tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-80303047065849764292024-02-19T16:59:22.636-08:00Jess SweetenA Trail Is Never ColdUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8030304706584976429.post-64560142458528418692011-04-22T20:49:00.000-07:002015-06-08T07:45:16.333-07:00A Trail Is Never Cold<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Join this blog where you will find all the latest information Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8030304706584976429.post-65250831403166994932010-08-15T16:00:00.000-07:002010-08-15T16:04:04.004-07:00Patton Interview at Waxahachie, Texas<em>The famous Patton Case and the interview with George Patton:</em><br />
<br />
<strong><span style="font-size: large;">Declares Two Men Killed Family of Four on Farm</span></strong><br />
<br />
<br />
November 21, 1936<br />
<br />
“They got the wrong man,” was George Patton’s reaction to a sentence of death in the electric chair for the brutal murder of Carrie McGehee, one of the four persons whose bodies were found on his farm.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEmEAu8-eRlqFYK49FwoXVTxY4JCAXKiYJ0UXlmM6Y6Q3oPuqiQhBS_kBnfKox0pPtX8Q3fTZTDaJZCFYb8-_mFHDDL3K-P03h3F5uvaZ5Z7A7DWsyN7tPRdcPM5QPT51fjmc2ZlheIpI/s1600/Lorene,+Patton,+Sigler.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEmEAu8-eRlqFYK49FwoXVTxY4JCAXKiYJ0UXlmM6Y6Q3oPuqiQhBS_kBnfKox0pPtX8Q3fTZTDaJZCFYb8-_mFHDDL3K-P03h3F5uvaZ5Z7A7DWsyN7tPRdcPM5QPT51fjmc2ZlheIpI/s320/Lorene,+Patton,+Sigler.jpg" /></a></div>“I did not kill Carrie McGehee or anyone else,” he said in a two-hour exclusive Daily Light interview at the Ellis County jail Friday afternoon shortly after he heard Deputy District Clerk Robert Reid speak the words that doomed him to death in the chair.<br />
<br />
“Two men who came to my farm one night about Thanksgiving in 1932 killed the McGehees, and forced me at gunpoint to dig a grave and bury their bodies. They threatened my life and I never told for years.”<br />
<br />
When questioned as to the identity of the two men, the grizzled sandy land farmer replied that they were strangers and he wouldn’t know them if I could see them again.<br />
<br />
“I’m not worried over my sentence and I don’t think I’ll <br />
<br />
ever be put to death by the State,” was the way he summed up his outlook on the future.<br />
<br />
His story, word for word, recorded by a stenographer, as told in his answer to questions is reproduced as follows:<br />
<br />
Q. What do you think about the verdict?<br />
<br />
A. Well, council says “No” and that means no. What a man don’t know he could not answer.<br />
<br />
Q. In other words, you are not satisfied?<br />
<br />
A. Not a bit, and it’s going to take more than that to convince me for the simple fact that I know I am not guilty.<br />
<br />
Q. Can you offer any solution as to why those bodies were found on your place?<br />
<br />
A. Well, I appreciate you people coming to see me; in some ways I haven’t got any education, I have just stayed at home for more than fifty years. I don’t know a thing about the laws of the country. I would read some places about men going to the pen. I know right from wrong and I have not harmed anybody.<br />
<br />
Q. I was wondering if you could give any explanation as to why those bodies were found out there?<br />
<br />
A. Well I don’t understand your meaning.<br />
<br />
Q. Well, did you put those bodies there?<br />
<br />
A. I did not.<br />
<br />
Q. But you saw them when they were put out there?<br />
<br />
A. Yes I did.<br />
<br />
Q. Who put them there?<br />
<br />
A. Well mister — what’s your name? There have been a million questions asked me trying to cross me, and a heap of times men would be disappointed because they want peoples money and the more interesting you make these papers the more papers you can sell. Of coarse your business is your business —<br />
<br />
Q. But if you have a story to tell —<br />
<br />
A. I haven’t got a story to tell. It’s the truth, the truth.<br />
<br />
Q. Well, the truth won’t hurt you.<br />
<br />
A. Well, I have got to go further into details with my lawyer. They are going to try to send me to the electric chair.<br />
<br />
Q. You never did tell me who put those bodies there?<br />
<br />
A. I did not.<br />
<br />
Q. Did you see them put them there?<br />
