I've always thought that the father sent his son away so as to leave an heir. Someone to continue his family name. This is the only thing that makes any sense to me. He could easily have just allowed his son to take the lead while out on that hunt and shot him from behind. I don't think this man was capable of any mercy or good intentions. His reason for leaving his son alive was pure ego.
He had to have planned this out. There are too many signs. He should have just taken out a large life insurance policy and done it to himself far enough away and made it look accidental. The mother was only 37 and could have remarried, she’d be able to keep or sell the farm and have life insurance benefits from him. Her eldest children were almost old enough to be independent enough to contribute to the family at that time in that day. They’d probably go on to marry and help support their younger siblings until they were of age, or until the mother remarried. You’re right, it’s pure ego. I think of the one surviving son; he’d have been left to find everyone in that condition, and then to suffer survivors guilt, and to always wonder why he was spared and how he could possibly have saved them.
I have grown up in NC my entire life, and so have my grandparents and other family members. My grandpa was born in 1919 and his parents were friends with the Lawson's (especially the mom) because their property was next to the Lawsons. Christmas morning when this tragedy happened my grandpa remembers going outside and hearing gunshots. He didn't realize until days following that day he was actually hearing the murders. It was common for young kids to fire their new guns Christmas morning, so my grandpa didn't think much of it initially.
The first book ever published about this event is called "White Christmas, Bloody Christmas". A second book, "The Meaning of Our Tears" was published a few years after the first book and both by the same authors. The second book goes into a lot more detail. More interviews with the few remaning family members. I have both books. Charlie told the family on Christmas Eve that they were going into town and he had a surprise for them. When they got to town, he told them to go pick out a nice outfit for Christmas and he wanted to get a picture of everyone in their new clothes. Everyone was so excited. This is why this is the only known picture of the family together. The next day, Christmas, Charlie set out with his plan. It is assumed the reason Charlie sent Arthur off is because Arthur was bigger than Charlie and he would have stopped Charlie from doing this to the family. So as soon as Arthur was gone, Charlie started the killing. When the two girls, Carrie and Maybell, walked past the tobacco barn on their way to visit with their Uncle next door, Charlie stepped out and shot both of them. He then dragged them into the tobacco barn and laid both girls out with their hands crossed and a rock under their head for a pillow. He then walked up to the house where his wife was on the porch. He shot and killed her. Marie was putting the finishing touches on a raisin cake she had made. When she heard the shot, she ran outside and saw her Mother laying dead on the porch with Charlie standing over her. Charlie then raised his gun and shot Marie. The two little boys had only heard the shots but with Marie screaming, both boys tried to find a place to hide. One hid under the bed and Charlie found him right away. The other little boy hid behind the stove. Charlie had a little difficulty getting him out from behind the stove but he finally was successful. The last one was the baby which he beat in the head with the butt of his rifle. Charlie did not drag all the bodies to the tobacco barn as the narrator here stated. The next sentence here explains what he did to the bodies where they laid as they died. After Charlie had laid everyone out with their hands crossing their body and a pillow under their head, Charlie headed for the woods next to his house. He sat down next to a tree along with his dog, and stayed like that for hours. Then he would get up and walk around the tree. It is said he left a trail where he went around and around the tree. The family was supposed to be going to visit Charlie's brother who lived next door. Keep in mind this is the country so the next door neighbor was miles apart. When no one showed up, the brother came over to see what was keeping them. This is when he found the wife and daughter on the porch. He walked inside and saw the rest of the family dead. His first thought was an intruder did this. Then in the distance, he heard gunfire. Marion then walked down to the woods in the direction of the sound of the gunfire. There he found Charlie dead from a self inflicted gunshot wound. Charlie had two notes in his pocket for his parents. On the headstone under the parents names is what Charlie wrote in one of his notes. Arthur came up on the scene by now and he was inconsolable. After a few weeks went by, Marion decided to open the home up for paid tours of the house for 25 cents each. The blood was still there along with Marie's raisin cake. As people passed by, they would take a raisin off of the cake for a keepsake. Marion eventually had to put a glass container over the cake to stop people. It is said that a little neighborhood boy was visiting and he actually witnessed Charlie killing everyone. He was hiding but as quick as he could he ran from the house as fast as he could go. Charlie saw him but just let him go as Charlie wanted to finish killing off his family. No one really knows the reason Charlie did this but the family members said Charlie was barely making it. He decided instead of everyone suffering with no food to eat, he would just kill himself and take the family with him. However this is just a guess. Another said it was because Marie was pregnant with Charlie's baby. Again, just a rumor that no one knew for sure. Marie's best friend came out years later and said that Marie had shared with her that she was pregnant with her Dad's child and she was so ashamed and didn't know what she was going to do. Just such a tragic story. I came across this so I thought I would share it. It talks about Marion, Charlie's brother, charging people to visit the crime scene. This makes more sense to me than just thinking Marion was a morbid person. “Charlie Lawson’s brother [Marion Lawson] charged people to go in the house,” historian Kinney Rorrer said. “He charged them a quarter to tour the house.” The money was to go to help the lone survivor, 16-year-old Arthur Lawson, keep the family farm. “I guess Marion, Charlie’s brother, saw an opportunity to help Arthur make ends meet,” local memorabilia collector Aaron Greene said. “I guess looking back you can’t really blame him.” Even after doing this and other ways to help Arthur, he still lost the farm. I did a little research however I wasn't successful in finding the answer in my book to the question about Charlie being buried with the family so I wrote to a man who had just published an article on the family. He is from that area and knew quite a bit about the event. He was so nice to have written me back with a great insite with his answers to my questions. My first question to him was everyone is wondering why Charlie is buried with his family after killing them. Then another question I had was about the store being open on Christmas Day. I had several people comment on that. Then I asked about Marie being pregnant. Here is his reply: I think the answer is that it was just such a different time/era. We today would never think of burying the perpetrator with his victims, but in the Lawsons case the burial plots were donated and I believe that the person who provided the plot made that decision. It's a little like Lee Harvey Oswald being buried in his family plot. And I also understand that the incest element came out later, so people believe that Charlie just went crazy and shot everyone and didn't understand the long-term abuse. And the same goes for the store being open on Christmas Day; it was a general store and because the stores were so few and far between, i am guessing it was open every day. The owners may have lived above the store and opened it as needed. And Christmas being a day off for most folks, men would have been hunting so they were probably needing to sell ammunition for that very reason. So I hope this gives everyone a little more understanding as it did for me.
people had to make ends meet. often those who would shop at the stores had precious little free time to do so. Christmas day would've been one of their very few days off. Stores would obviously remain open to serve their customers when they could actually shop. It's really only in relatively recent times that stores closed for certain holidays. But I can also remember a time when most stores were closed on Sundays. And how my parents thought it was outrageous when more and more stores remained open on Sundays. It's weird when you think about it. Why should any day be deemed a "closed" or "open" day?
