Hello, my name is Maria. Welcome to my website and message forum about the Charlie Lawson Family Massacre. The story you are about to read is a true story. It is a terrible story. It is a story that should never have happened. But it did.
On Christmas Day, 1929, respected tobacco farmer Charlie Lawson shot his wife and six of his children, then turned the gun on himself in one of the most brutal murder-suicides in Southern history. Why would a family man commit such a horrific act? Well, Charlie took his reasons to the grave, but his crime has since sparked numerous controversies, generational family feuds, ghost stories, murder ballads, even a tourist attraction and traveling fair exhibits. On friday afternoon, December 27th, the funeral for the Lawson family was held in Browder Cemetery less than a mile from the Lawson home where the murders took place. News accounts differ as to the number of people who attended the funeral. One account, the Landmark in Statesville, North Carolina has it as 1,500. The Bee in Danville, Virginia has it at five thousand. And to quote a later article by that same newspaper "During the day it is estimated that ten thousand people truged through the ice and the slush to visit the scene, passing before the open caskets and gazing on the mutilated features of some of the members who had been shot through the skull and then clubbed." The Danbury Reporter in it's article on New Year's day 1930 said, and I quote: "Lawson had prepared himself and completed the details leading up to the tragedy with the coolness and acumen of the mind of Edgar Allen Poe in writing a story of the RUE MORGUE". These murders occured in the rural community of Germanton in Stokes County, North Carolina. See the six original crime scene photos of the bloody murders below as well as a pen and ink drawing of the Lawson family home made especally for me by my friend Will Huneycutt. We hope you will join our Message Forum about the murders where you will learn much much more about that terrible Christmas Day of so long ago. In 2006 a Documentary was made of this tragedy by Matt Hodges and Eric Calhoun at Break of Dawn Productions,LTD. A link is provided below for information about this Documentary, the people who made the Documentary, and where you can purchase the DVD called A CHRISTMAS FAMILY TRAGEDY.
CHARLIE LAWSON MESSAGE FORUM
BREAK OF DAWN PRODUCTIONS
SEVERAL PAGES OF PHOTOS COMING SOON
10. REVISITING A NORTH CAROLINA TRAGEDY
11. NEWS PAPER STORY OF THE LAWSON MURDER DOCUMENTARY A CHRISTMAS FAMILY TRAGEDY
12. A SECOND NEWS PAPER STORY OF THE DOCUMENTARY
13. LISTEN TO A RADIO BROADCAST WITH THE DOCUMENTARY'S DIRECTOR MATT HODGES
ALL MATERIAL AND PHOTOS ON THIS WEBSITE ARE COPYRIGHT BY MARIA C. HODGES © AND AS SUCH MAY NOT BE USED IN ANY FORM BY ANYONE WITHOUT EXPRESS AND WRITTEN PERMISSION BY THE OWNER. | | | | | |
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