Descent into Madness

By M.P. Pellicer | Stranger Than Fiction Stories
It was the day after Christmas, 1929 when newspapers in North Carolina carried the disturbing news of a father who had annihilated his entire family. Sixty years would pass before the motive of this heartless act would be learned.

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This chilling family photo was taken shortly before Charles Lawson, middle right in the back row, massacred his family c.1929

His name was Charles Davis Lawson, and within a day of this horrific crime authorities were trying to understand what caused him to do away with his wife and six children.

Dr. B.J. Helsabeck, the Stokes County coroner removed Mr. Lawson's brain and found no injury on it. This was in answer to the question that he had lost his mind after he suffered a blow to the head. This had been intimated by members of the family, who said that he had accidently struck himself in the head with a mattock about nine months before. The family said that Charles Lawson had been suffering from nervous bouts during the last few months.

​The only thing they found was evidence of a low grade degenerative process in one part of the nervous tissues of the brain.

Dr. Spotwood Taylor a surgeon visiting from John Hopkins hospital assisted in the autopsy. The brain was to sent to John Hopkins hospital in an effort to discover "what type of insanity was responsible for Lawson's actions." Eventually their examination would turn up no abnormality either.

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Lawson family funeral c.1929

Helsabeck besides being the coroner, was the Lawson's family physician. He told news reporters: "I have noted during the past 12 months that Lawson was acting queerly. He had been coming to me with complaints of severe headaches." Whatever the source was for his headaches, an injured brain was not the cause.

Only one son, Arthur had been spared since he was visiting family only two miles away.

The family was buried together on December 17. An 18-foot grave in the Browder family cemetery, off the Danbury-Germanton Road would be the last resting place of the Lawson family.

The coroner issued a short report to the state that there could be no doubt, based on the evidence found on the premises that Lawson was the culprit. The members were found shot or clubbed to death on the farm, located on a high bluff about 4 miles west of Walnut Cove on the Germanton Road.

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Lawson family grave, Browder Cemetery

Lawson was found dead in a little clump of pines about a half mile north of the farm. He used a single gauge shotgun on himself. A note was found in Charles Lawson's coat pocket penciled in his own handwriting which said, "Blame no one but I." One of their two hound dogs, Sam or Queen, uninjured, was keeping watch over the body.

There was evidence that Lawson had paced in circles for some time before killing himself.

​Inside the pocket was also a circular letter received by his wife from a maternity bureau, and $58 in money.

The discovery of the bodies was made by Elijah Lawson, Charles' brother. He opened the door and found five members lying dead in one room. When the coroner arrived an hour later, the bodies were still warm.

​It was found he had used three guns, a single-barrel shotgun, a double barrel shotgun and a 25-20 rifle.

Mrs. Lawson was killed on the porch. It was believed she was holding the baby Mary Lou in her arms, at the time a load of shot hit her in the chest. The baby and two boys James and Raymond, were clubbed to death with the stock and barrel of the double barreled shotgun.

​Marie, 17, was shot in the chest with the double barreled shotgun, and she was probably the first one to be killed.

Lawson took the bodies of five of his family, and placed them in the front room with their hands crossed on their breast. The baby was wrapped in a blanket, and laid in the cradle with crossed hands too.

The girls Carrie, 13, and Maybelle, 10 were fleeing toward a tobacco barn a quarter of a mile away, but were overtaken by their father who shot them in the back. One was killed instantly, and the other one was hit, but didn't die immediately. He finished the job by bludgeoning her.

Both bodies were then dragged inside of the tobacco barn, and laid out in the same manner as the other members.

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Lawson farmhouse, by the time of the murder the cabin had stood for 200 years c.1929

Charlie Lawson was described by his neighbors as a hardworking, prosperous farmer who was good to his wife and children. He started as a tobacco sharecropper, and by 1929 he owned his own land and had most of it paid for. The community was sure he had never touched whiskey, or any other intoxicant.