Charlie Lawson was my great grandmother’s second cousin. When I was a kid, my great grandmother took me to where the homestead was and I used to go with her every year to put flowers on the graves.
@@schrisdellopoulos9244 Farm Families... (Being of one myself)... Are VERY close with their extended families, well into the 2nd and 3rd cousin areas, which they tend GREATLY to treat as FIRST cousins and even SIBLINGS... You egotistical jackass...
EXCELLENT TELLING OF THE STORY! I'm actually from the town of Walnut Cove - where Arthur went on errands. This is still a MASSIVE big deal in our town - you will probably never meet a person who has lived there more than a year who doesn't know about all this. So some cool history for you: The house got town down pretty recently and a bridge going over one of the rivers. It was a pretty big thing for teenagers to go there - and supposedly if you stopped your car and turned off your headlights you'd see him walking past with his gun. Granted, I don't know if I believe that part, but that's what was said. Since then, the original house and the bridge has been torn down and is on private property now and they are NOT very keen on having people on their property. Personally, I believe the head injury the most. I know it was said that there didn't seem to be any abnormalities in the brain, but because of the time period they could have missed a lot of things that we would catch today. It's also sometimes said that the family member who brought up the alleged assaults was a bit of an attention-seeker. Once again, I'm not sure if that's true or not. I know a few churches around still have a remembrance for them around Christmas time, and I know some of the older families will make a cake similar to what the family planned to eat in remembrance of them. Finally, a lot of people used to visit the graves as well, bringing flowers and stuff. But once again, security has tightened somewhat (I'm not sure if it's still las tight as it used to) because of people vandalizing the graves (which, wtf people?) and trying to hold seances - which, I'm sorry people. That's tacky. Don't hold seances in graveyards. And that's extra tidbits of history/possible giant rumors/known gigantic rumors from a local.
I find it strange he ‘spared’ his eldest son. Anyone who could kill two terrified toddlers and bludgeon a helpless baby, is not going to ‘spare’ anyone. I also don’t believe the ‘leave an heir’ explanation. That would be the action of a ‘rational’ man and whoever did this was a million miles from rational or sane
Am I the only one frustrated at the fact that Charles’s brother made a museum out of his family’s massacre? Have to be sick to use your dead family for a profit 😡. Rest In Peace to the Lawson family, they did not deserve what happened to them
Someone in the comments said they wrote to an author of 2 books on this case & they said it was to raise money for the surviving son to keep the farm, which he did but then subsequently lost it anyway.
@@nicoleono3981 Oh so you wouldn’t mind being buried next to the person who ended your life brutally without any mercy? Thats disrespectful for the victims u fk asshole ❤
As to the daughter's pregancy, it may be that was purely rumor, but if a post-mortem did show a pregnancy that might very well have been suppressed to 'save her shame'.
He thought it better to wipe out his entire family. Then to have it known his 17 year old daughter was pregnant & he was the father! I will never understand how a father could do this to his own child! Men are supposed to be the protectors of their family, not betray everything it means to be a father!
If you look closely at the photo, it does look like Marie is pregnant. And I'm sure he sent his son away because he knew he was the only one that had a chance of stopping him. So sad. God rest their souls
She does. As a L&D nurse I can tell pregnant women from non-pregnant, just big bellies, by the sides of their face and their hands and arms. If those don't have excess fat, they are pregnant.
Both Fannie and Marie said she was pregnant. There was a guy named Russell Simmons did the same thing in 1987, killing his family over the course of a couple of days. The reason was that he was having a sexual relationship with daughter that resulted in a child. He was eventually executed. Lawson would have been, if he had not shot himself. Some people are just evil.
@@MKCarol-ms7lg I'm 27 weeks pregnant and I'm terrified of having a nurse like you. I've had a belly my entire life, as has every single woman on both sides of my family, going back as far as the early 1900s, when we have pictures. None of us have skinny arms or legs. We all have round faces, many with double chins. I have already experienced tremendous weight discrimination in my life from medical professionals who don't understand metabolism, genetics, or epigenetics. I wonder what you would say if you looked at me, what erroneous assumptions you would make about my pregnancy.
I remember hearing this on the My Favorite Murder podcast. Someone wrote in saying that their family kept a raisin in a display because their family member took a raisin from the cake. Grim souvenir.
Such a horrifying and sad crime. Reminds me of the Amityville murders. Marie told a close friend that her father would do some killing if she ever told her mother and she did and that's what led to the massacre. So sad. Thanks for the video. Great voice.
Why would a man do this? Makes no sense since he was having success with farming. A head injury might have caused a rage disorder. But not the careful planning, portrait and shopping for clothes.
Maybe I’m way off with this theory but what if baby Mary-Lou is actually Marie’s baby, not Fannie’s? We heard that Fannie confided in another family member about the incestuous relationship between father & daughter 12 months earlier. Timing roughly matches for the pregnancy & age of Mary-Lou. We can see in the photo that Marie appears to be pregnant & looks to be close with her brother (hands are touching). Could Arthur be the father of Marie’s unborn child? Perhaps Charles discovered this relationship & to punish Arthur, murdered the entire family & left him alive to see his mother & siblings horrifically murdered. Someone in the comments mentioned the positioning of Marie in the photo, standing alongside her father in the middle of the photo. It certainly seems that Charles sees Marie in a wifely role, with his actual wife standing at the side in a position that implies she’s an offsider. This last photo could have been orchestrated by Charles as a reminder for Arthur of his father’s domination and destruction of his family. Could be a stretch of the imagination but worth consideration.
@@YouAreASadStrangeMan Because these modern text writing apps don't give us the opportunity of what WOULD be correct in this instance: an italicization or an underscore.
Ma'am; you'll never know how much I truly appreciate you for all your hard work and dedication narrating all your videos. My father passed away on March 4th and he was my very best friend. I have a question I'd like to ask, who is the gentleman in the photograph at 13.21 kneeling down by the caskets?
