Jerome Templeton

Jerome Templeton (Sept. 30, 1848 – Sept. 22, 1915) was a well-known Knoxville attorney who initially represented Judge James E. Fulton after Fulton was charged with murdering well-known Helenwood attorney Sam Young Parker in 1906. He dropped Fulton as a client following an emotional plea by Parker’s sisters.

Biography

Born Sept. 30, 1848, Jerome Templeton was the son of Rev. Allison Templeton and Mahala Cunningham of the Chattanooga area. He settled in Greeneville, then moved to Knoxville in 1881 to practice law. He was one of four children. His brother, Milton Bird Templeton Sr., was also an attorney, and became a judge in Texas.

Templeton married Belle Mabry in 1873. They had nine children, two of which died in childhood and several others of which died at relatively young ages. Only two of the nine children survived beyond the age of 34.

The Fulton case

Scott County attorney James E. Fulton hired Templeton to represent him after he was charged with the murder of Sam Young Parker in 1906. Sam Parker was a well-known athlete at the University of Tennessee and a graduate of the university’s school of law. He was murdered by Fulton at the Helenwood railroad depot in July 1906 because Fulton believed — apparently erroneously — that Parker was having an affair with his estranged wife.

After surrendering to law enforcement, Fulton was housed in Knoxville for his safety. There had been several lynchings in Scott County involving murder suspects and angry mobs. There, he hired Templeton to represent him.

When J.C. Parker — also an attorney, and a former Scott County Judge — learned of his son’s murder, he sent three of his daughters to see Templeton, one of Fulton’s defense attorneys. The daughters were Ella Parker, Belle Parker and Ida Parker. His request was that Templeton not defend his son’s killer. Templeton was so moved by the plea that he withdrew from the case.

Fulton went on to be convicted of murder after his first trial resulted in a hung jury. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison, but served only 10 months before his sentence was commuted by Tennessee Gov. Malcolm Rice Patterson. Fulton was later killed in Oneida by newspaper editor J.E. Bell in 1917.

Death

Templeton died in Knoxville on Sept. 22, 1915, at age 66. He was buried at Old Gray Cemetery in Knoxville, where his wife would be buried two years later, and where six of his children had already been buried.