<br />
A. Yes, I did. But say, do you know everybody in this town? Well, not everybody, but almost everybody?<br />
<br />
Q. Did they force you at the point of a pistol to bury those bodies?<br />
<br />
A. Do you know what a son-of-a-gun is?<br />
<br />
Q. And they forced you at the point of a pistol?<br />
<br />
A. I want to treat you with respect, but I will have to wait for my council.<br />
<br />
Q. I want to get your answer on a few different questions of details: Was it on Thanksgiving Day that you buried the McGehees?<br />
<br />
A. Well, mister it is pretty hard to set a date unless you have a calendar.<br />
<br />
Q. Were they were over there on Monday night, November 21st, 1932?<br />
<br />
A. Bert Davis was a little fellow when his mother died and he would come over to my house often.<br />
<br />
Q. Did this killing and burying take place right after that visit?<br />
<br />
A. Well, it’s hard to answer that question. I don’t remember the last time they were down there.<br />
<br />
Q. I would like to know whether it was Thanksgiving Day that Mrs. Davis and Bert came over to the house, was it the day that “they” made you bury those <br />
<br />
bodies?<br />
<br />
A. I don’t know. The only way we keep dates in the country is by calendar date. I don’t know the date. You may know about dates. Now, you know school records, dates, etc. I can read and write and count whole numbers —<br />
<br />
Q. You don’t keep up with dates?<br />
<br />
A. No, sir.<br />
<br />
Q. Did you see the man killed?<br />
<br />
A. I seen him fall.<br />
<br />
Q. Was he hit?<br />
<br />
A. He had a pretty hard hit.<br />
<br />
Q. Did you see the two children hit?<br />
<br />
A. I seen one.<br />
<br />
Q. Which one?<br />
<br />
A. The oldest.<br />
<br />
Q. What did he hit him with?<br />
<br />
A. I couldn’t tell you. It was dark. I told you I know. This ain’t no argument. The sheriff down there don’t like me, I never voted for him.<br />
<br />
Q. Was any search ever made out there prior to finding of the bodies?<br />
<br />
A. They sent some folks out there when I was helping a neighbor saw some wood, and they was digging up my farm and they didn’t have any papers for searching.<br />
<br />
Q. Just went out there and dug up the place?<br />
<br />
A. Yes.<br />
<br />
Q. Did they tell you what they were searching for?<br />
<br />
A. I was gone and didn’t know anything about it until late in the afternoon. I had went to a neighbors two miles from home and was sawing wood.<br />
<br />
Q. How close did they come to finding the bodies?<br />
<br />
A. Nowheres around them. Then they carried me to Dallas and what I mean kept me there.<br />
<br />
Q. Was that right after Jess Sweeten took office?<br />
<br />
A. I don’t know, but what hurt my feelings, my mother’s trunk and her clothes was packed in there, and they broke in my house and searched it and just piled my mother’s clothes any which-a-way. I have the right to respect my mother’s things as much as anybody has.<br />
<br />
Q. Did they have a search warrant?<br />
<br />
A. Never served any on me.<br />
<br />
Q. Are your mother and father living?<br />
<br />
A. Father died in thirty-one and my mother died in thirty-two.<br />
<br />
Q. What part of thirty-two?<br />
<br />
A. Both died in the summer months hardly a year apart.<br />
<br />
Q. How long had you lived on the farm?<br />
<br />
A. Fourteen years.<br />
<br />
Q. How big is this farm?<br />
<br />
A. It’s a fifty-acre hog pen.<br />
<br />
Q. Hog pen?<br />
<br />
A. Yes, and anyway they did not have no right to do my things that way. I ain’t got no fine furniture, just a poor man’s things, and they throwed out the clothes and some of my sister’s things was in my mother’s trunk. Did you ever see a country boy taking clothes in from the line for his mother? He just piles them up any which-a-way. Well that’s the way they done my mother’s things and my feelings was hurt about that.<br />
<br />
Q. Did they beat you in the Dallas jail or threaten you trying to get a statement?<br />
<br />
A. Well, a little more than I could stand.<br />
<br />
Q. Then they turned you loose?<br />
<br />
A. They brought me back to Athens.<br />
<br />
Q. How did they treat you in the Athens jail?<br />
<br />
A. They never did mistreat me there.<br />
<br />
