Local Connection to 1920s Manhunt Made Mt. Pleasant Times Headlines

Editor’s Note: This story was compiled from 1924–1926 newspaper accounts in the Mt. Pleasant Daily Times, Fort Worth Press, Wichita Daily Times, Brownsville Herald and Houston Post, with additional biographical and family information from Find a Grave.

Above Photo:
HIDING IN THE McINTOSH MOUNTAINS — The Houston Post-Dispatch reported on Dec. 8, 1924, that fugitives Will and Babe Lawrence were hiding in a cave in the McIntosh Mountains, about 30 miles from Muskogee, Oklahoma. The newspaper said Bill’s sweetheart, Billie Woods, was with them and described the rugged mountain country as a haven for moonshiners where officers faced difficult terrain and armed inhabitants. The brothers were reportedly making a living by selling moonshine whiskey while they remained in hiding. This artistic re-creation depicts how the Lawrence brothers and Woods may have appeared at their mountain hideout

From The East Texas Journal

By Sam Ferguson

CAMP COUNTY, TEXAS- The Lawrence brothers’ outlaw fable stretched from Oklahoma and Texas to Montana and Arizona, but for a few days in January 1925 it centered on the roads around Mt. Pleasant. Sheriff Sam Hess and other local officers chased reports from Cypress Creek to Pittsburg and Douglassville while residents waited to see whether two nationally hunted fugitives had come home.

The brothers escaped the local search and were captured weeks later in Arizona, but the Mt. Pleasant Daily Times left behind one particularly intriguing piece of local history: its report that Will and Babe Lawrence were not strangers passing through Northeast Texas. According to the Mt. Pleasant Daily Times, “The Lawrence boys were reared near Newsome, in Camp county.”

In January 1925, two of the most wanted men in the Southwest were reportedly back in Northeast Texas. Will and “Babe” had been fugitives for seven months, wanted in connection with the killing of an Oklahoma deputy sheriff Joe Morgan near Fort Worth when word reached Mt. Pleasant that the brothers had been seen in the area. Sheriff Sam Hess began searching for them, contacting neighboring officers and following reports of a suspicious automobile through the countryside.

The newspaper reported on Jan. 16 that Will and Babe Lawrence were believed to be traveling north in a red Nash with a trunk attached to the rear.

Hess and his deputies drove south, going as far as Cypress Creek before turning their attention toward Pittsburg.

The following morning, a car matching the description stopped at a Mt. Pleasant garage for oil.

The garage man told Hess that the automobile had come from the direction of Mt. Vernon. An hour later word arrived that a suspicious car had been stopped at Douglassville. Hess and Deputy Barto Hammond headed for Douglassville.

The two men held there were not the Lawrence brothers. But another car had passed through an hour earlier. Two men and a woman were inside. The car had come through the country north of Pittsburg, crossed Morris County and headed toward Naples. If it was the Lawrences, they had slipped away again.

The Daily Times reported something more startling: Will Lawrence had reportedly been seen in Mt. Pleasant the previous Saturday but had not been recognized at the time. A woman was said to have been helping the brothers evade officers. The newspaper said the brothers had been in the area “for some time.” The newspaper referred to the brothers as having “returned home.”

Later family information identifies them as William Andrew Francis Laurence and Albert Beauregard “Babe” Laurence—the family spelling apparently being Laurence, although newspapers almost universally called them Lawrence. William was born in Muskogee, Oklahoma, on Jan. 11, 1899, and Albert in Muskogee County on March 28, 1905. Exactly when or for how long the family may have lived near Newsome wasn’t reported.

Will was the older and more experienced of the two. Oklahoma prison records say he left home at about 13 and was in serious trouble as a teenager. In 1916 he was convicted of grand larceny in Muskogee County. He stole sugar from a freight train and served time in the Oklahoma State Penitentiary. He was described as a mechanic and farmer when freed from prison he married Nellie England. Their child died Nov. 9, 1923, and his wife two days later.

Babe, six years younger, reportedly looked up to his older brother and followed him into crime. Both were said to have been good mechanics.

By 1924 the brothers were traveling together. They stole a Muskogee County automobile assigned to Deputy Sheriff Joe Morgan and headed into Texas. Contemporary accounts say they were arrested in West Texas and held for Oklahoma authorities.

