Clifford, Union City Commercial Courier, August 23, 1907

 NEGRO TAKEN FROM SHERIFF.

Assailant of Mrs. Cowan Expiates His Crime.

Tiptonville, Tenn., August 16.—Will Clifford, the negro who assaulted and murdered Mrs. Mary Cowan, was taken from the sheriff’s posse early yesterday morning, eighteen miles from Tiptonville, and hanged to a tree. He is said to have confessed. A mob of at least 300 citizens of Lake County did its work in a very orderly manner, and then quietly dispersed. The death of Clifford leaves only one other negro in the county, and he is preparing to leave.

The crime for which Clifford was lynched was an atrocious one. His victim was 56 years old, and lived with her aged husband near Reelfoot. She was picking berries on the Coppen farm, where she lived, and was waylaid by the negro, who dragged her into a thicket and strangled her to death. He then dragged the body to a bluff and tossed it into the river, where it was later found. This was on Tuesday morning, but the body was not recovered until Thursday afternoon. When Mrs. Cowan failed to return home at night a party was sent in search of her. The spot where she had been murdered was soon found, and the body traced by the footsteps of the negro to the river bank. It was noticed that one of the shoes worn by the murdered of the aged woman had no heel on it, and when Clifford was arrested it was discovered that one of his shoes was minus a heel.

Wednesday night Clifford was lodged in the Tiptonville jail. At least this was the information, and a crowd of several hundred gathered, and after marching to the jail demanded that the prisoner be turned over to them. Sheriff Corlew permitted those in the crown to go through the jail, telling them that the negro had been taken to Dyersburg. Later it developed that the sheriff had secreted the negro in a barn and that he had not been taken to Dyersburg at all.

The crowd took the negro from the sheriff and put him through a sweating process. The confession, however, was not wrung from him until he was about to be hanged.