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Published Friday, September 02, 2011 in Local

Photo by Winston Skinner

Author Dot Moore holds a copy of Margaret Anne Barnes’ “Murder In Coweta County” aloft while speaking about her own book, “No Remorse,” in the Coweta County Courthouse courtroom on Wednesday.

Was it murder in Meriwether County? Author Dot Moore promotes new book

By Winston Skinner

The Newnan Times-Herald

Dot Moore -- who has written books about Mayhayley Lancaster and John Wallace -- says she believes the most famous murder in Coweta County history took place somewhere else.

"He had killed William Turner. He never denied it. He said he killed him accidentally down in Meriwether County," Moore said Wednesday. "I stand before you and say, I believe that."

Moore was in Newnan to promote her latest book, "No Remorse," which is about Wallace, on Wednesday. She autographed books for lines of fans at Scott's Bookstore for two hours and then spoke for about 40 minutes in the upper floor courtroom of the Coweta County Courthouse.

Moore's talk was in the room where Lancaster, a fortune teller from Heard County, testified against Wallace, who was charged with murdering a farmhand, in 1948. At times, she gestured around the room as she talked about the trial.

She also brought a display case of items that belonged to Wallace, including his pistol, Bible and pocket watch as well as a tie made for him by his wife.

Moore praised "Murder In Coweta County," the book by Coweta native Margaret Anne Barnes that reignited interest in the 1948 murder and trial. Speaking to a crowd of about 80, Moore talked about her own first book, the award-winning "Oracle of the Ages," that told Lancaster's story, as well as about "No Remorse."

Moore said she and a friend decided to write "a book about Mayhayley Lancaster" in 1976 "out of pure boredom." Someone told her a book had already been written about Lancaster and referred her to Barnes' best-seller.

Moore said Barnes' book tells the story of the trial, while her books focus on the lives of two of the protagonists in "Murder in Coweta County."

"Oracle" won the Lilla Hawes Award from the Georgia Historical Society, which Moore said helped sales tremendously. "People are still buying it," she said, noting that hardbacks of "Oracle" are becoming scarce. The book is also available in paperback.

"There's a chapter on John Wallace in it," she said.

"No Remorse" "is not about the trial of John Wallace," Moore said. "It is not. This is a biography of John Wallace."

In addition to Barnes' conclusion about the location of Turner's death, Moore disagreed with a comment in "Murder" that states "his father deserted his mother," she said. "At the time, that didn't sit right with me."

Moore's intuition turned out to be correct. Welsey Wallace -- his first name is often misspelled as "Wesley" -- was in fact a prominent community leader and farmer in Chambers County, Ala., who died unexpectedly. Moore wrote about the roots of the Wallace family there and about the Barrow family, the family of John Wallace's paternal grandmother.

"No Remorse" also relates what Moore discovered about the Stricklands and Davises, ancestors of Wallace's mother, Myrt Strickland Wallace.

Welsey Wallace was "a very prominent man," Moore said.

He had, however, "borrowed money for his farm," Moore said. He died on July 23, "which is layby time -- when you haven't made the money for your cotton," she added. "It left his wife destitute. It left his son, John Wallace, humiliated."

After a time, Myrt Wallace got some help from her father, who helped clear up debts left by Welsey. Myrt and her children -- John and his older sister, Jean -- moved to the Strickland home in Meriwether County.

Soon after, Myrt Wallace began buying land in Texas -- something her son also did. Mother and son "went back and forth from Meriwether County to their property in Texas," Moore said.

The land was on the Rio Grande River. "There you would raise crops just by putting the seeds in the ground," Moore said.

By then, land in Meriwether County and Coweta County had been farmed to the point that it took much labor to farm. Land that had once produced two bales of cotton to an acre per year now yielded half a bale.

Myrt Wallace's father -- and many other relatives -- lived around White Sulphur Springs, a Meriwether County hamlet, "just north of Chipley, which you probably know as Pine Mountain, the home of Callaway Gardens," Moore said.

Many of the Stricklands had "great skill at making whiskey," which Moore described as "the cash crop."

At one point, "they were making whiskey by the trainload," she said. A train would stop and pick up 10-gallon milk cans filled with moonshine -- which would be taken as far away as Chicago.

Wallace learned his family's skills "at making great amounts of whiskey" and eventually served two terms in prison for bootlegging.

As a young man, Wallace studied at Gordon College and at Young Harris College. He served briefly in the military and became ill during the influenza epidemic of 1918.

He then came home, living for several years in "a tiny house" with his mother, Moore said.

At age 36 Wallace met 19-year-old Josephine Leath. "She came up there supposedly because she was not well," Moore said.

She was the daughter of a Florida judge who was a native of Harris County. The Floridian and Wallace had mutual relatives, and they married in the hotel at White Sulphur Springs on New Year's Eve 1931. They "had a beautiful wedding," Moore said.

Moore said she deliberately did not write a lot about Josephine Wallace, though she does remember her.

"I tried hard to write the book about him. It is not about his wife. It is not about his mother. It is not about the three accomplices who were with him" in 1948, she said.

William Turner came to work for Wallace, "saw the beautiful farm," Moore said, and aspired to have what Wallace had.

Wallace had a fierce temper. "When he got mad, he hit you. He shot you. He drowned you," Moore said. "Turner made the mistake of coming up against John Wallace, and he paid the price for it."

Moore noted two of Wallace's accomplices were sentenced to life in prison.

Two black men, Robert Lee Gates and Albert Brooks, testified against Wallace.

"His lawyers had never seen" Brooks and Gates until they were brought into court, Moore said. "They didn't even know who they were."

The Wallace trial drew such broad attention partly because the witness of two black men "convicted a white man," she said.

Yet, Albert Brooks later described Wallace as "the finest man he ever knew," Moore said. "It's a complex story."

Even the legendary determination of Coweta County Sheriff Lamar Potts to solve the Turner murder case and prosecute Wallace had its nuances. "Lamar Potts and John Wallace were friends. I have a long letter from Lamar Potts," Moore said.

Though Wallace was often described as wealthy, when the successful dairyman came to trial, "he didn't have any money," Moore said.

"He lived in a very simple house. He never had a telephone."

Like his father, Wallace had mortgaged his land.

"His beloved Jean was picking up the bills" as Wallace's trial and appeals progressed, Moore said.

Wallace was sentenced on June 14, 1948.

The next month, an auction of his property was held.

"The lake had been drained, and there were dead fish in it. They sold everything because they needed the money. They got $17,000," Moore said.

Wallace was executed in 1950.

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