Richmond Times-Dispatch April 2, 1933

Search Vain For Robbers Who Kill 4

Mecklenburg and State Officers Seek Bandits Who Murder Family in Raid for $35,000

[Special to the Times-Dispatch]

LACROSSE, April 1 - Mecklenburg County and VA State Police sought apparently vainly for a trail that would lead them to the bandits who last night shot three men to death and tortured a fourth. Finally mortally shooting him also. In a raid on a lonely plantation house near that is believed to have yielded them $35,000 in cash from a battered old-fashined safe.
The four men, two aged brothers and their two nephews, were apparently attacked in cold blood and without warning. Preparatory to a search for money. The dead men are Ben L. Cannon, 77; his brother Willis, 82, who died near Petersburg this afternoon on the way to a Richmond hospital: Thomas W. Cannon, 56, and Bill Cannon, 28.
The aged Willis Cannon was first beaten on the head with a poker in an effort to force him to tell the combination of the safe and then shot.
The most brutal crime in the history of this territory, the slayings of the four men, who lived alone without servants and without woman in the family, had aroused the entire county and neighboring areas to a high pitch of excitement. Local police were aided by a detail sent by T. McCall Frazier, Director of the Division of Motor Vehicles, and by Richmond detectives and finger-print experts. Several persons were being questioned tonight but none was held.
Attacks Came Early
It was believed that the attack came between 7:30 and 8 o’clock last night, this time being determined on the testimony of several persons living near the Cannon house, who said they heard five shots about that time. The shorts came three in quick succession, then two further apart.
It was widely rumored in this territory that the Cannons through distrust of banks, kept a large sum of money in an old, small safe. Rumor said they had as much as $35,000. With the discovery of this crime this morning the safe was found battered with an ax, which lay near-by. The rest of the house had not been touched, only a pillow case was missing. Bed quilts were hung over the windows.
The bodies were found early in the morning by Floyd Williams negro farm hand, when he reported for work. Willis Cannon was still alive at this time buy was unconscious.
Reconstructing the crime, authorities expressed the belief that a gang of men familiar with the county and probably amateur criminals, approached the house by automobile. Ben Cannon is believed to have been first to die. His body was found in the ashpit of a small smokehouse. The bodies of Thomas and Bill Cannon were found on the doorstep of the house, while Willis lay inside near the safe.
The attack is thought to have been made at a signal, one man having approached Ben Cannon on the pretext of buying a ham.
An automobile was reported to have left the vicinity of the Cannon plantation shortly after the time tentatively set for the crime.
State Police Assigned
The house is nearly 100 years old. It is located on the Bracey-Lacrosse Road, three miles from Bracey and eight miles from Lacrosse in a secluded section. It is a five-room building of frame construction.
Mr. Frazier assigned R. A. Bagley South Hill State police officer to the case and sent Sergeants H. D. Lawrence and W. P. Bishop and Inspector C. L. Maynard Special Investigator Larkin Glazebrook from Richmond. Richmond police lent Sergeant john Wright and Sgt. W. A. Toler, finger-print and homicide experts to the case at the request of Sheriff W. R. Beales and Commonwealth’s Attorney F. C. Bedinger. An investigation was conducted this afternoon by Justice of the Peace W. B. Kirkland.
The officers made a close scrutiny of the grounds and building hoping to find some clue to the killers, but up tonight they had not been able to report any success. A coroner’s [Continued on Page four] verdict was death at the hands of unknown persons. Among those questioned but not held was George Heinrich, a negro hand on the Cannon farm for ten years. Several others were quizzed.
The Cannon men were well-liked and respected throughout the county. They conducted a general farming industry and were considered very wealthy by their neighbors. Two years ago their house was broken into and $2,000 stolen from a trunk.
Funeral services will be conducted today at 4 o’clock. Surviving is one brother, Joe Cannon who lives in the neighborhood.