Q. Did Jess Sweeten treat you good?<br />
<br />
A. Jess never hit me that I know of.<br />
<br />
Q. Do you like Dan Hines? Did he tell the truth from the witness stand?<br />
<br />
A. It’s pretty hard for a man to make a statement correct and not vary his statement in some way.<br />
<br />
Q. Then his statements were substantially true?<br />
<br />
A. Part of it.<br />
<br />
Q. Do you think he tried to make his statements true?<br />
<br />
A. To the best of his recollection, Dan Hines was working for the State at the time and I give Dan Hines the credit. He got awful sleepy on the job but Dan Hines won’t drink.<br />
<br />
Q. Do you give him credit for finding the bodies?<br />
<br />
A. Dan Hines ought to have the real credit.<br />
<br />
Q. Your father-in-law testified that you always veered the wagon to miss the graves when driving in and out of the gate, why was that?<br />
<br />
A. Listen, right there is a mistake because of not knowing any better. That shows you the difference in statements about <br />
<br />
how things happen. I did not have to veer my road because the grave was ten or twelve feet from the gate.<br />
<br />
Q. You say you never intentionally drove your wagon, veering it from where it would miss the grave?<br />
<br />
A. I didn’t have to.<br />
<br />
Q. Did you ever walk over it?<br />
<br />
A. No, sir, I have had a hundred million questions asked me about my friends. The people who have abused me are just ignorant and don’t know any better. But they have the wrong man.<br />
<br />
Q. Is there any reason why you won’t tell who the right man was?<br />
<br />
A. I told Jess Sweeten the best I could.<br />
<br />
Q. How many were there?<br />
<br />
A. I told Jess Sweeten; he’s got that, but he told me, “Pat, you have told so many damn lies already it won’t hold water.<br />
<br />
Q. Could you identify him?<br />
<br />
A. No, didn’t I tell you it was dark? Don’t you remember what I told you a while ago?<br />
<br />
Q. How many were there?<br />
<br />
A. Two.<br />
<br />
Q. That piece of pipe — do you think that these two boys used that pipe to kill the McGehees?<br />
<br />
A. I know they didn’t — it wasn’t on the place at that time.<br />
<br />
Q. Did you tell Jess Sweeten and Dan Hines that it was the pipe?<br />
<br />
A. I told them that it looked like it.<br />
<br />
Q. Were you and the McGehees the best of friends?<br />
<br />
A. Yes.<br />
<br />
Q. Had you known them a long time?<br />
<br />
A. About eight or ten years.<br />
<br />
Q. Did you take them in because they wanted to stay with you?<br />
<br />
A. They wasn’t intending to stay, they just wanted to get away.<br />
<br />
Q. Now, Mr. Patton, I am going to ask you a question that I have heard a great many people say might be given as a motive for the whole thing — did you ever in your life have any dealings with Mrs. McGehee that would make her husband resent you?<br />
<br />
A. No, sir, I had too much respect for the little woman; that is a mistake. She was as clean a little woman as far as I know. She never left me no reason to think she was a wild woman or led that kind of life. That is the truth about it. My own mother never used better language. She never showed any disrespect or used rough words of any kind. She was just a kind, decent, good woman.<br />
<br />
Q. You loved all the McGehees?<br />
<br />
A. Yes, sir, they did not come to live with me, they just came on a visit. They didn’t live there; they didn’t move there.<br />
<br />
Q. They moved their trunks, didn’t they?<br />
<br />
A. No, sir, they had sold them.<br />
<br />
Q. Where were they going?<br />
<br />
A. I don’t know.<br />
<br />
Q. What do you think of Mrs. McGehee?<br />
<br />
A. She was as clean a woman that ever lived. She never used no slang; she was almost a better woman than her own mother. She was clean and nice and didn’t run around over the country and hunt news. She was just trying to get away from the folks when they come to my house.<br />
<br />
Q. You say you heard the blow that killed J. W. McGehee?<br />
<br />
A. Yes.<br />
<br />
Q. Was it in the house or in the barn?<br />
<br />
A. It was in the crib. I want to say to people that there is another day coming. People can be badly misrepresented.<br />
<br />
Q. Did you ever have a desire to take the witness stand, and tell the whole story?<br />