He clearly spared his son, as he could have easily taken him out first while they were hunting together; or he could have hid and waited until he returned and take him out then. I think the other commenter who says he spared him to leave an heir is correct.
Both are possible. Arthur returned after the bodies were discovered. I've always been curious as to where the tree was located compared to the route Arthur would take to return home.
People will probably always be interested in, and/or fascinated by, cases like this one. Obviously something went dreadfully wrong for a man, (and father), to become so murderous. I think you did a good job on this video and I'm looking forward to watching more of your content now that I've subscribed to your channel. Wishing you a happy and healthy new year.
Thank you for the content, I find it much more pleasing than a lot of other providers. I think your scripts could use with bit of a finer edit though, just to have it read more smoothly. It’s still great content. :)
I am here because I just found out I am a relative of the wife. She and my great grandmother were cousins, born within a couple of years of each other. This is not something ever mentioned by my family. I did know my great grandmother but she passed away when I was very Young.
I may be dumb (actually I am but ya know) if a video has been demonetized won't it just get demonetized again, or has it been edited? I guess you won't know if it's been edited.
@Cuntycunterson from what I understand YT demonetized the original video, so it was re-uploaded (presumably to monetize it) so, again presumably, if it is re-uploaded in its original form it will get demonetized again... Therefore the uploader hasn't achieved anything. If it has been edited to get around the issue of demonetization it would be nice to know what the issue was. I am writing this half distracted so apologies if its rambling and incoherent.
Oh my goodness. My maternal family ( and my maiden) name is Lawson. I've never heard this story. I'm sure my family is not direct decendants of this family but it was so creepy coming across this story while searching for something else.
I often wonder why these evil criminals are generally called "nuts" or "crazy", It seems obvious to me that they are evil because they are possessed by evil spirits or fallen angels. Also having sex with his daughter is an evil act.
Thanks for another fascinating video! I could listen to you read a phone book. @😁 (Does anyone still know what a phone book is???) Things I wonder about... 1. It was the Grest Depression, and I wonder if he'd gotten news about losing the place (foreclosure) or something. When I heard that they bought the place in 1928, my heart sank. 2. Did I hear that the dad left a couple of letters? I wonder what they contain regarding his reasons for killing his family. Does anyone know? There have been so many well-informed comments here - I figure if anyone knows, they certainly must be here.
I personally believe he meant to leave an "heir". I don't know a single full grown man who is scared of a 16 year old, no matter how big they are. Perhaps he knew something about the boy that he found utterly pure, and he couldn't harm him? Else he might have desired to keep his bloodline "around". Either way, killing the boy wouldn't have been hard, particularly if he went after him first, which would be the natural order of one was plotting this madness.
It could be as simple as the fact this was his first son, born while things were still good in his marriage and life. Arthur was taller and better looking than his father and there is often a favorite child. Arthur may have been his fathers.
This has the makings of an exceptional southern gothic book. Rural isolation, nihilism, sin and retribution. I wonder if anyone has written a fictional account. Great job on the presentation!
My theory is the father knew his daughter's pregnancy would reveal his incest, and that would destroy his good name & respect in the community forever. I also suspect he might have molested his other daughters, after all he was into incest & sexual abuse. The daughters look terrified in the family photo, esp the eldest. Horrific story. RIP
I think He did impregnate His daughter..I also believe Charlie Wade Hampton (Her boyfriend) was aware of the situation and was going to elope with Her that Christmas Day
Might have been the kind of old timey general store where the proprietor lives above or behind the shop and comes out to serve you and theen gets on with their life back at home.
There is no mystery. The father is a narcissist who believed that he had ownership of his family and could do whatever. Well, the daughter told someone and it got back to the father, so he just killed everyone that knew what he did, or at least he thought so
This wasn't a common practice then and no one would have been anxious to confirm the pregnancy of an unwed 17 year old dead girl. Such things weren't discussed then and they wouldn't have seen any reason to do that.
I was wondering why the youngest member of the family was murdered. Usually with family slayings at least the youngest survives because they can't tell anyone what happened. However in the conext of the eldest daughter being pregnant with her father's child it makes more sense. He was venting his frustrations on it...
I live about 10 miles from the murder scene. Interesting note: in this area, Charlie Lawson has kinda replaced the Boogeyman. Instead of parents telling their children to behave, lest the Boogeyman comes, a lot of times it's Charlie Lawson's ghost that's gonna come. Especially with the older generations.
Tells you a lot about the family when the survivors of the extended family open the Macabre scene up to the public for money. In that day and time that would have been considered incredibly shameful for the entire community
Yes for the family and immediate community it would have been shameful but macabre tourism has aaaaaaaaaalways been a thing and many many people made good money shilling horrific crimes. People were hella weird back then (and now tbh) and would make pilgrimages to see hangings and notorious crime scenes and would even steal bits and bobs from the scene or sell souvenirs. I recently read a book called The Invention of Murder and the author talks a lot about this kind of thing in the context of Georgian and Victorian England- at times it’s pretty absurd but was astoundingly common. People loved hanging out and making a picnic out of seeing public hangings too- how they didn’t see that as grotesque I will never know.
People are morbid, and were a different kind of morbid back then. Look up photos of Bonnie and Clyde’s car after they were shot. There are tons of souvenir hunters swarming the car and they tried to cut off Clyde’s ear and finger and they did cut off parts of Bonnie’s dress and pieces of her hair. It’s so creepy.
Oddly enough, this happened quite a bit - people opening up crime scenes to the public and charging for admission. The neighbors probably did not like it, but it wasn’t seen as “shameful” as you would think of now.
He definitely spared the oldest son bc of some "carrying on the name/'legacy'" patriarchal bs and it's so UUUUGH it's so WEIRD and grosses me out so much.
Ooh 😮 I remember this one ! The twist is that he turns out to be - quite in spite of the headline showcased in the thumbnail - all too sane ! 🤷♂️ Aaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!!! 😱 The Horror! The Horror!
Autopsies weren't common in rural areas in the 1920s and no one would have been in a hurry to "shame" a dead unwed 17 year old girl by confirming her pregnancy.
Correction here: he laid the two girls in the barn with their heads lying on rocks, but left the other bodies in the house with their heads laying on pillows. And he placed the baby in the mother's arms.
