun stock to beat him to death. He found James
hiding under a bed and murdered him the same way
he had dispatched Raymond. The last victim was baby Mary Low.
She only got to live for about four months before
her father murdered her in cold blood. Charles walked around
(19:15):
the blood spattered house and put pillows under his victim's
heads and crossed their arms across their chests. He left
the damaged double barrel shotgun and replaced it with a
single barrel. He also picked up the rifle that had
jammed while Charles was still inside. His brother Elijah, the uncle, Carrie,
and Mabel were going to visit, arrived at his house.
(19:39):
Elijah and his son had been out rabbit hunting, and
they decided to stop by to say hi. He had
no idea that his two nieces had already left for
his house but had never made it. They tried to
open the front door, but something was in the way.
They didn't know it was Fanny's dead body. Elijah looked
in through a window and saw blood and bodies. They
(20:02):
tried to open the front door again, but then they
heard movement upstairs, so they ran off to get help.
As far as they knew, someone had killed the family
and they were still in the house. As they ran off,
Elijah's sun Claude, gazed back at the house and saw
the figure of a man standing in the upstairs window.
To be fair, they would have confronted the man themselves,
(20:23):
but they had run out of ammunition while hunting, so
they had no good way of defending themselves against an
armed intruder. They ran towards a neighboring farm and began
shouting for help. When they got no response, they ended
up running back to their own house so Elijah could
restock his AMMO and return to the scene. While that
was going on, a local man named Stephen Hampton received
(20:45):
word that there had been an incident at Charles Lawson's house.
They were one of the few families in the area
with a telephone, and back then it was still set
up as a party line. The same line was used
by multiple people in the area. When Stephen's daughter picked
up the phone to use it that day, someone was
already on the line reporting that someone was injured at
(21:07):
the loss and home. When Stephen heard that, he grabbed
his rifle and sat out towards the scene. When he
got to the property, he saw two pools of blood
in the snow near the tobacco barn and blood trails
that led into the barn. Before he opened the door,
Sheriff's deputy Robert Walker arrived on the scene with a
few other people. They opened the door to the barn,
(21:28):
where they found the bodies of Carriyon Mabel. By the
time people arrived at the house, armed and ready to investigate,
Charles had fled. He ran into a wooded area behind
the tobacco barn. He walked through the woods his two
hunting dogs at his side until he reached a creek.
His path would later be tracked to the creek, where
(21:49):
it's believed he washed the blood from his hands. He
finally made it to another patch of woods, where he
sat down next to a tree. It's believed he spent
time trying to unjam his rifle, but his hands were
likely too cold to be able to navigate the parts.
He found a small stick that he could use to
push the trigger of the shotgun. As he held it
(22:09):
between his feet and aimed it at his heart. He
tested that it would work, but he wasn't able to
bring himself to pull the trigger. He pulled a pencil
out of his coat pocket and started writing a note
on the back of a tobacco market receipt. It read
quote troubles can cause, But it seemed he changed his mind.
He put that paperback in his pocket, pulled out another
(22:32):
receipt and wrote quote no one to blame. But again
he didn't finish the note and put both the paper
and pencil back in his pocket. It's unknown what Charles
did next. While sitting against that tree, A number of
burnt out matchticks showed that he might have lit them
to try and warm his hands and face. It's believed
(22:53):
that he sat there for hours before finally shooting himself.
While people were at the scene investigating recovering bodies, a
few heard a single gun shot from the woods, and
then Charles's dogs came running onto the property towards them.
He was believed that that was the end of Charles's life.
When people on the scene learned that Arthur and some
(23:14):
friends had walked to town, one of them sent their
son to find them. Arthur ran back on the property
and pushed his way towards the front door of the house.
He wouldn't open much, but he could see his mother's
feed on the floor, and he collapsed in tears. His uncle, Elijah,
had to break the news that his entire family was
dead and that his father had killed them. Marian and
(23:37):
Stella arrived on the scene and they learned the horrible news.
They did their best to comfort Arthur, but there wasn't
much comfort to be found. The sheriff arrived on the
scene and he and the deputy entered the house through
the back door. They surveyed the carnage, but it struck
them that Charles might still be upstairs. Not brave enough
to go check, they left the house. When the corner arrived,
(24:01):
they told him they couldn't go upstairs because if Charles
was there, he could easily blow their heads off, which
was true, but it was kind of their job. Still.
The doctor ended up volunteering to go check. He said
he'd had a good life and he didn't think Charles
would shoot him anyway. In the end, Charles wasn't there,
as he had already fled into the woods. As the
(24:23):
corner examined the bodies in the house, others were securing
the scene outside. As they were keeping watch while the
bodies were being recovered from the barn. Stephen Hampton and
a few other men heard the gunshot in the woods
and saw the dogs. Once the dogs made it to them,
they almost immediately started back towards the woods, as if
(24:44):
they wanted the men to follow, which they did. They
had a pretty good idea of what they were going
to find. When they got to the spot. The dogs
laid faithfully at each side of Charles's body. He was
laying on his back with a large wound in his chest.