<br />
A. I think if they had introduced some confessions they got out of me I would.<br />
<br />
Q. Did they have you in custody when you dug up the bodies?<br />
<br />
A. Yes.<br />
<br />
Q. Did they warn you that what you said would be used against you in a trial? Did they warn you properly when you went to dig up the grave?<br />
<br />
A. I never heard no such language at all.<br />
<br />
Q. Who do you say was at the grave when you were digging? Was Dan Hines there?<br />
<br />
A. He stayed there until Jess came back with a trusty.<br />
<br />
Q. Did that trusty knock that hole in the skull with a shovel?<br />
<br />
A. I didn’t see it.<br />
<br />
Q. Did you see the bodies?<br />
<br />
A. No, sir, but I seen part of the bones.<br />
<br />
Q. Were you scared?<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
A. No.<br />
<br />
Q. Are you scared of the electric chair?<br />
<br />
A. I don’t want to go to it, but according to the law of the nation, a man has got to die sometime. I don’t figure I’ll go to the chair because I just don’t feel like I’ll go there.<br />
<br />
Q. Do you figure you’ll get a new trial or do you think there is other evidence that will be introduced?<br />
<br />
A. Well, I don’t know just what is going to be done, but I feel like there is a chance for me.<br />
<br />
Q. If you go to the electric chair, how do you feel toward these people, do you hate them?<br />
<br />
A. I know it was because of misrepresentation and bad judgment.<br />
<br />
Q. Is your heart filled with hatred to think they have been honest in trying to solve this crime?<br />
<br />
A. They have done what they knowed; and there has been more than one man and lots of women that has hated me and Carrie McGehee.<br />
<br />
Q. Most people have an idea that you were attracted to Mrs. McGehee, and that you made some kind of proposition to her, and she told her husband and he came to see you about it, and that you knocked him over the head with that iron pipe, then killed her and the two children.<br />
<br />
A. We never had a disagreement about nothing. He has been to my house time after time. He was a good friend most like a brother. She was a good clean nice woman; never used rough language and stayed in a white woman’s place. She was just a nice clean pure white woman.<br />
<br />
Q. Did you during that time that those bodies were under ground, from 1932 to March of this year — how did you feel about that, knowing that they were your friends and that they were buried that close to you?<br />
<br />
A. Could you express your feelings to see your friend done that way; what would be your feelings?<br />
<br />
Q. Did you think about it everyday?<br />
<br />
A. My feelings was badly hurt over it. Why wouldn’t it be?<br />
<br />
Q. Did you keep your mouth shut after you buried the bodies because you were scared? A. No, I am not scared of nothing; sometimes you have to abide by instructions.<br />
<br />
Q. Do you now wish you had gone to Sheriff Sweeten and told him all about it even though you had to take the penalty?<br />
<br />
A. No, this way I have a chance to live and the other way I didn’t have none. When a man tells you what he will do and shows you what he has done you will figure that he knows.<br />
<br />
Q. If you had it all to do over would you take your chance at being shot or would you do just what you did?<br />
<br />
A. You are a little wrong. If a man tells you to go to bed and don’t leave there tonight — two men — and they tell you that some men have never been seen again.<br />
<br />
Q. Did they tell you any motive for killing the McGehees?<br />
<br />
A. Yes.<br />
<br />
Q. What was it? Was it robbery?<br />
<br />
A. I had rather not go any farther into this. Your difference with another man and another woman ain’t nothing to me. I had rather be friendly with them.<br />
<br />
Q. Did they have words before they killed them?<br />
<br />
A. The difference with other people —<br />
<br />
Q. Did they have words before they killed them?<br />
<br />
A. Several.<br />
<br />
Q. Tell me what the motive of those people was?<br />
<br />
