Violence In The Valley-Boyd Ambush

Episode Transcript

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Now The Violence in the Valley podcastwith retired Parkersburg Chief of Police Bob Newell
and others. Brought to you byInterstate Insurance three generations of insurance excellence.
Most cities in the Midde High Valleyhave been relatively fortunate when it comes to

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officers dying in the line of duty, but Washington County along the Ohio River
Valley has experienced more than a shareof fallen officers. In a few months,
we will reach a one hundredth anniversaryof the murder of Marrietta Police officer
Harrison Boyd. Officer Boyd's death precededthe murders of two Washington County deputies and
two police officers killed in automobile accidentsin the town of Beverly, also within

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Washington County. Like most towns alongthe Ohio River, decades ago, Marietta
was a hub of industry and commerceas it set at a confluence of the
Muskingham and Ohio Rivers and service theB and O Railroad, as well as
birds traffic and historic river boats.In the early morning hours of Sunday,
January eleventh, nineteen twenty five,Officer Boyd was walking the beat in downtown

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Marietta. Even though it was wellafter midnight, Downtown Marietta was alive with
people who were still milling around aftera theater performance. Several of them were
about to witness a gun battle inthe open streets of the city. As
Officer Boyd approached the Baltimore Ohios UnionStation, he suddenly surprised a gang of
burglars who had just broken into theStudebaker garage near the railroad terminal. Here

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is Marietta Police Captain Aaron Needeth,who serves as a historian for the department
in his spare time. Boyd ismaking his rounds downtown walking as a patrolman,
and he comes through Union Station,which was between Second and Third Street.
Now in Marietta, there's actually alittle alleyway called Union Street. That's
where the big Union Depot train stationwas. He comes through there and as

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he's walking around, following the tracksout onto Third Street two hundred block a
third Street, he approaches a studentBaker dealership that's on the east side of
the street. But so he comesalong there and as he comes out,
a gun battle erupts. Fortunately,there was at least two or three witnesses

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one of them was an actor thatwas in town performing at the theater that
was just out for a walk andkind of sees this. As it turns
out, what's happened is he stumbledacross a gang of burglars that have been
working They were originally from Ashland,Kentucky, and they have been working the
area. They're as far south asLogan, West Virginia, moving all through

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West Virginia and Ohio to one ofthese nighttime burglaries. And what he's done
is he's just stumbled on him asthey were coming out, and from witnesses,
he was being fired out by atleast two maybe three people in the
middle of the street. I saidhe was able to get eight shots off,
but eventually one shot went through hisheart and killed him. They did

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find he had a bullet that wentthrough both his arms, which he was
said to be a shooter that heldhis left hand up and put his right
hand over, and he had onebullet that went through both arms. He
also had one that cut across hisvest, just across the belly. You
know, he's engaging one target infront of him, which was actually probably
behind a steel drum that was usedin that of cover while the other members

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of the gang were shooting at himfrom up down the street further down near
Butler Street, so he's basically ambushedout in the middle of the street.
The actor who witnessed the gun battlewas Gerner LaForge from Basinny, Michigan.
He had just finished performing at thePutnam Theater and was walking to the wakefield
to get something to eat. LaForge, along with Marietta resident Lewis Braun

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and Mortimer Smith, saw and hearda muzzle blast from the guns of the
burglars and then saw the officer falldead to the ground. Again, here's
Captain Needith Boyd makes makes eight shots. They find eight shots. He was
carrying a Luger pistol, which wedon't know. My guess is it was
probably a war trophy from World WarOne. But he gets off eight shots.

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There were still one shot in thegun and there was still Now one
of the things, one of thestories that have gone through Marietta for years
and years and years is that hasgun jammed. I don't find any record
of that. They don't say anythingbeing in the chamber. They just say
that there was one still in thegun. In the magazine so I don't
know whether his gun actually jammed ornot. As witnesses reached the officer's side,

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they heard one of the gang membersjail, I got him all right.
When they started looking back into it. What they think he did is
they think they had already hit theStudent Breaker building and there was a where
he was. Actually where the gunmanwas that had the barrel was a blacksmith's
shop. They had definitely broken intothat. So they think that two of
them were sitting there while one wasgoing in the Studa Baker and as he

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walked up with a flashlight and shinedit on there there they started firing on
him, but they had already donethe job. Lot of the rumor was
that he had surprised them in theact. Now they ambushed him. Several
other witnesses saw the men flee inthe area. One man was confronted by
the gunman, who ordered him toleave the area or be killed. They
were seen by some of these witnessesrunning down through the Union Station and they

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basically make a loop through downtown mariettoa detective with the Bno Railroad arrived hours
later with a bloodhound attract the criminals. The bloodhounds confirmed the witness's account of
the direction the suspects had taken toescape the area. However, the dog's
loss of scent at the point themen would have entered an automobile and drove
away. They started this man hunt. They ended up, you know.

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They follow him through town. Whatthey find out is they try to steal
a car out Isle Run, whichis on the after the west side of
town, and got away from there. The gang had been wreaking Havoc and
several cities along the Midde High Valleyfrom Ashland, Kentucky, to Parkersburg and
Marietta, and as far west asColumbus and east to Charleston, West Virginia.

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They had arrived in a car theyhad stolen in Ironton, Ohio,
which was recovered by the Marietta PoliceDepartment. The men had registered the Monroe
Hotel in Parkersburg the day before usingfalse names. The car was filled with
stolen items from burglaries in Chauncey,Ohio, along with a blanket from the
Monroe Hotel. The famous Pinkerton DetectiveAgency had been hired to assist other agencies

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in trying to catch the thieves Ata time before the Federal Bureau of Investigation
even existed. Pinkerton detectives and otherdetective agencies were already on their trail because
they'd been hitting all these burglary sothey already had clues. They knew that
they had registered under false names athotels and other cities, and knew that
there was at least two guys thatthey were looking for now, I said.