He was so fresh that the warm blood was creating
steam as it met the frigid air. Charles Lawson was dead,
(25:07):
and there was no doubt in anybody's mind that he
was the one who had murdered his family. The witness,
along with the evidence, would prove that to be true.
The only thing that people had to wonder about was why.
There were a number of factors that could have led
to Charles's decision to murder his family. Of course, the
(25:28):
head injury was what most people believed was the cause.
During Charles's autopsy, at doctor from John Hopkins University removed
Charles's brain and took it back to the university to
study it. They found no sign of damage to the
area where Charles had suffered his head injury, but they
did find a spot in the center of his brain
(25:48):
that was less developed than the surrounding tissue. Of course,
the brain is an important factor in anyone's actions, and
though the doctor at John Hopkins believed the underdeveloped spot
in Charles's bad brain could have contributed to the murder,
it's impossible to know for sure. Also, mental illness is
likely a factor, but it wouldn't have been an avenue
(26:09):
the doctors would have taken. Mental illness wasn't something that
was considered unless there were major signs. At that point,
there weren't many effective treatments, and most people suffering with
mental illness were institutionalized indefinitely. Obviously, the time Fanny found
Charles outside in the middle of the night praying and
(26:29):
clutching his shotgun were signs that something was wrong, But
that wasn't the only example. One of the lawson's friends
died in December of nineteen twenty nine, and they attended
her wake on the eighteenth. As a group of people
were huddled together in the cold talking about life and death,
Charles was overheard saying, quote, I wouldn't mind dying, but
(26:50):
I would want to take my family with me. It
was a scary prediction that would soon become a reality,
but nobody at the time had any reason to believe
Charles was going to slow her his whole family. The
most controversial reason that's come up as a reason Charles
murdered his family was to cover up the incestuous relationship
he was having with his daughter Marie. There were rumors
(27:12):
swirling that Marie was pregnant at the time of her
death and that it was Charles who was the father.
It was eventually uncovered that those rumors were true based
on statements made by Marie's close friend LM. A. Johnson.
About two weeks before Christmas of nineteen twenty nine, Marie
was sleeping over at el May's house when her friend
(27:33):
noticed that she was being unusually quiet. When Elma asked
her what was wrong, Marie hesitated before finally admitting that
she was pregnant. When Lma pressed about who the father was,
Marie said that it was her papa's baby. It's believed
that Marie was able to confide in Lma because she
had shared a similar secret the previous year. Lay had
(27:55):
been sexually assaulted by her own father, and was able
to talk to Marie about it felt like she would
understand her problem. Marie went on to tell her that
her mother had noticed that she had missed her period
for a few months, and she finally told Fanny that
it was papa's baby. Then she said that Charles also knew,
but didn't know that Fanny knew. He said that if
(28:16):
she told anyone, especially her mama, there would be some
killing done. During the last few weeks of the lawsons lives,
it's unclear what was known by the other family members.
Did Fanny confront Charles, which pushed him to murder his
family to keep the secret. It's unknown, but it certainly
could have been a factor, especially after Charles found his
(28:37):
daughter getting fixed up to see a boy. What would
happen when he learned she was pregnant. The walls were
closing in on Charles, and along with undiagnosed mental illness
and a possible brain abnormality, it could have been the
perfect storm that set Charles on a path to family annihilation.
But why had he spared Arthur? Nobody knows. Maybe he
(28:59):
wanted someone left to carry on the family name, since
it seemed like he had been planning the murders ahead
of time. Maybe he thought Arthur and his friends would
be able to stop him, so he found a reason
to send them away. It's also possible that despite having
something of a plan, he just became enraged by Marie
and set off on his killing spree without caring that
(29:20):
Arthur wasn't there. Arthur had trouble escaping the stigma of
his father's actions. He proposed to the girl he had
been dating at the time of the murders, but her
father was afraid he had inherited Charles's madness and forbade
them from seeing each other. He eventually met and married
a woman named Nina Baby, and they had four children together, Nancy, Patsy, Mabel,
(29:44):
and James. It was a home full of tension due
to the trauma that Arthur had experienced, but it was
said he loved his children, with some speculating that he
saw his younger siblings in them. Unfortunately, though Arthur survived
the mass murder of his family, it wouldn't be long
for this world. On May fifth, nineteen forty five, Arthur
(30:05):
and a friend, Blaine Nelson, left a local tavern at
ten thirty pm. They had been drinking, though Blaine later
said that Arthur didn't seem like he had consumed enough
alcohol to be drunk. That observation would be proven wrong
when Arthur missed a warning that the road was incomplete
and crashed through a barricade. The truck flipped onto its side,
(30:26):
which threw Arthur out of the cab. Then it rolled
over coming to a stop right on top of the
young man. Blaine was thrown from the cab as well,
but landed clear of the truck. He suffered a laceration
to his head and internal injuries. He said that a
woman in another vehicle stopped just after the accident and
held the wound on his head closed until help arrived.
(30:49):
He said he never knew her name, but he believed
she had saved us life. He was rushed to the
hospital in Winston Salem, where he recovered from his wounds.