A week before the tragedy he took the family to take a photograph at a studio in Winston-Salem.

Charles Lawson married Fannie Manring in 1911, and during their 19 year marriage they had produced 8 children. They were Arthur (age 19), Marie (age 17), Carrie (age 12), Maybell (age 7) James (age 4) Raymond, (age 2) and Mary Lou (age 4 months). The family had lost a third son William, born in 1914, who died of penumonia in 1920.

The bodies were held at the Yelton funeral parlor at Madison. Present day it is the Madison Dry Goods Country Store, and a museum has been set up dedicated to the family on the second floor.

The funeral was attended by 1,500 persons. The services were conducted by the elders of the Primitive Baptist faith.

Shortly after their death, Charlie's brother Marion Lawson opened up the farmhouse on Brook Cove Road as an attraction. A cake Marie had made the day of her death was on display, but eventually covered with a cake server since raisins from it were taken as souvenirs. After five years a family member took it, and buried it.

One of those who toured the house, was gangster John Dillinger who had just escaped from prison.

The Murder of the Lawson Family was recorded by the Carolina Buddies for Columbia Records in 1930, and the Stanley Brothers produced their own version in 1956.
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Arthur Lawson the survivor of the massacre was killed in 1945, when he was 31 years old. He died when he drove his truck into an excavation in the Winston-Salem-Walnut Cove Highway, where repairs were being made. He failed to see the  barricade which blocked the passage across the break in the pavement, where the repairs were underway. The truck hurtled off the side of the highway crushing him to death instantly. A passenger riding with him suffered head and internal injuries.

He was buried in the Browder cemetery. He left behind a wife, Nina and four children, Nancy, Patsy, Maybell and James Arthur Lawson Jr. His wife remarried and moved to California.

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The bloodstained interior of the Lawson home c.1929

In 1990, the book White Christmas, Bloody Christmas was published. The author received information from a family member named Stella Lawson Boles (1915-1994), who lived during those days when the family was rocked by the heartbreak of what happened the Christmas season of 1929.

She told the author a story she had known for 60 years. Stella described how on December 27, 1929 the closest family members gathered after the funeral. Nina married to George Lawson, and Ida married to John Lawson and some other ladies, were in a discussion about the murder. This is when 13-year-old Stella joined them, and was shocked by what she heard.

Stella had lost her mother Jettie the year before, and her Aunt Nina had stepped into the mother role with her. When she had grown into adulthood, her aunt passed on the burden of the truth about what motivated the murders.

Nina said that shortly before Christmas, Fannie Lawson had confided in her sister-in-laws with the secret that her daughter Marie was pregnant. Considering Jettie Lawson had died in May, 1928,  indicates that Fannie suspected her daughter was involved in some type of sexual relationship for at least 18 months, however it wasn't until just before their deaths, that she found out Marie was pregnant by her father.

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Lawson tobacco barn c.1929

Fannie was  in a horrible dilemma. She was frightened of her husband who had been acting irrational and violent, and his behavior was tearing the family apart. Marie wanted to leave and marry another man.

Nina asked Stella to keep the secret, which would have added even more scandal to the family if it became known.

Did the doctors conducting the autopsy on Marie fail to realize she was pregnant, which would have been difficult to do since she was about 4 months along, or did they decide to say nothing and omit it from their report? Did they think Marie had a sweetheart, or had Dr. Helsabeck as the family doctor suspected the truth, and decided to spare the family from further heartbreak?

The author published another book in 2006 titled The Meaning of our Tears. In it she describes where Marie Lawson told a close friend, Ella May Johnson just a few weeks before her death that she was pregnant by her father. Fannie Lawson also knew. Many thought that fear of what he had done becoming known, had caused Charlie Lawson to kill his family. Another friend, Sam Hill said he knew the family was experiencing serious problems, but he failed to elaborate what they were. However he did say that Charles Lawson had told Marie that if she told anyone, there would be "some killing done".

The house was demolished many years ago.

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