Morgan and Deputy John Barger came to Texas to return them to Muskogee. On June 16, 1924, while traveling near Fort Worth, the prisoners turned on the officers. Morgan was shot and killed Barger was overpowered and handcuffed to a tree, and the brothers escaped in the automobile. Newspapers disagree over which brother fired the fatal shot. Oklahoma’s governor offered a $500 reward for their capture.

National Man Hunt Begins

The killing of Morgan turned the Lawrence brothers into nationally hunted fugitives. For months they remained ahead of officers. A December 1924 Houston Post-Dispatch story reported that they were hiding in a cave in the McIntosh Mountains about 30 miles from Muskogee. The newspaper portrayed the rugged country as a refuge where armed men watched the trails and where the brothers could remain concealed. Will’s sweetheart, identified as Billie Woods, was reportedly with them for part of their flight. Other accounts indicate the brothers traveled far beyond Oklahoma and Texas. During August 1924 they were linked to the killing of lawman Charles Wilson at Livingston, Montana, after Wilson encountered them around a railroad yard.

Items connected with the murder of Deputy Morgan were reportedly left behind, helping authorities connect the fugitives to the Montana crime. The Find a Grave accounts likewise describe the brothers traveling through several states after Morgan’s killing and identify the Livingston encounter as another killing attributed to them.

When news of their return to Newsome made national news, the following day’s Daily Times headline—“Captured Men Were Not the Lawrence Brothers”—shows how seriously the report was taken. The search attracted considerable attention around Mt. Pleasant while officers followed reports through Pittsburg, Douglassville, Morris County and Naples.

The trail disappeared, and within weeks the brothers surfaced more than a thousand miles away.

Accused killing in Arizona

On February 5, 1925, policeman Haze Burch encountered the brothers while they were apparently siphoning gasoline from an automobile. A later account by the Phoenix Law Enforcement Association, drawing on the history of the department, states that Burch began handcuffing Babe when Will produced a .44-caliber pistol and opened fire. Burch was struck and mortally wounded. He remained conscious long enough to provide information about his attackers before dying. The brothers fled, but this time their escape was short. They were captured near Tempe and taken into custody. Fearing that an angry crowd might storm the Phoenix jail, authorities moved them to the Arizona State Penitentiary at Florence.

News of their capture quickly reached Mt. Pleasant. On Feb. 11 the Mt. Pleasant Daily Times reminded readers that Will and Babe had reportedly been in this area only about four weeks earlier and that local officers had searched for them. The paper again stated that the brothers had been seen near Newsome following Morgan’s killing. Their brief appearance in Northeast Texas was part of a larger story involving three states, dead officers and a manhunt cited in Texas news clippings from Fort Worth to Houston

Will Lawrence went on trial in Phoenix for the murder of Haze Burch. On March 28, 1925, a jury found him guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced him to death. Lawrence denied killing Burch. He was hanged at the Arizona State Prison in Florence on Jan. 8, 1926. The rope remains in the Pinal County Historical Museum in Florence. His body was returned to Muskogee for burial beside his wife and infant daughter.

Babe’s story continued much longer.

Texas authorities sought his return after the Arizona proceedings to face charges arising from the Morgan killing and the robbery of Deputy Barger. The family account states that he was returned to Texas, convicted and imprisoned, but was released after serving about ten years. He remained in Texas after his release, living for a time in the Houston area. His mother, Lucy, and surviving brother George later moved to Harris County. Lucy was living with Albert when she died in 1954. Albert Beauregard “Babe” Laurence died at Coldspring, Texas, on Dec. 17, 1977, at the age of 72 and was buried in San Augustine County.

Discrepancy Begs a Question

Whether or not it’s reasonable, the spelling of the name on the tombstone of a man hanged and then buried alongside his wife and infant child at Greenhill Cemetery in Muskogee leaves a shadow of doubt over this story of the brothers said to have grown up in Camp County.

News accounts favored “Lawrence” in headlines following the fugitives leading the manhunt.

That Oklahoma tombstone spells it “Laurence,” leaving the matter hanging.