Arthur was not so low when the truck was finally
lifted off of him. People said he sucked in a
full breath and died. He was thirty one years old.
With Arthur dead and none of his immediate family alive,
(31:12):
Nina and the four children moved to California to get
away from the loss In family massacre and to start over.
They did not stay in touch with Arthur's extended family,
and little is known about what happened to them, though
there is one report from a great grandchild of Arthur's
that everyone was doing well but requested that their privacy
be respected. There is a myth that John Dillinger actually
(31:35):
murdered the loss and family, but there's no truth to it.
John Dillinger was arrested and sent to prison and Indiana
on September sixteenth, nineteen twenty four. And he wasn't released
until May tenth, nineteen thirty three. So even if the
evidence didn't thoroughly point to Charles Dillinger would not have
been able to murder the Lossons in December of nineteen
twenty nine. Though it will never be known for sure
(31:58):
what triggered Charles laws in want to end the lives
of almost everyone in his immediate family, we do know that,
no matter the reason, he was definitely a monster. If
you're the victim of domestic abuse, please reach out to
someone for help. Please talk to your local shelter, call
the National Domestic Abuse Hotline at one eight hundred seven
(32:19):
nine nine safe. That's one eight hundred seven nine nine
seven two three three, or you can go to the
hotline dot org to chat with someone online. If you're
having feelings of harming yourself or someone else, or even
just need someone to talk to, please contact your local
mental health facility call nine one one, or call the
National Suicide Prevention Hotline by simply dialing nine eight eight
(32:41):
in the United States. They're available twenty four hours a day,
seven days a week, and we'll talk to you about
any mental health issue you might be facing. If you're
a member of the LGBTQ plus community and suffering from discrimination, depression,
or are in need of any support. Please contact the
lgbt National Hotline at one eight eight eight eight four
three four five six four, or go to lgbthotline dot org.
(33:06):
Thanks so much for letting me tell you this story.
If you're a fan of true crime, you can subscribe
to this show so you don't miss an episode. My
other show, Somewhere Sinister is no longer getting new episodes,
but you can check it out if you like interesting
stories from history that aren't necessarily true crime, but true
crime adjacent. It's available anywhere that you listen to podcasts.
(33:27):
You can also check out my personal vlog, Giles with
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Thanks again, and be safe.
Christmas is supposed to be a time of celebration, a
happy time where families come together and enjoy each other's company.
Though money was usually tied as pre Depression era tobacco farmers,
the loss and family still had happy Christmases, making do
with whatever they could. It was just before Christmas of
nineteen twenty nine that the family patriarch, Charles Lawson, announced
(00:23):
that he had a surprise for the family that year,
and a surprise it was something that came as a
shock to his family and everyone else. They knew this
is monsters. Charles Lawson was born on May tenth, eighteen
(01:03):
eighty six, in North Carolina. His family were rural tobacco farmers,
and Charles continued that tradition as he became an adult.
Charles met Fanny Mannering in the fall of nineteen ten,
and they got married on March twelfth, nineteen eleven. Soon
Fanny was pregnant with the first of eight children she
and Charlie would have together. The following year, Charles's younger brother, Maryanne,
(01:28):
would marry Jetty Ashby, and the couple would be a
consistent part of the other laws in family's lives. The
two families lives would run fairly parallel over the years,
as they both had a number of children and worked
on tobacco farms. Marion and Jetty had moved to Germanton,
North Carolina after they married to work a farm there.
(01:48):
The land was good and level and made for better
farming than where they were from. Charles made an agreement
to purchase a forty acre or sixteen hectared tract of
farmland for fifteen hundred about thirty two hundred dollars today.
They loaded up a covered wagon and made the journey
from Lawsonville to german Ten in the fall of nineteen eighteen.
(02:10):
By then they had four children. Arthur was born in
nineteen twelve, Marie in nineteen thirteen, William in nineteen fourteen,
and Carrie was the baby, having been born just over
a year before the move. A neighbor from their new
farm traveled the twenty miles or thirty two kilometers north
to Lawsonville with his wagon to help the family move
(02:33):
the children in. Some lighter housewares were in Charles's wagon
and the heavier items like furniture were in the other wagon.
They left early one morning, stopped to sleep during the
trip and then made it to the property the following day.
Once there, they didn't have a house on the land
they purchased, so they moved into a rented house on
a neighboring property. With the end of the year approaching,
(02:56):
the Lawsons got settled into their home and made preparations
to make it through the winter. In January of nineteen nineteen,
Charles came down with an unknown illness that left him
in pain with symptoms that resembled arthritis. While he was
bedridd and his father, Gus, came down with a cold
that developed into pneumonia. Charles got the news that his
(03:17):
father had died on February twenty second, but he was
too sick to make the trip back to Lawsonville to
attend the funeral. That was a huge loss for Charles,
but the biggest concern was if you would be able
to recover enough to start working the farm when spring arrived. Unfortunately,
it seemed that he struggled that year and was unable
to make the agreed upon payment for the land he
(03:39):
at purchased. The property reverted back to its original owner,
and Charles began working as a sharecropper on the property.
