Unsolved case · 1927
Also known as murder of Albert Williams · killing of Albert Williams
The short answer
Albert Williams, an African-American man, was shot to death by a mob in Chiefland, Florida, on July 21, 1927, after a dispute reportedly tied to a debt he owed a white turpentine operator who had accused him of assault.
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Suggest coverage for Lynching of Albert WilliamsAlbert Williams was an African-American man who was killed by a mob in Chiefland, Florida, on July 21, 1927. The documentation of this case derives from research by John R. Steelman, who wrote a PhD dissertation examining "mob action in the South." Steelman's dissertation listed Albert Williams among the victims of mob violence he documented and cited a contemporaneous local newspaper account. That newspaper account stated that "Albert Williams, charged with assault on a turpentine operator, was shot to death by a mob," and further noted that "the trouble is said to have arisen over a debt which Williams owed the white man."
Based on the limited surviving documentation, the underlying dispute appears to have originated from a financial debt owed by Williams to a white turpentine operator, which was followed by an accusation of assault against Williams. This accusation preceded the mob's actions against him, culminating in his death by shooting.
As with many documented lynchings of African Americans in the early twentieth-century American South, this case appears to have gone without prosecution.
The event is recorded as part of the broader historical pattern of racial terror lynchings documented during this period in the United States.
Albert Williams was shot to death by a mob in Chiefland, Florida.
Victims first. Every legal label is set from public records and court outcomes, not from the prose.
African-American man killed by a mob in Chiefland, Florida, on July 21, 1927.[2]
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Credit: W.H. Whitehead per imagePublic domainSourceUNSOLVEDListenRosewood, Levy County, Florida, United States · 1920s
In early January 1923, white mobs in rural Levy County, Florida, killed at least six Black residents and destroyed the predominantly Black community of Rosewood after a white woman in nearby Sumner alleged she had been assaulted by a Black man; two white men were also killed in the resulting violence, and no one was ever prosecuted.
Credit: Unknown authorPublic domainSourceUNSOLVEDListenNewberry, Alachua County, Florida · 1910s
In August 1916, a mob of about 200 people in Newberry, Florida, took six Black residents from jail and hanged them from a single tree after a Black man, Boisey Long, killed a white constable attempting to arrest him; no one was ever arrested for the killings.
Image recordPublic domainSourceUNSOLVEDListenSW 35th Place area, Gainesville, Florida · 1980s
Tiffany Sessions, a University of Florida student, vanished on February 9, 1989 after leaving her Gainesville apartment for an afternoon walk; she has never been found, and the case remains unsolved.
Image recordPublic domainSourceUNSOLVEDListen1st Street and 2nd Avenue East, Duluth, Minnesota · 1920
On June 15, 1920, a white mob of thousands broke into the Duluth, Minnesota city jail and lynched three Black circus workers—Elias Clayton, Elmer Jackson, and Isaac McGhie—who had been arrested on an unsubstantiated rape accusation. No one was ever convicted of the murders.
Credit: PCN02WPSCC BY-SA 4.0SourceUNSOLVEDListenClinton, South Carolina, United States · 1924
Norris Dendy, an African-American father of five, was taken from his jail cell in Clinton, South Carolina, by a mob of white men on the night of July 4–5, 1933, and beaten and hanged after a physical altercation with a white truck driver. Five men were later indicted but a grand jury declined to charge anyone.
Credit: Family/Instagram photograph, widely distributed in press coverageEditorial useSourceSOLVEDListenMoscow, Idaho · 2022
Four University of Idaho students—Madison Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves, Ethan Chapin, and Xana Kernodle—were fatally stabbed inside an off-campus house in Moscow, Idaho, in the early morning hours of November 13, 2022. Bryan Kohberger, a criminology PhD student at nearby Washington State University, was arrested that December and pleaded guilty in 2025, receiving four consecutive life sentences.