A. Those McGehee boys have been my friends, and I would do anything in the world for any one of them; but I have been threatened that they will shoot me if I ever go back. I don’t hold it against those people, the old woman and the two girls because they have proved to me that they are good people, good and clean. Her mother is a fine woman, good-hearted and seems to be inclined to be a little bit religious; never uses rough words and I have got a right to be that girl’s friend; will always respect that woman, she was a friend to my invalid mother and treated me like a child of her own.<br />
<br />
Q. Were they killed on account of some difference between Mr. McGehee and these men or Mrs. McGehee and these men?<br />
<br />
A. I had no way of knowing what the trouble was.<br />
<br />
Q. Are you a member of any church?<br />
<br />
A. No, church is alright though, I think its alright to go.<br />
<br />
Q. You think your continence should be your guide?<br />
<br />
A. Some church people are alright, the best on earth, but I believe we are told not to judge<br />
<br />
nothing against the jurors because a man’s honest mistakes can’t be held against him.<br />
<br />
don’t want to be judged, and I don’t want to judge either.<br />
<br />
Q. After these people’s bodies were put in that grave and after it was found, did you ever go and see any digging?<br />
<br />
A. No, I had too much respect for my friends.<br />
<br />
Q. Did you ever put any hog troughs over the grave?<br />
<br />
A. No, I wouldn’t do that.<br />
<br />
Q. The grave was just white sand; did it ever sink down after it was covered up?<br />
<br />
A. I dug the grave, but I didn’t cover them up. Now, I want you to have lots of money and to make lots of money out of your paper, but I need some spending money myself. I have lived in jail about a year, or about nine months, living mainly on cigarettes, and just a little kangaroo money, and I need some spending money. I would like to have an interesting story to get some spending money. This thing I told you how it is. Our state, the best of states, ain’t going to stand for a man of any kind being punished like that on what was introduced.<br />
<br />
Q. The biggest thing was that you led them to the grave.<br />
<br />
A. Just circumstantial evidence.<br />
<br />
Q. How come you led them to the grave?<br />
<br />
A. Well, I’d rather not answer.<br />
<br />
Q. Did you lead them to the grave because you were scared or because you had stood it as long as you could?<br />
<br />
A. I will give you a good statement. You go ahead and write it just like you want to. They have already made several papers of me and I need some money too. They have already made a statement in True Story I think, and they said they had a book just ready to print as soon as the verdict. I would like to have some money. My time is coming.<br />
<br />
Q. How come you led them to the grave? You will admit that you did, before the jury or anybody else, wont you?<br />
<br />
A. I told Dan Hines. He was a man that didn’t drink; he was a strong-minded man and was working for the state.<br />
<br />
Q. Did they make you? Were you afraid of them?<br />
<br />
A. I am not afraid of no man. But if a man has got a good backing he is a pretty safe man to go with.<br />
<br />
Q. Why did you lead them to the grave?<br />
<br />
A. We will leave that subject right where it is.<br />
<br />
Q. Do you feel sorry for your wife in this mess?<br />
<br />
A. Well, young man, let me tell you this; I don’t believe a man in the world has got any more respect for his wife than I have and I had rather not mention her in no way. There has been things said about my wife since I have been in prison. I have heard things, trusties hear some things, and so we will leave my woman out of this. <br />
<br />
Q. Did you ever tell her about the bodies before they dug them up?<br />
<br />
A. No.<br />
<br />
Q. Do you hold anything against the jury?<br />
<br />
A. Peoples ignorant mistakes should be looked over. From what I have caught and what I have seen I don’t hold-- <br />
<br />
Q. Do you hold anything against the judge? <br />
<br />
A. The judge treated me as clean as you could ask.<br />
<br />
Q. Do you believe they were acting honestly?<br />
<br />
A. They didn’t know any better than to take a man’s life.<br />
<br />
Q. What about your attorney. He is a fine young man, is he working free?<br />
<br />
A. We will talk more about that when he comes back. You take a poor man today he don’t have much chance.<br />
