HIGH POINT CONFIDENTIAL: The good son-Jamestown man shot father to save sister's life in 1923

Jul. 8—JAMESTOWN — century later, it's hard to fathom what must've been going through Clay Brown's mind during his father's funeral, held in the sitting room of the Browns' house in the Oakdale Cotton Mill Village.

Less than 48 hours earlier, in that very same room — a room now filled with mourners weeping, praying and singing hymns of the faith — the 23-year-old son had put a bullet through his father's heart, killing him almost instantly. He hadn't meant to kill John Wilson Brown — or so it appeared — but emotions and motives sometimes get hopelessly tangled in the chaotic midst of a killing, and the truth can be difficult to discern.

Regardless, the young man found himself not only grieving the loss of his father, but wearing a scarlet millstone around his neck — a first-degree murder charge.

The year was 1923, and the elder Brown — a Jamestown native known as "Pink" to much of the community, including local law officers — didn't exactly have the shiniest of reputations. The 52-year-old mechanic had faced several recent charges of selling narcotics, but he was best-known for fraternizing with "women of ill repute," according to newspaper accounts.

It was the latter offense that most upset Pink's daughter, 21-year-old Clara, who apparently couldn't sit idly by and watch her daddy betray her mother over the attentions of lewd women. So on the evening of June 11, 1923, when Pink returned home after allegedly spending the previous 24-plus hours with a bevy of lascivious ladies, Clara gave him an earful.

"He was confronted almost at once by his daughter, who undertook to upbraid him for his misconduct in associating with certain women of bad character," The High Point Enterprise reported. "It seems that the father denied the girl's accusations until she mentioned the letter she had found, addressed to a certain notorious woman."

Clara claimed to have found a love letter from her father to the "certain notorious woman," and in the letter were the words "my dearest sweetheart" and similar terms of endearment.

Well, that was the straw that broke the weasel's back. Infuriated by his daughter's allegations, Pink charged at Clara and wrapped his hands around her throat.

"I'm going to slap your damned face off and choke you to death!" Pink yelled, according to family members who witnessed the attack.

That's when Clay took action, grabbing a .38-caliber revolver from a bureau drawer and aiming it at his father. His mother, Ella, saw what was about to happen and screamed, but it was too late. Even as Pink threw his daughter aside and lunged for the weapon, screaming, "Give me that pistol!" Clay pulled the trigger.

The father fell to the floor and died.

Officers arrested Clay without incident and hauled him to the jail in High Point, charging him with first-degree murder. In the aftermath of his arrest, Clay made two requests: He asked officers to secure for him the empty cartridge from the fatal bullet, and he begged them to let him attend his father's funeral.

We don't know if Clay ever received the cartridge — seems to us that might be a critical piece of evidence — but he was allowed to attend the funeral at the family's home, sitting through it with bowed head and drooped shoulders. Accompanied by a law officer, Clay followed his father's body from the house to the hearse, but when the funeral procession headed toward a church cemetery near Greensboro, Clay was returned to the jail in High Point.

Meanwhile, a new, crucial detail was added to the public narrative of the fatal shooting. Family and friends told The Enterprise that Clay had intended only to shoot his father in the leg, but his younger brother, 18-year-old Dennis, had grabbed at Clay's arm to try to stop the shooting, with disastrous results.

"The action was almost simultaneous with Clay's pressure on the trigger," The Enterprise wrote, "and the bullet, intended for the leg, entered the man's heart, passed through his body and ricocheted from the table through the wall of the house."

Would that be enough to exonerate Clay from the murder charge, or was this sudden, new development a little too convenient?

Clay's attorney, Thomas Gold, felt his client should be acquitted regardless of the brother's actions.

"I believe that the slain man died a death in which no crime was committed," Gold said at a preliminary hearing. "Though it is a tragedy, he died through necessity and as the result of sin. His daughter's life by this act was saved."

Ultimately, a Guilford County grand jury agreed, refusing to indict Clay. On June 19, 1923 — scarcely a week after the fatal shooting — Clay walked away a free man.

For the next 60 years, though — until his death in 1983 — Clay lived with the memories of that horrible, fateful evening when he had to pull the trigger and shoot his own father. That surely was punishment enough.

jtomlin@hpenews.com — 336-888-3579