This information is offered FREE and taken from 
http://www.okgenweb.net/~okcaddo/ 
If you have arrived here using a pay site please know 
that this information has been donated by volunteers in a 
joint effort to provide FREE genealogy material online. 

Caddo County - Newspapers

Submitted by:  Sandy Miller
*****************************************************************
ANADARKO AMERICAN

19 June 1913

MISS SUSIE CHURCH MURDERED
VICTUM OF FIENDISH ASSAULT

Dragged form her Home and through a Fence Into the Timber, where she was 
first assaulted then murdered   

    Susie Church, age sixteen years, daughter of Fred Church, and a 
granddaughter of Rube Church, who is well known in Caddo County, was 
assaulted and murdered within half a mile of her home near Cogar, this 
county, Tuesday evening, her assailant, it is believed from the evidence at 
hand, being a young Negro named Simmons, whose home is about a mile from the 
Church place.
    Miss Church had ridden into Cogar to get the mail and was on her way home 
when the assault occurred.
    As near as can be learned, she was dragged from her horse at a point in 
the woods half a mile from her home and dragged through the fence and into 
the woods, a distance of about sixty feet, where it was alleged the double 
crime of assault and murder was committed.
    The first information of the crime came to the family when the horse 
returned home riderless.  The parents at once started on the back trail to 
see what had become of the girl, and on arriving at the point where the girl 
was stopped noted the signs of a struggle and easily followed the trail 
through the fence and into the wilds to where they discovered Miss Church 
dead, with her throat cut from ear to ear.
    The Sheriff's office in Anadarko was at once notified, and Deputy Walt 
Ellison and Fill Blakeley left at once in buggies for the scene.
    In the meantime the parents had secured help from neighbors and striking 
a trail in the soft earth followed it to the Simmons home, where they found 
young Simmons and his condition was such that it is believed he was the one 
who committed the crime.
    The news of the deed had spread rapidly and when county officials refused 
to divulge all the evidence in hand, but believe they have sufficient to 
convict young Simmons.  All that is known at this time is that when found he 
had blood spots on his clothing and the officers have portions of the girl's 
clothing which clearly indicate that she was first assaulted, and then 
murdered.
    The crime has shocked the community in the neighborhood where the young 
girl lived, as the family is well and favorably known, and also in this city 
it came as a shock to those who knew the girl.
    All clues are being followed, and it is thought that in a few hours 
enough direst evidence will be in hand to secure the conviction of the guilty 
party.      
==============================================================================
ASSAILANT OF GIRL, IS
    LYNCHED BY ANGRY MOB

Swift and Terrible Punishment Meted
    Out to Denny Simmons

Mob worked quietly but determinedly

Come to Town in the Early Hours of the
    Morning of the 13th and Avenge
        Murder of the little Girl

    Dennie Simmons, the 18 year old Negro who was arrested Tuesday night of 
last week and brought to Anadarko Wednesday morning following, suspected of 
assaulting and killing Susie Church, was lynched last Friday morning about 
four o'clock by a mob variously estimated at from 300 to 500. 
    It is the story of a crime most brutal and fiendish, and of a punishment 
swift and terrible which we record this week.
    As stated last week, Susie Church, a fifteen year old lass, who had been 
to Cogar on an errand, was assaulted and murdered when only a half-mile from 
her home.  She was dragged from her horse, through a fence and into the 
timber a short distance where she was assaulted and murdered.  A gash was cut 
in her throat large enough to admit the insertion of three fingers, and her 
body was cut in many pieces.  From this and the condition of the ground, it 
is evident the little girl   put up a very hard and a very brave fight to 
save her honor and her life, all to no  purpose, however.  Her screams 
attracted attention and the horse returning home riderless, cause a search by 
the mother, and others, and the search revealed the dead girl and track 
leading away from the scene of the crime.  These tracks led to the Simmons 
home where young Dennie Simmons, aged 18, was placed under arrest, and taken 
to the county jail.

    Every shred of evidence pointed to him as the one guilty, and while the 
crown at that time was almost in a lynching mood, nothing was done.  As the 
hours passed, however, it became more and more certain that Simmons was the 
party guilty of the crime, the feeling against him became stronger and 
stronger and it was soon apparent that it would ripen into a lynching.
    It was not until the day of the funeral of the girl that indications 
cropped put that the feeling would find active expression
When the relatives and friends of the murdered girl gathered about the grave 
into which was to be lowered the remains of Susie Church, and the sobs and 
tears of heartbroken parents were heard and seen ad their little darling was 
laid away, the victim of the lustful Negro brute, there crept into the hearts 
of the neighbors the feeling that the crime demanded swift punishment, and 
the individual thought culminated into co-operative action.
    Thursday there drifted into the county seat the word that the neighbors 
in the vicinity of Cogar were forming into a party and would come to Anadarko 
for the express purpose of lynching the suspect.  About the middle of the 
afternoon of Thursday it was noted that a number of strangers were in town, 
but very little attention was paid to them.  By nightfall, however it was 
noticed that the number had increased considerably.  In the meantime, the 
avengers had placed strong guards on all roads, and the courthouse was 
closely watched all day, so it was practically impossible to get out of town 
with the prisoner, had such an effort been 
contemplated or made.
    So rigid was the patrol of the roads that a farmer, who had been into the 
city to secure a hand, was held up on his way home and asked who he had with 
him.  The watchers had taken note of the fact that the man was laying down in 
the wagon (The hand was sick and had laid down to rest) and they were 
suspicious that an effort was being made to spirit the Negro out of town.  
Fearing trickery, they rubbed the features of the man to be sure that his 
complexion was real.
    In the early hours of Friday morning, the thirteenth, the main body of 
the avengers reached the city and went at once to the jail and demanded of 
Sheriff Blankenship that he deliver unto them the prisoner.  The sheriff told 
them that the man they wanted was not in the jail, and not even in the city, 
but had been taken to Lawton.  The crowd did not believe him, and he allowed 
them to make a thorough search of the jail.  They did not discover the man 
they wanted, and rode away.
    It appears that the sheriff, discovering too late the fact that roads 
were heavily guarded, had, along about 9 o'clock Thursday night, spirited the 
Negro over to the old Indian jail at the agency, and it is believed the crown 
knew of this, and made the demonstration at the jail in order to fool the 
officers and to occupy their attention while another part of the mob was over 
at the other jail securing the Negro. One of the stories current was that the 
hiding place of the Negro was given away by an Indian who happened to get 
wise to the removal in  some way.
===============================================================================