Merrick, Indianapolis Times, July 19, 1932

 KENTUCKY LYNCHERS FREE; OFFICERS REFUSE TO TAKE ANY STEP TO ARREST THEM 

“I’ve Got Nothing to Say,” Is Only Answer Sheriff Will Give; County Attorney Won’t Make It His Business.

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KLU-KLUX TERRORS ARE FEARED

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Suspect in Bombing of Store Dragged From Jail and Hanged After Beating by Mob; Grand Jury “Can’t Find Evidence.” 

By James W. Bell

Times Staff Writer

PRINCETON, KY., July 19.--On the night of May 31, mob law broke out in Caldwell county. A man awaiting legal trial was taken from jail and condemned to death by a mob, which hanged him to a tree after beating him. 

In the seven weeks since no one has been arrested. 

“I have nothing to say about the lynching,” said Sheriff P. J. Blackburn. “The sheriff’s office is not an information bureau. Whatever I have to say on matters pertaining to my office will be said in the court and in the courts only.” 

County Attorney John O. Hardin also is silent as to any efforts to arrest the mob members. He says he has not talked to any members of the family of the man murdered by the mob since the lynching concerning plans to apprehend the lynchers or on any other subject. 

The victim was Walter Merrick, 42, owner of a farm on which he lived near Hopson, ten miles south of Princeton. 

Two Are Badly Hurt

He was awaiting trial on an indictment charging him with bombing the store of Millard P’Pool, Hopson merchant, Feb. 3. P’Pool, in the store, and Harold Nabb, 13, standing on the front porch were hurt badly. The boy has recovered but P’Pool still is using crutches. 

Merrick was arrested on suspicion based largely on enmity between him and P’Pool. He was arrested at his home a few hours after the explosion. It was said that anger over a disputed $1.70 grocery bill had been fanned by a whipping Merrick’s son received in school. P’Pool is prominent in politics and business in Caldwell county. His unusual name is a shortening of the original family name of Petilpool. 

One Dog Was Used

It was reported officially that “bloodhounds” had led deputies from the ruins of P’Pool’s store to Merrick’s home. Later grand jury inquiry brought out it was one police dog. 

Public opinion divided sharply as to this evidence. Reports were current that P’Pool had incurred the enmity of moonshiners or bootleggers. 

Governor Ruby Laffoon, for the commonwealth, offered $200 reward in the bombing case. 

But it was more than a month after the lynching that Laffoon offered a $200 award for convicting evidence against the lynchers. This was on condition, which was met, that Caldwell County offer a like sum. 

Can’t Find Evidence

The American Civil Liberties Union widely announced $500 reward for information leading to arrest of any participant, charging that the names of men in the mob “are well known to many in the community,” A grand jury, questioning persons near the scene reported it “was unable to find evidence of any nature showing any person that was in the mob or had anything to do with it.” 

In instructing this grand jury, Circuit Judge Charles W. Wilson of Smithland said, “Mob violence is violation of the law and the court calls attention to that, and it is your duty to investigate and if you have evidence of the guilty parties it is your duty to indict.” 

“It is a serious thing, but no more serious than violation of any other law.” 

“I only talked to the sheriff a little while over the telephone on the night the mob hanged Walter.” Mrs. Mattle Merrick, 34, widow, said. 

Klu-Klux Terrors Feared

“‘They hung Walter’, he told me, and then asked what I wanted to do with the body. I told them to bring it home. He never said anything to me about arresting the persons who did it, nor communicated with me in any way. 

“I have never been to see the sheriff because I don’t feel that it would do any good.” 

Feeling is running high here and throughout Caldwell county over the lynching. There is some fear that the terrors of the old night riders and the more recent Klu-Klux Klan which had 1,000 members in Caldwell county, again are imminent.
W. J. Miller, attorney, who fought the Klan here at the height of its power, places the present Klan strength here at “an active 150 men.”

That the lynching of Merrick was well organized is indicated by the fact that almost four months elapsed between the bombing and the lynching. Excitement over the bombing had subsided. 

Witnesses said the “mob” was composed of about twenty men who took Merrick from jail just before midnight, working silently and quickly. No disturbance prefaced the lynching.