There rented cabin was on. There was a span of
six years after Carrie was born that the Lawsons didn't
have another child. They still had four children on November tenth,
nineteen twenty, when they celebrated Willilliam's sixth birthday. The boy
(04:03):
came down with a bad cold on his birthday, and
it progressively got worse over the days that followed. Over
the weekend of November thirteenth and fourteenth, William developed a
fever and was only getting worse. On Monday morning, Charles
traveled six miles or nine and a half kilometers to
the nearby town of Walnut Cove and found the local doctor.
(04:25):
He was late in the day by the time they
made it to the Lawson's cabin, and William was even worse.
The doctor determined that he had come down with pneumonia
and gave him a high dose of vitamin A, which
was considered the latest and greatest treatment for pneumonia at
the time. I could only find opposing opinions on the
effectiveness as it's considered today. With that diagnosis and treatment plan,
(04:48):
the doctor told the parents that it didn't look good.
They continued with the treatment throughout the following day, but
on the sixteenth William succumbed to his illness. The family
was able to mourn Willlliam's death over the winter and
were back out in the fields come spring to continue
farming tobacco. In nineteen twenty two, the family moved to
(05:09):
another farm in Germanton. Like before, they rented a house
and farmed a portion of land for a share of
the crop. That house was even closer to Charles's brother
Marian and his family. Fannie and the children were able
to walk to their house and visit with their relatives.
They had their fifth child, Mabel, that spring, but in
(05:29):
those days, child morality was much higher than it is now.
In November, one of Charles's nieces burned to death after
having something from the fireplace fall on to her. Then
Marion's youngest child, ten month old Chester, got sick and
suddenly stopped breathing. He died in late nineteen twenty two
or early nineteen twenty three. Throughout the twenties, the Lawson
(05:54):
brothers would move farms and continue adding to their families.
Marian and Hattie had a son named Eugene. In nineteen
twenty four. Charles and Fanny had a son named James
in nineteen twenty five, and then another one named Raymond
in nineteen twenty seven. In April of that year, Charlie
purchased a farm on brook Cove Road for thirty two
(06:15):
hundred dollars. He was able to get a bank loan
for that amount, with annual payments of five hundred dollars
until the loan was paid off. The land was good
and there was already out buildings in great shape, but
the house itself was not ready to be lived in.
After the purchase was complete, Charles and Fanny got to
work updating the log cabin and making it at least
(06:37):
comfortable for the time being. Once they removed, Charles planned
on building them a new house on the property, and
they would all just have to make do until then.
During the summer, the tobacco crop was growing and Charles
was continuing to make improvements to the farm. An important
aspect of the farm was a storehouse for the tobacco
(06:57):
after it was harvested, to be the correct humidity to
allow the tobacco to dry just the right amount well.
The storehouse had not been used in some time before
he bought the property, so the drainage ditch inside had
become clogged with weeds. Charles was using a pickaxe to
break up the dirt and the ditch when the tool
(07:18):
got caught up on a wire. When it was released,
the pickaxe flew back and hit Charles in the forehead.
Charles had not lost consciousness, which is a good sign
for a head injury. Still, he went into town and
saw the local doctor just in case. The doctor said
it looked worse than it was. There was a bleeding
wound on his scalp and one side of his face
(07:40):
turned black and blue, but he seemed to have escaped
any serious injury and was able to continue working the farm.
The first year of owning his own farm, Charles was
able to bring a very respectable crop to market in
Winston Salem, where he made a comfortable profit. The Lasson
spent years successfully working the farm, but tragedy continued to strike.
(08:01):
In April of nineteen twenty eight, Jetty laws and went
into early labor with her last child. The local doctor
rushed to the house, but it was unfortunately a deadly
time for women and infants. The doctor determined that the
baby wasn't in the correct position to be born, so
he reached inside of Jetty and manually turned the baby.
(08:22):
Marian would later say that he thought the doctor had
been drinking and that he never saw him wash his
hands before he turned the baby. Eventually, the baby, Hailey,
was born about a month premature. Unsurprisingly, Jetty got an
infection and her condition deteriorated. When she came down with
a fever, the doctor suggested they sweat the sickness out
(08:45):
of her. They surrounded her with hot corn cobs and
covered her with blankets. Of course, we know now that
that method is not helpful to someone with a fever,
and this case was no different. Jetty continued to get worse,
and on May first, she finally succumbed to her illness.
Baby Haley was taken in by Charles and Marian's sister
(09:05):
in law, who had just lost twins of her own.
It wasn't long before Haley returned to her father and siblings,
but after arriving home, she fell ill and died a
few days later. Marian and his family did the best
they could, with Stella stepping in to help raise the children.
