News of Other Days
Features | Published on Thursday April 26, 2007
Editor's note: This column ran previously in the Guard on May 6, 1994.
73 YEARS AGO
B.A. Scroggins, 55, who was recently sentenced to the Arkansas penitentiary
for life by Judge Marcus Bone after a jury found him guilty of murder, was
shot to death Saturday night after trying to escape from Tucker prison
farm. Testimony was offered by another prisoner in the farm hospital where
Scroggins was being held for a case of mumps that Scroggins ripped off the
screen from a door and unbolted the door.
He was chased by a trusty guard, Lawrence Baker, who threatened to shoot if
he did not stop. Scroggins turned and attacked Baker with a knife and the
trusty guard shot him. The killing occurred about midnight.
During the trial here Scroggins told his attorney, W.M. Thompson, that he
would rather die in the electric chair than spend six months in the
penitentiary. He had been in the state prison only two weeks.
A man by the name of Bellamay, 28, was brought here from Lynn Saturday
night and placed in the hospital suffering from a severe wound in his head
as a result of a fight. It was said that Bellamay with a knife was chasing
a man who picked up an axe and struck him in the head. Physicians said
Bellamay has a chance to recover.
Raymond Clark, 30, who escaped from jail here last month, was taken into
custody Sunday in the strawberry fields near Russell in White County by
Sheriff Jake Engles, Gray Albright of Jackson County and postal inspector
William J. White of Batesville. Clark was held on a charge of robbery of
the post office at Swifton.
Chester Hill, 8, son of Ordil Hill, a farmer living north of Batesville,
lost three fingers of his right hand Saturday afternoon when a dynamite cap
exploded. He was visiting relatives at Guion when he found the cap, which
he placed on a stone and struck it with another rock.
— Guard, April 30, 1934
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