<br />
Q. Does that verdict worry you so that you can’t sleep tonight?<br />
<br />
A. No, it’s like this; when a man makes an honest mistake, not knowing anybody and you know how human judgment is, I don’t hold it against him. I don’t know nothing about him and he don’t know nothing about me. It looks to me like money is what everybody is looking for.<br />
<br />
Q. Had you rather be tried in Henderson County or Ellis County?<br />
<br />
A. We’ll leave that off until my attorney comes back. I’m sorry that people are under the impression that Carrie was a crooked woman and any difference between her and me they never introduced any motive why. Didn’t the judge plainly rule that they would have to introduce evidence to it?<br />
<br />
Q. Well, were you surprised by the verdict?<br />
<br />
A. I was disappointed by it.<br />
<br />
Q. But you don’t worry about it?<br />
<br />
A. I have been threatened more than one time with my life but never was pronounced to be killed by the laws of the nation.<br />
<br />
Q. You hold no fears of death in the electric chair? You can get in the chair with a clear conscience?<br />
<br />
A. I don’t figure I’ll go that way. I don’t know what is coming, just wait and see.<br />
<br />
Q. Someone testified on the stand that woman’s embroidery hoops were found in your trunk and that a notebook belonging to her were found in your trunk. Did you gather up her things and put them away?<br />
<br />
A. I will ask you a question; suppose a person is some one hundred miles away from home and fifty or seventy-five persons break into his place. Would you know what these people do in his place? Would you know what they take there — and put there unbeknown to him, how would he know?<br />
<br />
Q. Did you put it in your trunk?<br />
<br />
A. I didn’t even know they were there. A woman’s notions or what you call it, embroidery hoops are not very interesting to me.<br />
<br />
Q. Did you on Thanksgiving day after this killing had taken place and those bodies had been buried there — did you have any sort of Thanksgiving observance, a dinner or anything like that?<br />
<br />
A. I don’t remember. Nothing like that happened out there.<br />
<br />
Q. After the bodies were covered up by those two men, after three or four days, did the ground settle and you have to put more dirt on the grave?<br />
<br />
A. No, sir, it never did settle. That’s alright, I want you to have lots of good friends and money and nice things. You all can tell me about a paper press I don’t know nothing about that. Now go and you can come back when — we call them lawyers down there, you call them council up here — but it all means the same thing.<br />
<br />
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With that last answer the interview was over.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8030304706584976429.post-2607029120142079292010-08-11T19:55:00.000-07:002010-08-16T18:14:59.806-07:00Introduction<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjXuATTvZ1e2wT6ZEUy4O96Jx4g7f_N6G3QuYMp2wl8zfqTItkaEhdXAtWF2eqbyyyDgatFtt4oxNcBxun8_ZElus0WObQDAIqoW0YXzKL7DSvQPyw-zwuysMyPN7BJqhxb9Ug60Fb3SE/s1600/Jess+and+Buick.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="193" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjXuATTvZ1e2wT6ZEUy4O96Jx4g7f_N6G3QuYMp2wl8zfqTItkaEhdXAtWF2eqbyyyDgatFtt4oxNcBxun8_ZElus0WObQDAIqoW0YXzKL7DSvQPyw-zwuysMyPN7BJqhxb9Ug60Fb3SE/s200/Jess+and+Buick.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>Sheriff Jess Sweeten arrived in Henderson County, Texas at a time of blood and dying. It was the thirties—a decade of unparalleled lawlessness in the history of our nation. He was a young man—barely twenty-four years old, but he brought special equipment for the job: two hundred twenty pounds of rock-hard muscle a dedicated spirit, iron fists and a pair of Colts .45 automatic pistols.<br />
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During Sweeten’s first term as Sheriff the McGehee family of four was reported missing from George Patton’s fifty-four acre farm—roughly eight miles north of Athens, Texas.<br />