She was only thirteen years old, but as the oldest girl,
(09:26):
she was expected to pick up the maternal slack. Ever
since Charles had been struck in the head with the
pick axe, he was suffering from headaches. He was known
to have a short temper, and the headaches only made
it worse. On top of that, people who knew Charles
said he started acting strange. He always seemed troubled, and
he would stare off into the distance. Once he was
(09:48):
in the middle of a conversation with his brother Marian,
when he just turned and walked away. Fanny told others
that Charles wasn't sleeping. Once she found him sitting in
the cornfield in the cold, praying, holding his shotgun, she
convinced him to go back into the house. In August
of nineteen twenty nine, Fanny gave birth to their last child,
(10:11):
Mary Lowe. In the months that followed, Charles's behavior became
even more erratic. Fanny would find him up in the
middle of the night cleaning his guns. He was said
that Arthur would sleep in his clothes in case he
needed to get up at night due to a problem,
but I couldn't find any examples of what those problems
might have been. Fanny had said that Charles would sit
(10:32):
in his favorite chair near the fire with his guns
on the wall nearby. He would suddenly jump up, grab
a rifle in sight down the barrel out the front window.
He was repeatedly checking on the guns and his ability
to react with them. He would clean them over and
over again, obsessing over if anyone else had used them.
But nobody knew why Arthur had his own guns, and
(10:55):
everybody knew not to touch their father's guns. As Chris
nineteen twenty nine approached, Fanny asked Charles about gifts for
the children. They hadn't always been able to afford to
get the kid's presence, but their farm was doing well,
so Fanny asked her husband if they would be able
to afford it that year. He responded that he had
(11:15):
a surprise for the family and he was taking care
of it. About a week and a half before Christmas,
he announced that he was taking everyone into the city
to each get a new set of clothes, and then
they were going to get a family portrait. That was
a big undertaking in nineteen twenty nine. Getting nine people
thirteen miles or twenty kilometers away to Winston Salem all
(11:37):
at the same time wasn't easy. Charles, Fanny holding the
baby James, and Raymond squeezed into the cab, while the
other three children would have to ride in the back
of Charles's truck for forty five minutes in December, so
the trip was a big deal to say the least.
When they arrived, they stopped into a clothing store and
each picked out a brand new outfit. Fanny was concerned
(12:00):
about how much it would cost, but Charles told her
it was no problem. He said he had the money
for it. The family bagged up the clothes they had
worn into the store and headed to a photography studio
to have a family portrait taken. They all changed back
into their old clothes for the long journey back to
the farm, where they completed their chores and ate dinner.
(12:21):
Fanny had no idea that Charles had been planning the trip,
so she thought it must have been the surprise he
had been talking about. It was a surprise, but it
turned out that Charles had something even more shocking in store.
The winter of nineteen twenty nine was a cold one.
There was heavy snowfall in the days leading up to Christmas.
(12:42):
Despite there being no crops, there was still a lot
of chores on the farm. Charles maintained the farm so
it would be ready for spring, and made sure he
had supplies to keep the family warm through winter. He
and Arthur also regularly hunted rabbits to keep the family
in fresh meat for their meals. Christmas morning was no different.
(13:03):
Charles got up and did the morning chores. Everyone said
he seemed pretty normal, which by then might have actually
been unusual. Arthur and some friends went out hunting rabbits
and then had a shooting contest. They would throw an
old can into the air and see who could put
the most holes in it before it hit the ground.
Marie was baking a cake to have with Christmas dinner
(13:26):
when Arthur and his friend started running low on ammunition.
Arthur went into the house and asked his father if
he could borrow some. Charles said he was also running
low and everyone wanted to do some hunting later that day,
so he suggested the teenagers walk into Germanton to pick
up some more. Arthur and his buddies headed out of
the house and treked down the railroad tracks through the
(13:48):
snow and into town. It seemed that Charles was not
only suffering ill effects from his head injury, but he
was losing control of his family. For a strict man
with a short temper, it was likely not making his
outlook on life positive. When he came into the house
after doing his morning chores, he saw Marie standing in
front of her mirror getting fixed up with hair curlers
(14:10):
and makeup. When he asked her what she was doing,
she told him she was going to the church Christmas
party and that a boy she liked was going to
be there. Well, apparently Charles wasn't a fan of that boy,
and he told Marie that she couldn't go. Marie, who
was seventeen years old at the time, told her father
that she was going and that he couldn't stop her.
(14:32):
That seemed to be the final straw for Charles. In
spring of that year, Arthur had also stood up to
him while working in the fields. Charles believed that Arthur
wasn't doing a good job with the cultivator and was
giving him a piece of his mind. When Arthur stood
up for himself, which was seen as talking back to Charles,
the father grabbed a young sapling and threatened his son
(14:55):
with a whipping. Arthur, at nineteen years old, was having
none of it. When Charles swung the switch Arthur grabbed
it and broke it over his knee. Arthur told his
father that he wasn't going to whip him, and that
he would never be man enough to whip him ever again.
That was a strong blow to a proud traditional man
in the early twentieth century. It was the first sign
(15:18):
that he was losing control of his family, and then
Marie's defiance just compounded it. Charles picked up his rifle
and shotgun and walked out of the house. He went
into the tobacco barn and grabbed another shotgun he had
hidden there sometime prior. He hid behind the barn and
waited for two of his daughters to leave the house.
