The Jerome Boyatt Lynching
On June 8, 1933, two men who had been charged in separate murders — Jerome Boyatt and Harvey Winchester — were kidnapped from the Scott County Jail in Huntsville by a masked mob. The next day, their bullet-riddled bodies were discovered in a wooded area along Highway 27 in Helenwood, a few miles from the jail. The death certificate of 22-year-old Boyatt noted that he had been “murdered by unknown people.”
In all, at least five people — and possibly more — lost their lives in a miniature war that engulfed communities in two counties: Byrdstown in Pickett County and No Business in Scott County.
Deaths of Pickett County lawmen
Read more: The No Business Tragedy — Murders in the Heartland
The tragic events of 1933 began on Friday, April 21, 1933, with a fight between 22-year-old Jerome Boyatt and his 55-year-old uncle, Albert Boyatt.
Albert Boyatt was a noted moonshine bootlegger, and was apparently angered that his nephew had been selling moonshine at the Stearns Coal & Lumber Co. mining camp on Rock Creek in eastern Pickett County. As a result of the argument, law enforcement was summoned to camp — apparently on a report that someone had been shot and killed.
Pickett County Sheriff George Winningham, his son, deputy Floyd Winningham, and another deputy, Brahm Garrett, drove to the remote camp. There, six men were being held in a train box car: Jerome Boyatt, his 19-year-old deaf-mute brother, Eugene, another of his brothers, Ted Boyatt, brothers Walter and Charlie Crabtree, and Lige Terry.
The details of what happened next are disputed. Newspaper accounts written at the time said that the lawmen ordered the men out of the box car and that Jerome Boyatt, armed with his .45-caliber handgun, opened fire. However, witnesses at the Rock Creek camp told a different story. They said that Floyd Winningham shot first — perhaps into the air as a warning, or maybe into the boxcar. As the first shot was fired, Eugene Boyatt fell back screaming. Witnesses said that Jerome Boyatt believed his brother had been shot and opened fire with his .45.
Floyd Winningham was shot twice in the face and died instantly. George Winningham drew his service weapon and returned fire. He was shot twice in the stomach, and would die the following day at a Nashville hospital.
Jerome Boyatt fled into the night, while Brahm Garrett — who was not injured — took the remaining men inside the box car into custody. They were transported to a jail in Cookeville for holding.
Fallout from the shooting
George Winningham was described as the “most popular sheriff in Pickett County history,” and more than 2,500 people attended the funerals for the slain lawmen. A posse of well over 100 men was assembled to comb the woods in and around No Business in search of Jerome Boyatt. Leading the effort was George Winningham’s lawman son, Willie Winningham, who was a sheriff in Clinton County, Ky. At the funeral, money was collected to offer a reward for Boyatt’s capture. It was made clear that the money would also be used to defend anyone arrested for killing Boyatt.
As anger swelled in Pickett County and the posses failed to locate Jerome Boyatt, Willie Winningham’s men resorted to extreme measures. Despite having no legal authority in Tennessee and no search or arrest warrants, Winningham rounded up the entire Boyatt family and took them to Byrdstown, where they were held captive. In addition to his parents, Ransom and Poppie Boyatt, all four of Jerome’s sisters — including 18-year-old Lola, 16-year-old Violet, 13-year-old Bonnie and 8-year-old Dulcie — were arrested.
While Jerome Boyatt’s trail quickly went cold, he was apparently aided by many residents of the No Business community, including Will and Maude Burke, Dewey Slaven, and others. The residents of the community assisted him with food, ammunition and other supplies. As a result, Boyatt was able to hide out for weeks in the cliff-lined ravines around No Business Creek, eluding the posses over and over when they showed up to search for him.
Death of Ransom Boyatt
Several days after the Boyatt family was taken into custody, Ransom Boyatt was released to return to the family farm at No Business. There, he would be allowed to tend to chores and the livestock, and — some newspaper accounts said — attempt to persuade his son into turning himself in.
Whether Ransom Boyatt made contact with his son while he was on release is not clear. He returned to Byrdstown and signed an affidavit stating that his son would not turn himself in. Later, he was released again. This time, according to Hendricks in Once Upon A Lynching, it was made clear to him: it would be Jerome’s life, or his own.
Several days after Ransom Boyatt was last seen at his No Business farm, concerned neighbors entered the home and found his decaying body lying on his bed. An inquest was held, and it was determined that he had been killed. A suspect was not named. It has always been assumed that Boyatt was hanged in the barn, then his body carried to the home and left on the bed. But the body was so badly decomposed by the time it was discovered that it was impossible to say for sure how he had died.