I live about 30 minutes from the town One of my childhood friends is a Lawson and use to talk about the murders he even had pictures and clothes from his ancestors
Only 2 of the girls were found in the barn. The rest of the family were found in the front room of the house. Also, Arthur did not find them. He was in Germanton with his cousin Sanders and someone went and got them. Charlie's brother Elijah and his son Claude found the family when they went by for a visit after rabbit hunting.
You can clearly see that the daughter is pregnant in that family photo, so I don't think it was just a rumor. Plus it was validated by several people close to the family.
Just look at the unusual positioning of the people in this haunting portrait . . . wife and teenage daughter’s positions would normally be opposite to what they are. I can just imagine the photographer grouping them the normal way and the husband switching the women, leading to the extremely tense facial expressions of the mother and two oldest siblings. The brother undoubtedly knew what was going on too. His arm is protectively against his sister’s, hand just barely touching hers for moral support. Look at that beautiful young woman’s face and tell me she is not dying inside. I am certain she is at that early stage of pregnancy where you just look boxy. Her sweater/blouse/dress is pulling over her front. Father sent oldest brother away because that strapping youth is already bigger than he is and would be the only real threat to successfully carrying out his evil plan. Awful story. 💔
That was truly a wicked occurrence! He might have been a prideful man whose family would have been brought to shame by his doing...one way or t other.🤔
They are, but the entire family is squeezed together in the shot. It looks to me like Arthur is leaning his weight on the chair rather than trying to be supportive of his sister.
My name is mr.johnson and I know that mental illness can take a deadly turn if not treated suicide is terrible and if you know anyone suffering from that they need help asap like right now😢mr.lawson needed to enter a mental hospital for treatment and for raping his own daughter and she got pregnant I wonder if the daughter would had lived would she have kept her baby or a broader it but the coroner that worked on that daughters body knew she was pregnant if they gave her a autopsy in 1929 if anyone reads this info if you are struggling with mental illness or suicide please get help there are people in this world that still care and do care and also there is one spirit that cares about you and his name is Jesus christ😂❤❤❤❤
Farming families did well if they could find a balance between mouths to feed and optimal workforce size. More kids equals more workforce. Why do you think slavery was so popular in farming communities?
Incomprehensible. Only one of his actions could be considered logical. Like alot of commenters say here. He let the eldest son live to leave an heir. But wtf possessed him to kill anyone at all?? Why not just off himself if life was so intolerable? This was obviously carefully planned out. I wouldn't have been surprised if they found a pentagram in the barn and 4 goats hanging from the rafters. All those kids. What a horrible shame. I guess, hard as it is, there simply is no easily identifiable reason. Probably the scariest thing. Totally random madness. You can't defend yourself from that. Thanks DC🙏💔🦌😟
9:10 wait...didn't he kill himself with a shotgun in the woods? Question 2: how else do you commit suicide with a shoti if not in the head, can't shoot yourself in the chest¿ 3: How do you perform an autopsy on the brain of this kind of victim? I'm sure he didn't have any brains left
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I've always thought that the father sent his son away so as to leave an heir. Someone to continue his family name. This is the only thing that makes any sense to me. He could easily have just allowed his son to take the lead while out on that hunt and shot him from behind. I don't think this man was capable of any mercy or good intentions. His reason for leaving his son alive was pure ego.
I always thought the same thing, nothing else really makes any sense
Yeah. Spot on
He had opportunity, twice, before he left and when he got back
I agree cos if he was afraid the son would fight him then all he had to do was shoot him first,
He had to have planned this out. There are too many signs. He should have just taken out a large life insurance policy and done it to himself far enough away and made it look accidental.
The mother was only 37 and could have remarried, she’d be able to keep or sell the farm and have life insurance benefits from him.
Her eldest children were almost old enough to be independent enough to contribute to the family at that time in that day. They’d probably go on to marry and help support their younger siblings until they were of age, or until the mother remarried. You’re right, it’s pure ego.
I think of the one surviving son; he’d have been left to find everyone in that condition, and then to suffer survivors guilt, and to always wonder why he was spared and how he could possibly have saved them.
I never thought of that. Makes sense.
I have grown up in NC my entire life, and so have my grandparents and other family members. My grandpa was born in 1919 and his parents were friends with the Lawson's (especially the mom) because their property was next to the Lawsons. Christmas morning when this tragedy happened my grandpa remembers going outside and hearing gunshots. He didn't realize until days following that day he was actually hearing the murders. It was common for young kids to fire their new guns Christmas morning, so my grandpa didn't think much of it initially.
The first book ever published about this event is called "White Christmas, Bloody Christmas". A second book, "The Meaning of Our Tears" was published a few years after the first book and both by the same authors. The second book goes into a lot more detail. More interviews with the few remaning family members. I have both books.
Charlie told the family on Christmas Eve that they were going into town and he had a surprise for them. When they got to town, he told them to go pick out a nice outfit for Christmas and he wanted to get a picture of everyone in their new clothes. Everyone was so excited. This is why this is the only known picture of the family together. The next day, Christmas, Charlie set out with his plan. It is assumed the reason Charlie sent Arthur off is because Arthur was bigger than Charlie and he would have stopped Charlie from doing this to the family. So as soon as Arthur was gone, Charlie started the killing. When the two girls, Carrie and Maybell, walked past the tobacco barn on their way to visit with their Uncle next door, Charlie stepped out and shot both of them. He then dragged them into the tobacco barn and laid both girls out with their hands crossed and a rock under their head for a pillow. He then walked up to the house where his wife was on the porch. He shot and killed her. Marie was putting the finishing touches on a raisin cake she had made. When she heard the shot, she ran outside and saw her Mother laying dead on the porch with Charlie standing over her. Charlie then raised his gun and shot Marie. The two little boys had only heard the shots but with Marie screaming, both boys tried to find a place to hide. One hid under the bed and Charlie found him right away. The other little boy hid behind the stove. Charlie had a little difficulty getting him out from behind the stove but he finally was successful. The last one was the baby which he beat in the head with the butt of his rifle. Charlie did not drag all the bodies to the tobacco barn as the narrator here stated. The next sentence here explains what he did to the bodies where they laid as they died. After Charlie had laid everyone out with their hands crossing their body and a pillow under their head, Charlie headed for the woods next to his house. He sat down next to a tree along with his dog, and stayed like that for hours. Then he would get up and walk around the tree. It is said he left a trail where he went around and around the tree.