(15:39):
They had been getting ready to walk to their uncle's
house nearby, and Charles decided they would be the first
victims in his plan to annihilate his family. As Carrie
and Mabel approached the barn, Charles stepped out and pointed
his rifle at them. A neighbor later said she thought
she heard a girl yell quote, Papa, don't shoot us
(15:59):
before a in the air. He fired around to carry first,
and she must have realized what was going on at
the last minute, because she raised her hand in front
of her face. The bullet went through her hand and
into her head, killing the twelve year old. Mabel turned
and ran, and Charles tried to fire around at her,
but the rifle jammed. He immediately switched to a shotgun
(16:22):
and hit her in the left side of her back.
The shot destroyed one long, killing the seven year old.
Other people in the area heard the shots, but of course,
at the time, it wasn't unusual to hear gunshots in
the area. People in the area were regularly hunting for
small games, so there was no reason to think anything
bad was happening. Charles was taking no chances at leaving
(16:46):
any of his victims alive. He picked up a large
stick that was propped up beside the barn and beat
both girls on the head repeatedly until he was certain
they couldn't survive. Then he dragged each of their bodies
into the tobacco farm, placed a rock under their heads,
and folded their arms across their chests. As he was
coming out of the barn, Fanny had stepped out onto
(17:07):
the porch to grab some more wood for the stove.
With an armload of wood, she noticed that Charles was
raising a shotgun to aim right at her, so she
turned to run back into the house, but it was
too late. A shotgun blast entered her body and destroyed
half of her heart, leaving a gaping hole in her
That shot was much closer to the house, and it
(17:28):
startled Marie enough that she ran to look out the
front window. From that vantage point, she couldn't see what
was going on outside, so she opened the front door
to see her father dragging her mother's body across the
front porch. Chunks of firewood scattered around her. She screamed.
As reported by neighbors, some boys who were playing catch
(17:50):
nearby ran to the house to investigate the commotion. They
entered the back door of the house and saw Charles
drag Fanny's body completely into the house to the front door,
closed the door behind him. Marie was still screaming about
the murder of her mother by her father. Marie finally
stood and went for the fireplace poker while Charles was
(18:10):
reloading the shotgun, but she wouldn't make it in time.
She was shot at close range in the back, and
the force pushed her forward so hard that her face
hit the fireplace mantle and snapped her neck as it
whipped her head back. Charles looked right at the boy
in the back door and he ran off. Then the
father took the butt of his shotgun and beat Marie's
(18:31):
head until he was sure she was dead. By then,
four year old James and two year old Raymond had
witnessed the ongoing slaughter and had found hiding places. Charles
found Raymond hiding behind the stove, and he tried to
use the shotgun as leverage to move the heavy stove,
but it only bent the weapon sparrel. When he was
(18:51):
able to pull the toddler out from behind the stove,
he didn't shoot him. He used the butt of the
shotgun stock to beat him to death. He found James
hiding under a bed and murdered him the same way
he had dispatched Raymond. The last victim was baby Mary Low.
She only got to live for about four months before
her father murdered her in cold blood. Charles walked around
(19:15):
the blood spattered house and put pillows under his victim's
heads and crossed their arms across their chests. He left
the damaged double barrel shotgun and replaced it with a
single barrel. He also picked up the rifle that had
jammed while Charles was still inside. His brother Elijah, the uncle, Carrie,
and Mabel were going to visit, arrived at his house.
(19:39):
Elijah and his son had been out rabbit hunting, and
they decided to stop by to say hi. He had
no idea that his two nieces had already left for
his house but had never made it. They tried to
open the front door, but something was in the way.
They didn't know it was Fanny's dead body. Elijah looked
in through a window and saw blood and bodies. They
(20:02):
tried to open the front door again, but then they
heard movement upstairs, so they ran off to get help.
As far as they knew, someone had killed the family
and they were still in the house. As they ran off,
Elijah's sun Claude, gazed back at the house and saw
the figure of a man standing in the upstairs window.
To be fair, they would have confronted the man themselves,
(20:23):
but they had run out of ammunition while hunting, so
they had no good way of defending themselves against an
armed intruder. They ran towards a neighboring farm and began
shouting for help. When they got no response, they ended
up running back to their own house so Elijah could
restock his AMMO and return to the scene. While that
was going on, a local man named Stephen Hampton received
(20:45):
word that there had been an incident at Charles Lawson's house.
They were one of the few families in the area
with a telephone, and back then it was still set
up as a party line. The same line was used
by multiple people in the area. When Stephen's daughter picked
up the phone to use it that day, someone was
already on the line reporting that someone was injured at
(21:07):
the loss and home. When Stephen heard that, he grabbed
his rifle and sat out towards the scene. When he
got to the property, he saw two pools of blood
in the snow near the tobacco barn and blood trails
that led into the barn. Before he opened the door,
Sheriff's deputy Robert Walker arrived on the scene with a
few other people. They opened the door to the barn,
(21:28):
where they found the bodies of Carriyon Mabel. By the
time people arrived at the house, armed and ready to investigate,
Charles had fled. He ran into a wooded area behind
the tobacco barn. He walked through the woods his two
hunting dogs at his side until he reached a creek.