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The farmer told Sweeten that two men—supposedly friends of the McGehee’s drove out to his place late one night around midnight and honked the horn. He said, J. W. McGehee got out of bed and went outside to talk with these men. According to Patton, they talked for about five minutes then J. W. McGehee came back inside very excited and said to his wife, “Honey, get up and get your duds on, we’re headed to the oil-fields.”<br />
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That was Thanksgiving Day, 1932.<br />
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In those days, a lawman relied solely on his common sense and dedication. Jess was dedicated. He traveled across the back roads day and night searching for leads and scraps of information that often led nowhere. The state had no crime lab to speak of, and he had only one outside deputy to cover the largest county in East Texas, with a population of thirty-five thousand. However, in a period of four short years this,“Boy Sheriff had solved eight "perfect-crime” murder cases.<br />
In his amazing twenty years as sheriff of Henderson County, Texas, Jess had solved a total of eighteen murder cases. He solved all the cases involving hijacking by firearms and eighty-five percent of all burglaries. When Jess retired in 1954, there were no unsolved murder cases, stick-up, or hijacking cases and not a single case of rape went unpunished while he was sheriff of Henderson County.<br />
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Jess Sweeten’s record stands as one of the finest records of achievement in the history of law enforcement. <br />
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When a crime was committed in Henderson County, Jess took it personally. And when Mrs. Florence Everett pleaded with the young Sheriff to find her missing family, Sweeten was true to his word. It took four years of relentless determination but Jess Sweeten got his man.<br />
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Mention his name to the old-timers of Henderson County and you’ll hear stories that, at first, will sound as though they’re pulling your leg. Some will tell you he could track a minnow through a swamp on a moonless night in a drizzling rain. Others will tell of the time that he placed an ad in the Police Gazette inviting Machine Gun Kelley, Bonnie and Clyde, Pretty Boy Floyd, John Dillinger, and host of others to meet him in Henderson County for a final shootout. <br />
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Raymond Hamilton, a member of the Barrow gang, confessed to a Dallas newspaper that Clyde and Bonnie always avoided Henderson County because of Sweeten’s reputation with firearms and the fact he was known to carry amour piercing ammunition.<br />
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“Jess was not a mean man,” said an old-timer, “But he was sure decisive when a mean one came along.” <br />
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Pat O’Brien, the movie actor, summed him up this way: “I had always wanted to meet him. I was looking for this rough and tough Texas sheriff whom I had been reading about—then, in walks this well dressed gentleman with a voice who could put a baby to sleep. However, I knew his quiet manner only masked the caged dynamite that could be unleashed at a moment’s notice.”<br />
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Once an outlaw had a rifle aimed squarely at Sweeten’s head and before the man could squeeze the trigger, Jess pulled his pistol and fired. The three slugs from Sweeten’s .45 Hit the target’s chest, neck and forehead and the outlaw died instantly.<br />
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Jess was half Irish and Cherokee. He stood six feet, four and a half inches tall and weighed two hundred-twenty pounds. He survived five assassination attempts, three car wrecks and a total of eleven gun battles, but three of those eleven had to be killed. “It was kill or be killed,” he said.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9xz0xayJhwuxGU0n6mYo13XcxiHKiZQI4nib-ADgmNvPs4UEJ54ZhsDOnPotWJA0s31z_DE1JdrRXZyPK6cimRVUJeJMK-iRBBVFCUeQ84VJF7QtM6db0ymd4HKuSzTfeuIPA_agxDVE/s1600/Picture3.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9xz0xayJhwuxGU0n6mYo13XcxiHKiZQI4nib-ADgmNvPs4UEJ54ZhsDOnPotWJA0s31z_DE1JdrRXZyPK6cimRVUJeJMK-iRBBVFCUeQ84VJF7QtM6db0ymd4HKuSzTfeuIPA_agxDVE/s200/Picture3.gif" width="154" /></a></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0