The family was supposed to be going to visit Charlie's brother who lived next door. Keep in mind this is the country so the next door neighbor was miles apart. When no one showed up, the brother came over to see what was keeping them. This is when he found the wife and daughter on the porch. He walked inside and saw the rest of the family dead. His first thought was an intruder did this. Then in the distance, he heard gunfire. Marion then walked down to the woods in the direction of the sound of the gunfire. There he found Charlie dead from a self inflicted gunshot wound. Charlie had two notes in his pocket for his parents. On the headstone under the parents names is what Charlie wrote in one of his notes. Arthur came up on the scene by now and he was inconsolable. After a few weeks went by, Marion decided to open the home up for paid tours of the house for 25 cents each. The blood was still there along with Marie's raisin cake. As people passed by, they would take a raisin off of the cake for a keepsake. Marion eventually had to put a glass container over the cake to stop people.
It is said that a little neighborhood boy was visiting and he actually witnessed Charlie killing everyone. He was hiding but as quick as he could he ran from the house as fast as he could go. Charlie saw him but just let him go as Charlie wanted to finish killing off his family. No one really knows the reason Charlie did this but the family members said Charlie was barely making it. He decided instead of everyone suffering with no food to eat, he would just kill himself and take the family with him. However this is just a guess. Another said it was because Marie was pregnant with Charlie's baby. Again, just a rumor that no one knew for sure. Marie's best friend came out years later and said that Marie had shared with her that she was pregnant with her Dad's child and she was so ashamed and didn't know what she was going to do. Just such a tragic story.
I came across this so I thought I would share it. It talks about Marion, Charlie's brother, charging people to visit the crime scene. This makes more sense to me than just thinking Marion was a morbid person. “Charlie Lawson’s brother [Marion Lawson] charged people to go in the house,” historian Kinney Rorrer said. “He charged them a quarter to tour the house.” The money was to go to help the lone survivor, 16-year-old Arthur Lawson, keep the family farm. “I guess Marion, Charlie’s brother, saw an opportunity to help Arthur make ends meet,” local memorabilia collector Aaron Greene said. “I guess looking back you can’t really blame him.” Even after doing this and other ways to help Arthur, he still lost the farm.
I did a little research however I wasn't successful in finding the answer in my book to the question about Charlie being buried with the family so I wrote to a man who had just published an article on the family. He is from that area and knew quite a bit about the event. He was so nice to have written me back with a great insite with his answers to my questions. My first question to him was everyone is wondering why Charlie is buried with his family after killing them. Then another question I had was about the store being open on Christmas Day. I had several people comment on that. Then I asked about Marie being pregnant. Here is his reply:
I think the answer is that it was just such a different time/era. We today would never think of burying the perpetrator with his victims, but in the Lawsons case the burial plots were donated and I believe that the person who provided the plot made that decision. It's a little like Lee Harvey Oswald being buried in his family plot. And I also understand that the incest element came out later, so people believe that Charlie just went crazy and shot everyone and didn't understand the long-term abuse. And the same goes for the store being open on Christmas Day; it was a general store and because the stores were so few and far between, i am guessing it was open every day. The owners may have lived above the store and opened it as needed. And Christmas being a day off for most folks, men would have been hunting so they were probably needing to sell ammunition for that very reason.
So I hope this gives everyone a little more understanding as it did for me.
Well somebody got the daughter pregnant, certainly looks pregnant.
thank you SO MUCH for writing this all out and including what the man wrote back to you. i appreciate this, have a good day!
Thank you for all these extra details, they give us more context
people had to make ends meet. often those who would shop at the stores had precious little free time to do so. Christmas day would've been one of their very few days off. Stores would obviously remain open to serve their customers when they could actually shop. It's really only in relatively recent times that stores closed for certain holidays. But I can also remember a time when most stores were closed on Sundays. And how my parents thought it was outrageous when more and more stores remained open on Sundays. It's weird when you think about it. Why should any day be deemed a "closed" or "open" day?
I ain’t reading allat😹😹😹💯💀❗️💯😹💀
Charlie Lawson was my great grandmother’s second cousin. When I was a kid, my great grandmother took me to where the homestead was and I used to go with her every year to put flowers on the graves.
Yeah, Arthur was my aunt's second cousin twice removed. That makes you once remover from reality.
@@schrisdellopoulos9244 Farm Families... (Being of one myself)... Are VERY close with their extended families, well into the 2nd and 3rd cousin areas, which they tend GREATLY to treat as FIRST cousins and even SIBLINGS... You egotistical jackass...
EXCELLENT TELLING OF THE STORY!
I'm actually from the town of Walnut Cove - where Arthur went on errands. This is still a MASSIVE big deal in our town - you will probably never meet a person who has lived there more than a year who doesn't know about all this. So some cool history for you:
The house got town down pretty recently and a bridge going over one of the rivers. It was a pretty big thing for teenagers to go there - and supposedly if you stopped your car and turned off your headlights you'd see him walking past with his gun. Granted, I don't know if I believe that part, but that's what was said. Since then, the original house and the bridge has been torn down and is on private property now and they are NOT very keen on having people on their property.
Personally, I believe the head injury the most. I know it was said that there didn't seem to be any abnormalities in the brain, but because of the time period they could have missed a lot of things that we would catch today. It's also sometimes said that the family member who brought up the alleged assaults was a bit of an attention-seeker. Once again, I'm not sure if that's true or not.
I know a few churches around still have a remembrance for them around Christmas time, and I know some of the older families will make a cake similar to what the family planned to eat in remembrance of them.
Finally, a lot of people used to visit the graves as well, bringing flowers and stuff. But once again, security has tightened somewhat (I'm not sure if it's still las tight as it used to) because of people vandalizing the graves (which, wtf people?) and trying to hold seances - which, I'm sorry people. That's tacky. Don't hold seances in graveyards.
And that's extra tidbits of history/possible giant rumors/known gigantic rumors from a local.
I find it strange he ‘spared’ his eldest son. Anyone who could kill two terrified toddlers and bludgeon a helpless baby, is not going to ‘spare’ anyone. I also don’t believe the ‘leave an heir’ explanation. That would be the action of a ‘rational’ man and whoever did this was a million miles from rational or sane
Am I the only one frustrated at the fact that Charles’s brother made a museum out of his family’s massacre? Have to be sick to use your dead family for a profit 😡. Rest In Peace to the Lawson family, they did not deserve what happened to them
Someone in the comments said they wrote to an author of 2 books on this case & they said it was to raise money for the surviving son to keep the farm, which he did but then subsequently lost it anyway.