Witnesses who were present that day always said that Ransom Boyatt’s neck appeared to have been broken. And fueling speculation that he was hanged was a rope that was found in the barn, though others said that the rope was used by Ransom Boyatt to tie his mule. Another problematic detail was that the neighbors who were checking up on Boyatt had to retrieve a spare key from a neighbor; the door to the Boyatt home was locked from the inside.
Nevertheless, Ransom Boyatt’s death was considered a homicide. He was buried in a small family cemetery on the edge of the family farm.
Jerome’s surrender and death
Following Ransom Boyatt’s death, his wife, Poppie, and his children were released by Pickett County’s new sheriff and allowed to return home. However, Poppie Boyatt was adamant that she did not want Jerome to know of his father’s death. She feared that he would turn himself in to prevent further harm from coming upon his family, and knew that doing so would mean his own death.
Concerned neighbors decided that Jerome Boyatt needed to know about his father, however, and told him of it weeks later. Jerome Boyatt responded by doing what his mother had feared he would do: he turned himself in. He surrendered to Scott County Sheriff Esau Laxton, who is said to have made the arrest at Leatherwood Ford, located on the Big South Fork River approximately 12 miles upstream from No Business Creek.
On June 9, 1933, a mob of 25 masked men arrived at the Scott County Jail, beat the jailer, and hauled Jerome Boyatt and Harvey Winchester away. The next day, their tortured and bullet-riddled bodies were discovered in the woods off Highway 27 in Helenwood. Sheriff Esau Laxton was away from the jail at the time, investigating a crime at Brimstone. His wife was present and attempted to stop the mob from entering the jail, but was threatened.
According to witnesses who surveyed the scene, Harvey Winchester — accused of killing Namon Terry and Escar Thompson — was the first to die. His body was found by a tree, shot six times, with a rope noose nearby. Reportedly, it appeared that he had been forced to run in circles with a rope tied to him as the shots were fired.
Several hundred yards away, Jerome 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.
Knoxville Journal reporter Bert Vincent told it like this: “Jerome Boyatt was stripped naked. And while it is not known just what chance he was given to run, it is believed that he was turned loose. And then as a full moon lit up this naked man running through the bushes, the murderers fired like hunters shooting a rabbit. There was some evidence that Boyatt, bleeding from the wounds, ran up one graveled path and down another there in the woods over a radius of 200 yards before he fell. And then after he fell, it is believed that his murderers walked up closes and fired one shot through his back, and two through the back of his head.”
Suspicion immediately centered on Willie Winningham. However, Scott County authorities said they had no suspects. In a story filed by the Associated Press on June 11, Laxton said that he was making progress in the investigation. The story quoted the sheriff as saying that “startling developments” were soon expected in the investigation.
However, no further developments were ever announced.
In a twist, a Clinton County, Ky. deputy sheriff, Herbert Marcum, died on June 10, 1933 from a gunshot wound. Willie Winningham said his officer was wounded accidentally when Marcum dropped his own pistol at a tourist camp near Albany. However, the wife of the tourist camp’s owner told The Tennessean that Marcum was not shot at their camp. Further, the newspaper reported that Marcum had been killed by a bullet from a .38 caliber gun, while his own service weapon was a .44 caliber pistol.
As Hendricks recounted in Once Upon A Lynching, someone in the mob leaked that Jerome Boyatt had managed to grab a pistol from one of the vigilantes and had wounded a man. It was commonly believed in Scott County that Marcum was a member of the mob and had been shot by Boyatt. However, the case was circumstantial and never proven.
The aftermath
Six days after Jerome Boyatt was murdered, his brothers, Eugene Boyatt and Ted Boyatt, and the other three men who had been in the box car at Rock Creek on that fateful Friday night in April 1933 — Charlie Crabtree, Walter Crabtree, and Lige Terry — were cleared of wrongdoing by a Pickett County grand jury and released from jail.
The next month, Willie Winningham died during a shootout with a suspect in Clinton County, Ky.
Jerome Boyatt was buried at Foster Crossroads. Eugene Boyatt died in 1951 and is also buried at Foster Crossroads. Poppie Boyatt remarried and survived until 1978, when she died and was buried at Foster Crossroads. The last of Jerome’s sisters, Violet, died in Ohio in 2012.
Harvey Winchester was buried at Pine Knot Cemetery in McCreary County, Ky. The last of his siblings, Winfred Winchester, died in Indiana in 2019.
No arrests were ever made in connection with the murders of Ransom Boyatt, Jerome Boyatt or Harvey Winchester. The murders were never solved.