Unsolved case · 1919
Also known as murder of Jay Lynch · killing of Jay Lynch
File:Lynching of Jay Lynch for the killing of Sheriff Harlow and Walter Harlow 1919.jpgCredit: James MountPublic domainSourceThe short answer
On May 28, 1919, a mob dragged convicted murderer Jay Lynch, 28, from a Lamar, Missouri courthouse office and hanged him after he had pleaded guilty to killing Barton County Sheriff John Marion Harlow Jr. and his son Dick Harlow. The lynching helped spur Missouri to reinstate the death penalty.
No one's coverage is attached to this file yet.
Know great coverage of this case?
A documentary, a podcast episode, a careful long-form video. Suggest it and an editor will review it before it appears here.
Suggest coverage for Lynching of Jay LynchJay Lynch, 28, was lynched in Lamar, Missouri, on May 28, 1919, months after he pleaded guilty to murdering a sheriff and the sheriff's son. 1919 saw 83 lynchings across the United States, and this was one of only four in which the victim was a white man.
Lynch had a lengthy criminal record involving burglary and robbery, including an alleged car theft in Oklahoma City and the alleged theft of women's silks worth $300 in Kansas City. He was repeatedly jailed and had escaped from prison several times over roughly a decade. In 1918 he was hired as a private detective for the Wabash Railroad in St. Louis, but was arrested for robbing a train while working in that role. After skipping bail on that charge, he was later arrested near his sister's home close to Lamar.
On March 3, 1919, while held in the Lamar jail in connection with the Wabash Railroad boxcar robbery, Lynch asked to use the jailhouse telephone. When Sheriff John Marion Harlow Jr. of Barton County opened his cell, Lynch fatally shot him with a gun he had smuggled into the jail. The sheriff's son, Dick Harlow, ran to help his father and was also mortally wounded, dying a few days later. Lynch fled the state, was refused entry into Mexico, and was arrested in La Junta, Colorado, on May 13, 1919, before being returned to Missouri. He pleaded guilty to murder and was sentenced to life in prison.
Fearing violence from a packed courthouse crowd after the sentencing, presiding judge B. G. Thurman had Lynch taken to his private office so the prisoner could say goodbye to his family, who were present along with several armed deputies. While Lynch held his baby, a group of 24 people forced their way into the office, overpowered the guards, put a noose around Lynch's neck, and dragged him from the courthouse. The rope broke on an initial tree branch under his weight; a sturdier branch was then used, and Lynch was hanged before a cheering crowd.
The coroner's report attributed Lynch's death to "parties unknown." Prosecuting attorney H. W. Timmonds and Sheriff W. A. Sewell of Barton County opened an investigation, but no charges were filed because no witnesses would identify the participants.
Missouri had abolished capital punishment in 1917. Largely in response to the Lynch lynching, along with an impassioned legislative speech by Barton County representative H. C. Chancellor, the state legislature restored the death penalty for seven offenses — treason, perjury, subornation of perjury, first-degree murder, rape, kidnapping, and train robbery. Governor Frederick D. Gardner signed the measure into law.
Jay Lynch was hired as a private detective for the Wabash Railroad in St. Louis; he was later arrested for robbing a train while in that role and skipped bail.
While held in the Lamar, Missouri jail on a boxcar robbery charge, Lynch shot and killed Sheriff John Marion Harlow Jr.; the sheriff's son, Dick Harlow, was also mortally wounded intervening and died days later.
Lynch, who had fled the state and been denied entry to Mexico, was arrested in La Junta, Colorado, and returned to Missouri.
After pleading guilty to murder and receiving a life sentence, Lynch was seized from a courthouse office in Lamar, Missouri, by a mob of 24 people and lynched.
The New York Times reported the mob's entry into the courthouse and the hanging of the life-sentenced convict.
Victims first. Every legal label is set from public records and court outcomes, not from the prose.
Victim of lynching on May 28, 1919, after pleading guilty to the murders of Sheriff John Marion Harlow Jr. and Dick Harlow; no charges were ever filed against his killers.[3]
Pleaded guilty to the murder of Sheriff John Marion Harlow Jr. and his son Dick Harlow and was sentenced to life in prison before being lynched.[3]
From the record
Coverage is not a source: every fact in this file rests on the records below.
Are you family of someone named in this file? Corrections and removal requests from victims’ families are prioritized.
SOLVEDListenStella, Missouri, United States · 2000s
Nine-year-old Rowan Ford disappeared from her home in Stella, Missouri, in November 2007 and was found dead six days later in a cave, having been raped and strangled. Christopher Collings was convicted of murder and executed in December 2024; her stepfather David Spears was sentenced to 11 years for child endangerment and covering up the crime.
SOLVEDListenWelch, Oklahoma · 1990s
Teenagers Lauria Bible and Ashley Freeman vanished after a house fire in Welch, Oklahoma, on December 30, 1999, in which Freeman's parents were found shot to death; the girls have never been located, and one man has pleaded guilty as an accessory to the killings.
UNSOLVEDListenLa Cygne, Kansas · 2020s
Alonzo Brooks, 23, disappeared after a party in La Cygne, Kansas, on April 3, 2004, and his body was found in a nearby creek a month later. A 2020 exhumation and autopsy determined his death was a homicide, but no one has been charged.
Credit: TthrailCC BY-SA 4.0SourceUNSOLVEDListenNear Macon Road bridge over the Wolf River, Memphis, Tennessee · 1917
In May 1917, Ell Persons, a Black woodcutter accused of the rape and decapitation of 15-year-old Antoinette Rappel near Memphis, Tennessee, was seized from custody by a mob and burned alive before a crowd of about 5,000. No one was ever charged in either death, and the lynching contributed to the founding of the Memphis NAACP.
Credit: UyvsdiPublic domainSourceUNSOLVEDListenBridge over the North Canadian River near Okemah, Okfuskee County, Oklahoma · 1911
Laura Nelson and her teenage son L. D. Nelson, an African-American mother and son, were seized from the Okfuskee County jail in Okemah, Oklahoma, on the night of May 24, 1911, by a mob of white men and hanged from a bridge over the North Canadian River the following morning. No one was ever identified or charged in connection with the killings.
Credit: Unknown authorPublic domainSourceUNSOLVEDListenNewberry, Alachua County, Florida · 1916
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.