His path would later be tracked to the creek, where
(21:49):
it's believed he washed the blood from his hands. He
finally made it to another patch of woods, where he
sat down next to a tree. It's believed he spent
time trying to unjam his rifle, but his hands were
likely too cold to be able to navigate the parts.
He found a small stick that he could use to
push the trigger of the shotgun. As he held it
(22:09):
between his feet and aimed it at his heart. He
tested that it would work, but he wasn't able to
bring himself to pull the trigger. He pulled a pencil
out of his coat pocket and started writing a note
on the back of a tobacco market receipt. It read
quote troubles can cause, But it seemed he changed his mind.
He put that paperback in his pocket, pulled out another
(22:32):
receipt and wrote quote no one to blame. But again
he didn't finish the note and put both the paper
and pencil back in his pocket. It's unknown what Charles
did next. While sitting against that tree, A number of
burnt out matchticks showed that he might have lit them
to try and warm his hands and face. It's believed
(22:53):
that he sat there for hours before finally shooting himself.
While people were at the scene investigating recovering bodies, a
few heard a single gun shot from the woods, and
then Charles's dogs came running onto the property towards them.
He was believed that that was the end of Charles's life.
When people on the scene learned that Arthur and some
(23:14):
friends had walked to town, one of them sent their
son to find them. Arthur ran back on the property
and pushed his way towards the front door of the house.
He wouldn't open much, but he could see his mother's
feed on the floor, and he collapsed in tears. His uncle, Elijah,
had to break the news that his entire family was
dead and that his father had killed them. Marian and
(23:37):
Stella arrived on the scene and they learned the horrible news.
They did their best to comfort Arthur, but there wasn't
much comfort to be found. The sheriff arrived on the
scene and he and the deputy entered the house through
the back door. They surveyed the carnage, but it struck
them that Charles might still be upstairs. Not brave enough
to go check, they left the house. When the corner arrived,
(24:01):
they told him they couldn't go upstairs because if Charles
was there, he could easily blow their heads off, which
was true, but it was kind of their job. Still.
The doctor ended up volunteering to go check. He said
he'd had a good life and he didn't think Charles
would shoot him anyway. In the end, Charles wasn't there,
as he had already fled into the woods. As the
(24:23):
corner examined the bodies in the house, others were securing
the scene outside. As they were keeping watch while the
bodies were being recovered from the barn. Stephen Hampton and
a few other men heard the gunshot in the woods
and saw the dogs. Once the dogs made it to them,
they almost immediately started back towards the woods, as if
(24:44):
they wanted the men to follow, which they did. They
had a pretty good idea of what they were going
to find. When they got to the spot. The dogs
laid faithfully at each side of Charles's body. He was
laying on his back with a large wound in his chest.
He was so fresh that the warm blood was creating
steam as it met the frigid air. Charles Lawson was dead,
(25:07):
and there was no doubt in anybody's mind that he
was the one who had murdered his family. The witness,
along with the evidence, would prove that to be true.
The only thing that people had to wonder about was why.
There were a number of factors that could have led
to Charles's decision to murder his family. Of course, the
(25:28):
head injury was what most people believed was the cause.
During Charles's autopsy, at doctor from John Hopkins University removed
Charles's brain and took it back to the university to
study it. They found no sign of damage to the
area where Charles had suffered his head injury, but they
did find a spot in the center of his brain
(25:48):
that was less developed than the surrounding tissue. Of course,
the brain is an important factor in anyone's actions, and
though the doctor at John Hopkins believed the underdeveloped spot
in Charles's bad brain could have contributed to the murder,
it's impossible to know for sure. Also, mental illness is
likely a factor, but it wouldn't have been an avenue
(26:09):
the doctors would have taken. Mental illness wasn't something that
was considered unless there were major signs. At that point,
there weren't many effective treatments, and most people suffering with
mental illness were institutionalized indefinitely. Obviously, the time Fanny found
Charles outside in the middle of the night praying and
(26:29):
clutching his shotgun were signs that something was wrong, But
that wasn't the only example. One of the lawson's friends
died in December of nineteen twenty nine, and they attended
her wake on the eighteenth. As a group of people
were huddled together in the cold talking about life and death,
Charles was overheard saying, quote, I wouldn't mind dying, but
(26:50):
I would want to take my family with me. It
was a scary prediction that would soon become a reality,
but nobody at the time had any reason to believe
Charles was going to slow her his whole family. The
most controversial reason that's come up as a reason Charles
murdered his family was to cover up the incestuous relationship
he was having with his daughter Marie. There were rumors
(27:12):
swirling that Marie was pregnant at the time of her
death and that it was Charles who was the father.
It was eventually uncovered that those rumors were true based
on statements made by Marie's close friend LM. A. Johnson.
About two weeks before Christmas of nineteen twenty nine, Marie
was sleeping over at el May's house when her friend
(27:33):
noticed that she was being unusually quiet. When Elma asked
her what was wrong, Marie hesitated before finally admitting that
she was pregnant. When Lma pressed about who the father was,
Marie said that it was her papa's baby. It's believed
that Marie was able to confide in Lma because she
had shared a similar secret the previous year. Lay had
(27:55):
been sexually assaulted by her own father, and was able
to talk to Marie about it felt like she would
understand her problem. Marie went on to tell her that
her mother had noticed that she had missed her period
for a few months, and she finally told Fanny that
it was papa's baby. Then she said that Charles also knew,
but didn't know that Fanny knew. He said that if
(28:16):
she told anyone, especially her mama, there would be some
killing done. During the last few weeks of the lawsons lives,
it's unclear what was known by the other family members.