I find it horrible that Father and the murderer is buried with his victims
Why? They are all dead, he can't kill them again lol people are so weird about dead bodies 🙄
@@nicoleono3981 Oh so you wouldn’t mind being buried next to the person who ended your life brutally without any mercy? Thats disrespectful for the victims u fk asshole ❤
No, it’s that he KILLED these people. Why should he deserve to be remembered with them
@@nicoleono3981You could learn a thing or two about respect
@@Frdrck2.0 just a weird thing to be worried about, imo 🤷
As to the daughter's pregancy, it may be that was purely rumor, but if a post-mortem did show a pregnancy that might very well have been suppressed to 'save her shame'.
He thought it better to wipe out his entire family. Then to have it known his 17 year old daughter was pregnant & he was the father!
I will never understand how a father could do this to his own child!
Men are supposed to be the protectors of their family, not betray everything it means to be a father!
@@truthylucy7068 Men’s first and only love is their penis. They’re that way until their last breath.
@@truthylucy7068 to TWO of his own ..
@@arock7462Two? The worst type of betrayal upon your own (child)ren. You're parents are the ones that are meant to protect you!
@@truthylucy7068 she was (presumably) pregnant with HIS child. +1
If you look closely at the photo, it does look like Marie is pregnant. And I'm sure he sent his son away because he knew he was the only one that had a chance of stopping him. So sad. God rest their souls
She does. As a L&D nurse I can tell pregnant women from non-pregnant, just big bellies, by the sides of their face and their hands and arms. If those don't have excess fat, they are pregnant.
Both Fannie and Marie said she was pregnant. There was a guy named Russell Simmons did the same thing in 1987, killing his family over the course of a couple of days. The reason was that he was having a sexual relationship with daughter that resulted in a child. He was eventually executed. Lawson would have been, if he had not shot himself. Some people are just evil.
@@MKCarol-ms7lg 🙄
She also looks disgusted, frightened or apprehensive while standing next to her psycho father who has a really creepy smile.
@@MKCarol-ms7lg I'm 27 weeks pregnant and I'm terrified of having a nurse like you. I've had a belly my entire life, as has every single woman on both sides of my family, going back as far as the early 1900s, when we have pictures. None of us have skinny arms or legs. We all have round faces, many with double chins. I have already experienced tremendous weight discrimination in my life from medical professionals who don't understand metabolism, genetics, or epigenetics.
I wonder what you would say if you looked at me, what erroneous assumptions you would make about my pregnancy.
I remember hearing this on the My Favorite Murder podcast. Someone wrote in saying that their family kept a raisin in a display because their family member took a raisin from the cake. Grim souvenir.
I remember watching this one recently and it was a horrifying event. Love your channel.
in the photo, they all look very sad.
Such a horrifying and sad crime. Reminds me of the Amityville murders. Marie told a close friend that her father would do some killing if she ever told her mother and she did and that's what led to the massacre. So sad. Thanks for the video. Great voice.
I could legit listen to you talk forever. 😍👍
Why would a man do this? Makes no sense since he was having success with farming. A head injury might have caused a rage disorder. But not the careful planning, portrait and shopping for clothes.
it is believed that he was possessed by a demon or something
You told this story incredibly well. Thanks for the great video!
Maybe I’m way off with this theory but what if baby Mary-Lou is actually Marie’s baby, not Fannie’s? We heard that Fannie confided in another family member about the incestuous relationship between father & daughter 12 months earlier. Timing roughly matches for the pregnancy & age of Mary-Lou.
We can see in the photo that Marie appears to be pregnant & looks to be close with her brother (hands are touching). Could Arthur be the father of Marie’s unborn child? Perhaps Charles discovered this relationship & to punish Arthur, murdered the entire family & left him alive to see his mother & siblings horrifically murdered. Someone in the comments mentioned the positioning of Marie in the photo, standing alongside her father in the middle of the photo. It certainly seems that Charles sees Marie in a wifely role, with his actual wife standing at the side in a position that implies she’s an offsider. This last photo could have been orchestrated by Charles as a reminder for Arthur of his father’s domination and destruction of his family.
Could be a stretch of the imagination but worth consideration.
Even if the father was NOT the father of Marie's baby, there still would have been plenty of shame attached to an unwed mother back then.
why is "not" capitalized?
@@YouAreASadStrangeMan Because these modern text writing apps don't give us the opportunity of what WOULD be correct in this instance: an italicization or an underscore.
Ma'am; you'll never know how much I truly appreciate you for all your hard work and dedication narrating all your videos. My father passed away on March 4th and he was my very best friend. I have a question I'd like to ask, who is the gentleman in the photograph at 13.21 kneeling down by the caskets?
Great video! However, just wanted to let you know either the picture at 0:51 the names and ages of Carrie and Maybell are switched
He clearly spared his son, as he could have easily taken him out first while they were hunting together; or he could have hid and waited until he returned and take him out then. I think the other commenter who says he spared him to leave an heir is correct.
Both are possible. Arthur returned after the bodies were discovered. I've always been curious as to where the tree was located compared to the route Arthur would take to return home.
spared him
or
was worried Arthur could stop him
People will probably always be interested in, and/or fascinated by, cases like this one. Obviously something went dreadfully wrong for a man, (and father), to become so murderous.
I think you did a good job on this video and I'm looking forward to watching more of your content now that I've subscribed to your channel.
Wishing you a happy and healthy new year.
Great Work /Video as usual!
Thanks again!
👍💯👍
Proud to say that the man who walked in on the massacre remains was my great grandpa. Odd and strange flex, ik.
You know it's the olden days when raisins are so treasured.
On a cake no less, I can remember eating them when I was a youngster now I can't even stand looking at um..
Thank you for the content, I find it much more pleasing than a lot of other providers. I think your scripts could
use with bit of a finer edit though, just to have it read more smoothly. It’s still great content. :)
I am here because I just found out I am a relative of the wife. She and my great grandmother were cousins, born within a couple of years of each other. This is not something ever mentioned by my family. I did know my great grandmother but she passed away when I was very Young.
Video has been re-uploaded due to demonetization. It's in the description.
