This is the first installment in an irregular series I’m calling ‘Things to be Learned from Dead People.’

(Note: There are three men named John Terry in my family tree. None of them are this John Terry.)

A murder in Fairfield County, SC

A man named John G. Sessions, of Fairfield County, South Carolina was murdered in Barnwell County, South Carolina on 1 June 1884. The body was found about 1 July 1884.

(This part is a little gory) According to the Fairfield News and Herald:  The body was very much mutilated by dogs. The head was severed from the body and buried at the feet of the corpse. The body was buried without a coffin. The skull was fractured in several places, and the coupling pin of a car was found in the hole with the body.

There were several players in this story:

Samuel A. Wood, John Terry, B. Z. Carson, T. J. Rountree, and the deceased.

Here’s how it went

The many newspaper accounts of this tale of woe said B. Z. Carson and John Terry tried to kill T. J. Rountree because Rountree and Samuel A. Wood had ‘a difficulty’ in May 1884 where shots were fired. Carson and Wood knew each other because they shared a residence. Carson let Rountree know that Terry and he would keep trying until he was dead.

According to The Times and Democrat article on 4 June 1885, Terry was arrested in late June 1884 for shooting into the house of the depot agent at Robbins Station. (This was probably Rountree’s house.) The article said that ‘Terry supposed he was arrested for the Sessions matter {his murder] and told enough of it to lead to the discovery of Sessions’ body…buried in a shallow hole in a pine thicket.’

Terry faces the death penalty

The evidence was circumstantial, but Terry was convicted and sentenced to death. According to the Yorkville Enquirer article on 4 June 1885, Terry made a full confession a day or two before his execution by hanging on 29 May 1885.

Terry’s warning to others

John Terry said that he murdered Sessions, and the cause of it was bad whiskey and the persuasion of B. Z. Carson. According to the Yorkville Enquirer article above – from his cell window, John Terry said:

And according to the Marlboro Democrat article on 10 Jun 1885, the last thing Terry said, presumably from the gallows, was:

King Solomon was right…

Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise,
    but the companion of fools will suffer harm.  Proverbs 13:20

What lessons have you learned from dead people?

Copyright © 2023 Nancy H. Vest   All Rights Reserved