The Legend of the Screaming Ghost of Crawford, Alabama

by M.P. Pellicer | Stranger Than Fiction Stories
When you read a ghost story that was reported over a hundred years ago, some people think it’s just an urban myth that’s been retold when times were simpler, and people were superstitious. Many suspect that it’s either exaggerated or not even true, but that’s not always the case.

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Tuckabatcha Masonic Lodge No. 863, U.S. Hwy 80 & CR 79, Crawford, AL c.1933

Such is the story of the Crawford Ghost, which was reported in the newspapers of the time.

​In October 1850, the town of Crawford, Alabama experienced a terrible storm in the middle of the night. The inhabitants described that amongst the keening of the winds, they started to hear what sounded like a human being moaning as if "in the last agonies of helplessness and despair".  Hunters who lived in the town said this was not the sound any animal would make.

This was the beginning of a haunting that was heard every night, but they could never trace the exact origin of where the sounds were coming from. 

They started to suspect that it was the ghost of a man named Grimes, who had been hung during a violent storm a few years before. When he was imprisoned and sentenced to death, Grimes had threatened that he would return to seek vengeance against his enemies. It was remembered that when infuriated Grimes would just start to scream, resembling what the inhabitants of Crawford were hearing.

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Story about Grimes’ murder c.1841

Grimes was indeed a real person, and this is how he came to his end. It was 1841, and Grimes had just finished a stretch in the Penitentiary at Georgia for assault with intent to kill. During the time of his incarceration, another man named Crowder was publicly talking about Grimes’ imprisonment. When the rumors reached Grimes' ears, he swore revenge. 

He caught up with Crowder in Girard, Alabama. He took a bowie knife, and killed Crowder by plunging it into his heart. He was arrested and subsequently hung in the town of Crawford, where the county seat and courthouse were located.  

Nine years after his execution was when the strange howling started.

The town of Crawford eventually disappeared, as after the 1880 Census it was never listed again, but one has to wonder if the empty buildings were silent sentinels to Grimes screaming in impotence, awaiting his execution.

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The murder of A.R. "Byrd" Lyon in Crawford, Alabama shocked the small town c.1876

Murder most foul did occur once again in Crawford on a Saturday night, November 11, 1876, a few years before it was deserted.

Byrd Lyon was found dead, "assassinated" was the word used. A steel slug hit him in the shoulder from behind and ranged upward. He had gone out to the back yard to draw a bucket of water, when his brother who was inside the house, heard a shot ring out. When he ran outside his brother was dead and no one else was there.

Mr. Lyon was known to be an older man, and two years before he married a young woman. Happiness in the May-December marriage was short-lived and he moved back to his plantation in Crawford shortly after the marriage. His wife stayed in Opelika.

The first arrest was a man named Charles H. Meinika, described as a heavy-set German in his 40s.  His wife was living and working for Mrs. Lyon.

After his arrest he confessed to killing Lyon after being hired by Mrs. Lyon and her mother Mrs. Davis. Later on he would recant that he had been hired by Mrs. Lyon.

The law moved fast in those days and two weeks later Melissa Lyon, and her parents Joseph Davis and Sarah Davis were in court at Crawford implicated in the murder of Byrd Lyon.

Mrs. Lyon was described as a pretty woman with a young child who clung to her skirts. Her appearance "elicited much sympathy from the crowd." 

Only two years before Mr. and Mrs. Davis were mired in another murder case. Their son J.J. Davis was killed in a knife fight with Absalom B. Eiland who ended up being convicted of the murder and sentenced to 20 years in the state penitentiary. Eiland would be given a second trial and acquitted of the murder in 1876.

Meinika would go on to be tried separately, and Melissa J. Lyon and her mother Sarah Davis were tried together.

Meinika's confession detailed where Mrs. Lyon had offered him $500 to kill her husband. She had tried to drug the old man but failed, and now she wanted him out of the way because she wanted to marry a man named Terry.

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Delivery boy for Opelika, AL drugstore c.1914

In February, 1877 Melissa Lyon finally posted bond, and was set free. She had been jailed since November  after being charged as an accessory to murder.

Charles Meinika was convicted of murder in the first degree and sentenced to the penitentiary for life in June, 1877.

Melissa Lyon and her mother were acquitted for lack of evidence.

Meinika who had once served as a steward in the Prussian army during the Franco-Prussian War was given the position of hospital steward at the Pratt Mines, which rented convicts to work for them. In 1889, he took advantage of the liberty he was allowed and escaped. He was tracked through different states and finally apprehended in Missouri.

Prior to her marriage to Byrd Lyon, Melissa married William N. Carlisle on January 8, 1860. The marriage took place at her father's house in Russell, Alabama. They had one child, Alphonso Bernard Carlisle (1864-1923).  By the time she met Mr. Lyon, the marriage had ended.

In July 25, 1878, a year after the court proceedings for the murder of Byrd Lyon,  Melissa Lyon married John Clayton, and she had another son, John D. Clayton born in 1880. What became of Melissa is unknown, however when her son Alphonso Carlisle married in 1901, only his half-brother John Clayton was present and served as best man, so perhaps she and her husband had died.

Did Melissa Lyon contract Charlie Meinika to do away with her husband, or was it her mother Sarah Davis who orchestrated the murder? Melissa was described as being quite beautiful, so what could have induced her to marry a much older man, unless it was financial need?

Any who could answer those questions, took the secret to their graves.

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