I may be dumb (actually I am but ya know) if a video has been demonetized won't it just get demonetized again, or has it been edited? I guess you won't know if it's been edited.
So why would she upload it?
@Cuntycunterson from what I understand YT demonetized the original video, so it was re-uploaded (presumably to monetize it) so, again presumably, if it is re-uploaded in its original form it will get demonetized again... Therefore the uploader hasn't achieved anything. If it has been edited to get around the issue of demonetization it would be nice to know what the issue was. I am writing this half distracted so apologies if its rambling and incoherent.
I grew up not 10 minutes from this place... it is still talked about locally, even though the house is no longer there...
I grew up nine minutes from the place.
@@schrisdellopoulos9244 ;-0
@jaderavenwolf6137its not. People lie over the internet.
I could listen to you talk for hours 💕
Agreed. I moss her sisters uploads because they sound so similar.
Oh my goodness. My maternal family ( and my maiden) name is Lawson. I've never heard this story. I'm sure my family is not direct decendants of this family but it was so creepy coming across this story while searching for something else.
What a disgusting situation. Got his own daughter pregnant, killed his whole family.
Nuts
I often wonder why these evil criminals are generally called "nuts" or "crazy", It seems obvious to me that they are evil because they are possessed by evil spirits or fallen angels. Also having sex with his daughter is an evil act.
@@MKCarol-ms7lg nonsense- you are taking the blame away from the criminal and assigning blame to some demon? Grow up.
@@MKCarol-ms7lg get your head out of the bible and read a science book. You're touched.
Thanks for another fascinating video! I could listen to you read a phone book. @😁 (Does anyone still know what a phone book is???)
Things I wonder about...
1. It was the Grest Depression, and I wonder if he'd gotten news about losing the place (foreclosure) or something. When I heard that they bought the place in 1928, my heart sank.
2. Did I hear that the dad left a couple of letters? I wonder what they contain regarding his reasons for killing his family. Does anyone know? There have been so many well-informed comments here - I figure if anyone knows, they certainly must be here.
I read that he delusionally thought he was SAVING them by killing them...idk...incest...pedophilia...who knows but charlie n Jesus
You have the best channel.
He spared the boy, he could have dispatched him first while hunting that day.
As soon as they say raisins I always think of olden days
I personally believe he meant to leave an "heir". I don't know a single full grown man who is scared of a 16 year old, no matter how big they are. Perhaps he knew something about the boy that he found utterly pure, and he couldn't harm him? Else he might have desired to keep his bloodline "around". Either way, killing the boy wouldn't have been hard, particularly if he went after him first, which would be the natural order of one was plotting this madness.
It could be as simple as the fact this was his first son, born while things were still good in his marriage and life. Arthur was taller and better looking than his father and there is often a favorite child. Arthur may have been his fathers.
Great work ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Didn't you cover this case a while back?
That's what i thought as well.
@@seandelap8587the video had been removed due to demonetization
This sounds eerily familiar - like the Bain murders in New Zealand in the 1990s....
Is it just me because i could have swore you covered this already.
I think the same thing🤔
Yep same story.
I thought so too but it's a tragic story that is heavily reported.
Good wishes.
That's exactly what I said to myself as well 🧐
Same lol
Such a tragedy
This has the makings of an exceptional southern gothic book. Rural isolation, nihilism, sin and retribution. I wonder if anyone has written a fictional account.
Great job on the presentation!
My theory is the father knew his daughter's pregnancy would reveal his incest, and that would destroy his good name & respect in the community forever. I also suspect he might have molested his other daughters, after all he was into incest & sexual abuse. The daughters look terrified in the family photo, esp the eldest. Horrific story. RIP
I think He did impregnate His daughter..I also believe Charlie Wade Hampton (Her boyfriend) was aware of the situation and was going to elope with Her that Christmas Day
Boy life was Hell before cable and Roku
What stores were open on Christmas in small town NC back in 1929?
Might have been the kind of old timey general store where the proprietor lives above or behind the shop and comes out to serve you and theen gets on with their life back at home.
Excellent account, Well done !
I would probably go nuts too if someone in my house put raisins on a cake.
1929 was the great stock market crash that started the depression and ruined many families. Has anyone explored that angle of it?
First the Valentine’s Day massacre now I’m hearing about this? Sounds like 1929 was pretty fk’d up
There is no mystery. The father is a narcissist who believed that he had ownership of his family and could do whatever. Well, the daughter told someone and it got back to the father, so he just killed everyone that knew what he did, or at least he thought so
Not a loving family they were cold hearted no love probably the grand parents fault very sad a beauiful family
Didn’t they do an autopsy of the daughter? Surely they would of found the baby? Or am I missing something
There was no autopsy of anyone but Charlie..
This wasn't a common practice then and no one would have been anxious to confirm the pregnancy of an unwed 17 year old dead girl. Such things weren't discussed then and they wouldn't have seen any reason to do that.
I was wondering why the youngest member of the family was murdered. Usually with family slayings at least the youngest survives because they can't tell anyone what happened. However in the conext of the eldest daughter being pregnant with her father's child it makes more sense. He was venting his frustrations on it...
What became of the dog??
I was so sure this case had already been covered here....🤔
reuploaded because it was demonotized
Maybe her sister, Kirsty Skye, covered it?
I live about 10 miles from the murder scene. Interesting note: in this area, Charlie Lawson has kinda replaced the Boogeyman. Instead of parents telling their children to behave, lest the Boogeyman comes, a lot of times it's Charlie Lawson's ghost that's gonna come. Especially with the older generations.
What if the son did it and used the story as his dad sending him into town to have a cover story . Who's to say it didn't happen before the son left?
Tells you a lot about the family when the survivors of the extended family open the Macabre scene up to the public for money. In that day and time that would have been considered incredibly shameful for the entire community
Yes for the family and immediate community it would have been shameful but macabre tourism has aaaaaaaaaalways been a thing and many many people made good money shilling horrific crimes. People were hella weird back then (and now tbh) and would make pilgrimages to see hangings and notorious crime scenes and would even steal bits and bobs from the scene or sell souvenirs. I recently read a book called The Invention of Murder and the author talks a lot about this kind of thing in the context of Georgian and Victorian England- at times it’s pretty absurd but was astoundingly common. People loved hanging out and making a picnic out of seeing public hangings too- how they didn’t see that as grotesque I will never know.
The Uncle opened the house up to help out the son who was struggling making ends meet.