Did Fanny confront Charles, which pushed him to murder his
family to keep the secret. It's unknown, but it certainly
could have been a factor, especially after Charles found his
(28:37):
daughter getting fixed up to see a boy. What would
happen when he learned she was pregnant. The walls were
closing in on Charles, and along with undiagnosed mental illness
and a possible brain abnormality, it could have been the
perfect storm that set Charles on a path to family annihilation.
But why had he spared Arthur? Nobody knows. Maybe he
(28:59):
wanted someone left to carry on the family name, since
it seemed like he had been planning the murders ahead
of time. Maybe he thought Arthur and his friends would
be able to stop him, so he found a reason
to send them away. It's also possible that despite having
something of a plan, he just became enraged by Marie
and set off on his killing spree without caring that
(29:20):
Arthur wasn't there. Arthur had trouble escaping the stigma of
his father's actions. He proposed to the girl he had
been dating at the time of the murders, but her
father was afraid he had inherited Charles's madness and forbade
them from seeing each other. He eventually met and married
a woman named Nina Baby, and they had four children together, Nancy, Patsy, Mabel,
(29:44):
and James. It was a home full of tension due
to the trauma that Arthur had experienced, but it was
said he loved his children, with some speculating that he
saw his younger siblings in them. Unfortunately, though Arthur survived
the mass murder of his family, it wouldn't be long
for this world. On May fifth, nineteen forty five, Arthur
(30:05):
and a friend, Blaine Nelson, left a local tavern at
ten thirty pm. They had been drinking, though Blaine later
said that Arthur didn't seem like he had consumed enough
alcohol to be drunk. That observation would be proven wrong
when Arthur missed a warning that the road was incomplete
and crashed through a barricade. The truck flipped onto its side,
(30:26):
which threw Arthur out of the cab. Then it rolled
over coming to a stop right on top of the
young man. Blaine was thrown from the cab as well,
but landed clear of the truck. He suffered a laceration
to his head and internal injuries. He said that a
woman in another vehicle stopped just after the accident and
held the wound on his head closed until help arrived.
(30:49):
He said he never knew her name, but he believed
she had saved us life. He was rushed to the
hospital in Winston Salem, where he recovered from his wounds.
Arthur was not so low when the truck was finally
lifted off of him. People said he sucked in a
full breath and died. He was thirty one years old.
With Arthur dead and none of his immediate family alive,
(31:12):
Nina and the four children moved to California to get
away from the loss In family massacre and to start over.
They did not stay in touch with Arthur's extended family,
and little is known about what happened to them, though
there is one report from a great grandchild of Arthur's
that everyone was doing well but requested that their privacy
be respected. There is a myth that John Dillinger actually
(31:35):
murdered the loss and family, but there's no truth to it.
John Dillinger was arrested and sent to prison and Indiana
on September sixteenth, nineteen twenty four. And he wasn't released
until May tenth, nineteen thirty three. So even if the
evidence didn't thoroughly point to Charles Dillinger would not have
been able to murder the Lossons in December of nineteen
twenty nine. Though it will never be known for sure
(31:58):
what triggered Charles laws in want to end the lives
of almost everyone in his immediate family, we do know that,
no matter the reason, he was definitely a monster. If
you're the victim of domestic abuse, please reach out to
someone for help. Please talk to your local shelter, call
the National Domestic Abuse Hotline at one eight hundred seven
(32:19):
nine nine safe. That's one eight hundred seven nine nine
seven two three three, or you can go to the
hotline dot org to chat with someone online. If you're
having feelings of harming yourself or someone else, or even
just need someone to talk to, please contact your local
mental health facility call nine one one, or call the
National Suicide Prevention Hotline by simply dialing nine eight eight
(32:41):
in the United States. They're available twenty four hours a day,
seven days a week, and we'll talk to you about
any mental health issue you might be facing. If you're
a member of the LGBTQ plus community and suffering from discrimination, depression,
or are in need of any support. Please contact the
lgbt National Hotline at one eight eight eight eight four
three four five six four, or go to lgbthotline dot org.
(33:06):
Thanks so much for letting me tell you this story.
If you're a fan of true crime, you can subscribe
to this show so you don't miss an episode. My
other show, Somewhere Sinister is no longer getting new episodes,
but you can check it out if you like interesting
stories from history that aren't necessarily true crime, but true
crime adjacent. It's available anywhere that you listen to podcasts.
(33:27):
You can also check out my personal vlog, Giles with
a Jay, which is sporadically updated with stuff about my
personal life, travel and music. It's available on YouTube. If
you'd like to support the show, check out our merchandise
at thisismonsters dot com. A link is in the description.
Thanks again, and be safe.
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