Harvey Winchester
Jerry Harvey Winchester was an accused murderer who was lynched in Huntsville, Tennessee, in 1933, as part of the fallout over the killing of two Pickett County lawmen, although he was completely unconnected to that incident.
Biography
Born April 12, 1914, Harvey Winchester was the son of Rufus Arthur Winchester (1879-1980) and Martha Roena Smith (1885-1918) of McCreary County, Ky. His mother died during the Spanish Flu pandemic in 1918 and was buried at Black Creek Crossroads Cemetery.
Winchester’s siblings included Lucy Jane Laxton (1907-1996), Lonnie Richard Winchester (1909-1966), Sarah Pearl Tapley (1911-1994), Ivory Watson (1916-1999), and Artie Era Troxell (1918-2002). His father later remarried to Flora Belle Kidd (1892-1958) and had several more children, including Clarence Winchester (1921-1983), Thedford Winchester (1923-1946), Dortha Watters (1926-2009), Lilla Mae Watters (1929-1991), and Winfred Winchester (1936-2019).
Winchester married Matteline Babb in Oneida on April 25, 1931.
Although Winchester was from Kentucky, he lived in Tennessee. When the 1930 census was taken, he was boarding with William Meadows and Mary Lawson in the Capuchin area east of Winfield.
Murder Accusation
On Nov. 27, 1932, Winchester was accused of murdering Namon Terry, 40, and Escar Thompson, 19.
According to a Chattanooga Daily Times account from Nov. 28, 1932, deputy sheriff John Marion Thompson — Escar Thompson’s father — received a report that Winchester, Sterling Meadows, and “a youth named Baker” were “blocking the highway at Bear Creek Junction.” Sterling Meadows was the 24-year-old son of the couple Winchester was boarding with in Winfield when the 1930 census was taken.
Thompson deputized his son and Terry and headed for the scene.
Upon reaching the scene, Thompson reported that Winchester began shooting, killing Terry and Esker Thompson. J.M. Thompson returned fire but did not strike Winchester. He later arrested Winchester and turned him over to Sheriff Esau Laxton, who housed him at the Scott County Jail in Huntsville.
Death
Winchester remained in jail in June 1933, awaiting trial on charges of murdering Terry and Thompson. On June 9, 1933, he was kidnapped from jail by an armed mob consisting of 25 people, and was found dead along U.S. Highway 27 in Helenwood the following morning.
Winchester was kidnapped and murdered along with Jerome Boyatt, who was accused of killing Pickett County Sheriff George Winningham and Winningham’s deputy son, Floyd Winningham.
Winchester was the first to die. His body was found by a tree, shot dead, a rope noose nearby. It was said that he had been tied with a rope and forced to run in circles while the mob shot at him. One newspaper report stated that he was shot more than 50 times.
Several hundred yards away, Boyatt’s body was discovered. He was naked. It appeared that he had been stripped and turned loose to run while the mob fired at him. Then he was shot twice in the back, and once in the back of the head at close range.
Sheriff Laxton told reporters that he was making a “thorough investigation” into the lynchings. However, there were never any arrests made. Suspicion long centered on Willie Winningham, the son of Sheriff George Winningham, and the sheriff of Clinton County, Ky. However, Winchester’s death has also led many to suspect through the years that Scott Countians were also involved. The jailer, Ethan Laxton, told reporters at the time that the mob had not been masked.
The day after the shooting, one of Willie Winningham’s deputies died of a gunshot wound in Kentucky. The official story was that he had dropped his gun and it had gone off. The only problem? The bullet did not match the gun he carried.
Still, the evidence was circumstantial, and no one was ever charged in connection with the lynchings.
See Also: The Jerome Boyatt Lynching
Aftermath
Harvey Winchester, who was only 19 when he died, was buried at Pine Knot Cemetery in McCreary County, Ky. His death certificate stated that he was “murdered by parties unknown.”