People are morbid, and were a different kind of morbid back then. Look up photos of Bonnie and Clyde’s car after they were shot. There are tons of souvenir hunters swarming the car and they tried to cut off Clyde’s ear and finger and they did cut off parts of Bonnie’s dress and pieces of her hair. It’s so creepy.
Oddly enough, this happened quite a bit - people opening up crime scenes to the public and charging for admission. The neighbors probably did not like it, but it wasn’t seen as “shameful” as you would think of now.
Apparently they were flat broke but still.... Ugh.
Were autopsies done? Perhaps the bodies should be exhumed for further investigation.
Only Charlie
Marie does look miserable in that picture. Also, her belly seems prominent... you can see where her dress tightens around it.
He definitely spared the oldest son bc of some "carrying on the name/'legacy'" patriarchal bs and it's so UUUUGH it's so WEIRD and grosses me out so much.
Patriarchal 🙄
How is that weird and gross ? To spare one person .
Ooh 😮 I remember this one !
The twist is that he turns out to be - quite in spite of the headline showcased in the thumbnail - all too sane ! 🤷♂️
Aaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!!! 😱 The Horror! The Horror!
I wonder if an autopsy was performed on Marie, revealing a pregnancy?
Autopsies weren't common in rural areas in the 1920s and no one would have been in a hurry to "shame" a dead unwed 17 year old girl by confirming her pregnancy.
Correction here: he laid the two girls in the barn with their heads lying on rocks, but left the other bodies in the house with their heads laying on pillows. And he placed the baby in the mother's arms.
I live about 30 minutes from the town One of my childhood friends is a Lawson and use to talk about the murders he even had pictures and clothes from his ancestors
Only 2 of the girls were found in the barn. The rest of the family were found in the front room of the house. Also, Arthur did not find them. He was in Germanton with his cousin Sanders and someone went and got them. Charlie's brother Elijah and his son Claude found the family when they went by for a visit after rabbit hunting.
so tragic & 😈 Evil. ... what trauma Arthur experienced.
You can clearly see that the daughter is pregnant in that family photo, so I don't think it was just a rumor. Plus it was validated by several people close to the family.
I'll say the one thing that struck me is the scowl on the daughters face. She _does not_ look happy. 🤔
There exists a song based on this, called the Murder of the Lawson family
Rip 🙏 to the wife and children. As for the father what an evil man
Truly May He take the slow agonizing fall to Hell...
bro cant fight his son💀
It was called demonic possession for Charles. Finished watching the Netflix show 28 days and it was surreal!
He sent the son away because he would have been able to stop him from killing the whole family.
Family annihilator. I wonder who was the first.
Good evening and thank-you
Greetings!
@@janetcw9808 Hey 👋🏽💕 there buddy 🙂
Just look at the unusual positioning of the people in this haunting portrait . . . wife and teenage daughter’s positions would normally be opposite to what they are. I can just imagine the photographer grouping them the normal way and the husband switching the women, leading to the extremely tense facial expressions of the mother and two oldest siblings. The brother undoubtedly knew what was going on too. His arm is protectively against his sister’s, hand just barely touching hers for moral support. Look at that beautiful young woman’s face and tell me she is not dying inside. I am certain she is at that early stage of pregnancy where you just look boxy. Her sweater/blouse/dress is pulling over her front. Father sent oldest brother away because that strapping youth is already bigger than he is and would be the only real threat to successfully carrying out his evil plan. Awful story. 💔
That's true about the positioning - normally the parents would be in the center with children on either side or in front.
Very interesting story and very sad… may they all rip🙏🏼❤️
Anyone else wonder if a rival tabocconist did it? Makes more sense and they wouldn't have the tools back then to investigate it properly.
Did you miss the father, the killer, potentially impregnating his daughter?
Mayhem in farmer John country.
That was truly a wicked occurrence!
He might have been a prideful man whose family would have been brought to shame by his doing...one way or t other.🤔
It's known that troubles can cause was shown in 28 days haunted
Is it just me or is Arthur and Marie slightly grazing hands?
They are, but the entire family is squeezed together in the shot. It looks to me like Arthur is leaning his weight on the chair rather than trying to be supportive of his sister.
I love the narration and the soundtrack.
I wonder why he bludgeoned the poor baby. Why not only shooting? 😢
Why would he kill his own wife and family 😡 what a coward 😤.
Just saw this on 28 days haunted on netflix sad 😢 what made him snap and do this
I wonder if any little girls are still named Maybell today...?
The son died in a car accident in 1945.
I live in a town 20 minutes away
Careful, the bullsh!t in these comments is deep.
My name is mr.johnson and I know that mental illness can take a deadly turn if not treated suicide is terrible and if you know anyone suffering from that they need help asap like right now😢mr.lawson needed to enter a mental hospital for treatment and for raping his own daughter and she got pregnant I wonder if the daughter would had lived would she have kept her baby or a broader it but the coroner that worked on that daughters body knew she was pregnant if they gave her a autopsy in 1929 if anyone reads this info if you are struggling with mental illness or suicide please get help there are people in this world that still care and do care and also there is one spirit that cares about you and his name is Jesus christ😂❤❤❤❤
Farming families did well if they could find a balance between mouths to feed and optimal workforce size. More kids equals more workforce. Why do you think slavery was so popular in farming communities?
Your statement contradicts itself. Slaves were still “mouths to feed.”
Thought I seen this already on ur channel.
it was reuploaded because it was demonotized
Shame on the mess.
I wonder who mothered the 4 month old- mother or daughter
Incomprehensible. Only one of his actions could be considered logical. Like alot of commenters say here. He let the eldest son live to leave an heir. But wtf possessed him to kill anyone at all?? Why not just off himself if life was so intolerable? This was obviously carefully planned out. I wouldn't have been surprised if they found a pentagram in the barn and 4 goats hanging from the rafters. All those kids. What a horrible shame. I guess, hard as it is, there simply is no easily identifiable reason. Probably the scariest thing. Totally random madness. You can't defend yourself from that. Thanks DC🙏💔🦌😟
5:19 it looks like theres an apparition of a little boy, no?
No. Let the kid rest.
9:10 wait...didn't he kill himself with a shotgun in the woods?
Question 2: how else do you commit suicide with a shoti if not in the head, can't shoot yourself in the chest¿
3: How do you perform an autopsy on the brain of this kind of victim? I'm sure he didn't have any brains left