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The witnesses at that time said theywere was two or three people shooting,
but as far as they knew,it was only two based on the
gang they had been following. Soinitially the guys get away, but there's
definitely people that are on and theyhave clues on this. In addition to
the Pekerton Agency, the National DetectiveBureau of Columbus had been pursuing the same
men and were investigating break ins allover Ohio, including nearby Logan and Chauncey.

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The National Detective Bureaus and an agentto Marietta joined the investigation. The
search had now become a nationwide manhunt, largely in part because of the ability
of the B and O Railroad thatspread the alarm to be on the lookout
for the men. Because Once theygot away from Marietta, they could board
a train in nearly any city andtravel anywhere in the country. About a
night or two after this, aguy shows up on Omaha, Nebraska with

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a gunshot wound, and so theythink, oh, this is one of
the guys, and they're kind ofholding him. What turns out this guy
wasn't one of the guys. Hehad actually shot a police officer in Chicago
almost the exact same night. Butit was just so dumb, But so
they figured out it's not it's theone that shot the officer in The officer
in Chicago lived. But eventually theseguys make it back to Ashland, Kentucky,

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where they're from. They end upsplitting up about Athens. After they
stole a car. They stole horsesand were riding away in horses and then
got on board a milk truck andhitched a ride that way until they winter
separate direction. They eventually captured abouta month later down Ashland, Kentucky,
where they were from. So thetwo men that killed him, one was

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a Robert Red Cornett and the otherone's name was W. W. Callding
Jack Young. They go to trial. Cornett goes to trial first, and
he's insistent that I'm a break inguy. I didn't do the shooting.
Jack shot him. He gets convicteda second degree murder. But you know

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we were there that night. Itwas us, but I didn't shoot him.
Jack Young gets up and testifies thatno, I've been running liquor over
in West Virginia. I didn't havenothing to do with this. But he's
got the other guy point now hisfingers, saying he's the one of the
trigger man. So he ends upgetting convicted of first degree murder. Cornett,
of course, being cooperative, getssent to the State Farm, which

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is penitentiary farm out in London,Ohio, and London, Ohio is also
where BCI and I is located BureauCriminal Investigation for Ohio. He ends up
getting a job with BCI and Ianalyzing fingerprints in the lab. Cornett claims
he has turned over a new leafand starts lobbing for an early release.

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He is now working with and fourlaw enforcement officers and earns the respects of
several of them. He sends lettersto the police chief like talking about how
good a guy I am. Now, So there's his letter. This is
dated nineteen thirty two, basically talkingabout and from what I get it looks
like there was there's an officer Kellythat worked there for thirty five years or

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so. Looks like maybe officer Kellywent up to BCI and learned fingerprinting and
must have worked with him. Kellyis actually, incidentally one of the officers
that was there the night Boyd gotkilled, was one of the first officers
on scene. He ends up workingwith them. So in nineteen thirty five
he comes up for parole, andhis first parole hearing, of course,

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all of Marietta is up in arms. They send in letters, they submit
letters to the state, and hisparole gets denied. A year later,
he gets paroled, and nobody inMarietta knows about it. Almost the exact
same day that Boyd was actually theexact same day Boyd was killed, as
the day Marietta finds out he's beenlet go three days earlier. He is

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engraved. Let me see how theylet me read this and see how they
worded it. Basically that he wasin grave danger of death and he's getting
ready to die at any minute.On December tenth, nineteen thirty six,
Cornette was given his freedom on sickleave, and the prison report says that
he was an imminent danger of death. Oddly enough, officers from the Hamilton

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Police Department in the state BC officialsvouched for Cornett as someone who has turned
his life around. So he getsout there and early thirty seven goes right
back to his life of crime,joins up with a gang. Did they
end up going around doing this kindof stuff again until they get cornered up

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in Springfield, Ohio and at ahouse. And in that house they ended
up being a shootout and two morelaw enforcement officers are killed. A deputy
chief and a police officer get killedin that shootout. Red Cornett is killed
in the shootout. The Marietta newspaperproclaimed that Cornett, who should have never
been released on parole, had dieda rat's death. The other three men

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who killed the policeman in Springfield,Ohio went to the electric chair two years
later. It was a historic momentfor a father and son to be executed
on the same day. The othermurderer of Officer Boyd had already been served
justice years earlier. Jack Young getsto prison. Within a year, he
breaks out with a guy name PatMcDermott and Pat McDermott was a hitman who

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committed a famous murder up in Akron, I believe, where he killed a
newspaper editor who was reporting on theorganized crime and the police's involvement. So
he kills this guy. They endup breaking out of prison within you know,
within a year being there. Butthey break out in the middle of
a gigantic snowstorm from the High StatePenitentiary. The two escape, He's nearly

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freeze to death before being captured inour return to the prison located in Columbus,
But in nineteen thirty a major firebroke out into prison in which over
three hundred inmates died. Most ofthe inmates died in their locked cells,
but Jack Young was able to escapethe initial fire. However, Jack Young
died a week later from complication fromsmoke inhalation. Closing the chapter of the

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murder of Mariet Patroman Harrison Boyd,I would like to thank Area had a
Place Captain Aaron Needith for join usin this podcast today and join us next
time as we discuss more crimes ofthe Midehigh Valley. The Violence in the

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Valley podcast has been brought to youby Interstate Insurance. Three Generations of insurance
Excellence. For even more details,get a copy of the book at Amazon
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