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IT1 HINGED FROM TREE IND BODY BURNED
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Mob Outwits Guards and
Drags Wounded Slayer
From Cot.
OOO SEE CRIME
Salisbury (Md.) Negro
Slew Lumberman, Then
Shot Himself.
SALISBURY, Md., Dec. 4.— With parade, rope and fire, Salisbury executed judgment tonight on Matt Williams, 35-year-old Negro murderer.
Four hours after he killed his employer, Williams was dragged from a hospital, paraded through the streets by an incensed mob and hanged irom a tree in front of Wicomico county Courthouse.
Later, the body was saturated ¦with gasoline and burned before a crowd of 3000 men and women amid curses and cries of approval. First Lynching in Years. . It was the first lynching in Maryland in 20 years.
Williams murdered, Daniel J. Elliott, 67-year-old lumber dealer, to culminate a long grudge over wages, police say.
After shooting Elliott, the killer tried to commit suicide, but inflicted only a slight wound on the temple. He was shot again in trying to escape and placed under guard in Peninsula General Hospital.
* 300 Men in Mob.
The mob, numbering about 300, formed in the center of the town and marched on the hospital at 8 P. M.
By tricking the guards, the mob spirited the suspect from his cot. He was swathed in bandages which blindfolded him and almost concealed his face.
The mob paraded the struggling suspect through Salisbury's main street three blocks to the Courthouse. There, on a small green in front of the entrance, they hanged him from a limb of a tall maple tree. He was left hanging there 20 minutes.
Then the body was cut down, carried two squares to a vacant lot and burned.
Williams had been employed by Elliott for more than eight years. Ee-cently he had complained about wages. His grudge spurred him to action today, police say, and at 4 P. M. he entered his employer's office and shot him through the back of the head and then turned the gun on himself.
Son Finds Victim.
The lumberman's son, Daniel, Jr., 30, ran to the office to find his father slumped in the chair, the Negro groaning on the floor. He carried his father to an automobile and sent him to a hospital.
Beturning to the office, young Elliott eaw Williams staggering through a lumber yard which adjoined the office. Picking up the pistol from the floor where Williams left it, Elliott gave chase and fired once, the bullet striking the fugitive in the head and felling him.
He was taken to the hospital under guard of Deputy Sheriff Don Park and Police Chief N. H. Holland.
State's Attorney Levin C. Bailey, who took a statement frbm Williams at the hospital, said the Negro told him Elliott had been "robbing him" by paying him only 15 cents an hour.
About 7 P. M. the mob started forming in Main st. in front of the Wicomico Hotel, its members talking in low tones. A half hour later the de-cision was made and the mob tsrted for the hospital.
Guards Outwitted.
While the two guards were parleying with the main mob at the front door of the hospital a smaller group sneaked in the rear and dragged Williams out, his head and face covered with bandages.
The guards made no attempt to halt the parade, headed by the struggling Williams and his brawny captors. Nothing was said until the
Continued on Page 12, Column 3.
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