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Obsessed Loveby Tom Carney "We was just poor working girls. We had got laid off at Margaret Mills and there weren't no work here in town so we caught a freight to Chattanooga to look for work. We spent the night in a boarding house and the next day caught another freight back to Huntsville. While we were on the train these black boys got in a fight with some white boys on the train and threw them off. Then they started waving knives and a gun. There was nine of them and one of them held a gun on me. Anyway, they held us down and took turns ravishing us. I hope they all burn for what they did to me." With these words, Victoria Price and Ruby Bates sat in motion a chain of events that would have worldwide repercussions. The circumstances, known as the "Scottsboro Boys Case," would become the most notorious series of trials ever held in Alabama. By most accounts, Victoria was a good-looking girl. She was raised in the cotton mill villages where she first went to work at the age of thirteen. The victim of a drunken father who beat her mother, Victoria married when she was only fifteen. This marriage didn't last very long once she found out that her new husband was addicted to drinking "canned heat." The second husband, a year later, just kind of drifted away; afterward, she would claim not to know whatever happened to him. By the time Victoria was in her late teens she had become known as a hard- drinking, devil-may-care woman to whom casual sex meant as much as a friendly handshake. Ben Giles, sheriff of Madison County, Ala., would later describe her as a "quiet prostitute who didn't bother nobody, so we didn't bother her much." If Victoria had one weakness, most people would agree it was married men. Single men, she could take her pick of, but a married man was a challenge. It was in early November, 1930, when Victoria first saw Jack Tiller. He was a handsome, well built, hard drinking and hard living guy. He was the type of man that Willie Nelson would sing country ballads about today--and he was also married. ... Within a week they were living together. Both Jack and Victoria had been laid off at Margaret Mills, and in the true American spirit, they decided to open up their own business. The section of the mill village they lived in was known for its gambling dives, houses of prostitution and bootleggers, so it was no surprise to anyone when they opened up their own "shot house." Things seemed to be peaceful for a while until Jack, always a lady's man, began to cast his eyes elsewhere. Coming home one night, under the influence, Jack was met at the door by a screaming Victoria waving a butcher knife. "If I can't have you, no one else will!" Jack settled the argument by locking her in the coal shed until she calmed down. It wasn't long before everyone realized Victoria had met her match. She still liked to drink, raise hell, and even have a couple of sugar daddies on the side, only now she was careful not to let Jack know. One elderly person still living in Huntsville, Ala., recalled, "It was kind of sad. That girl wanted to be in love only she didn't know how. And Jack ... well, he liked her all right, but he liked all the girls all right." With all the screaming and fighting going on, it wasn't long before Jack and Victoria had come under the scrutiny of the Huntsville police department. That fair city was undergoing one of its periodic "cleansings," and the H.P.D., after raiding their home and not finding any evidence of bootlegging or Prostitution, decided to arrest Jack and Victoria on the charges of "Adultery." Jack and Victoria were both given sentences of ninety days "at hard labor." While in jail, Jack befriended a young vagrant by the name Lester Carter. Lester didn't have a girlfriend, so Jack promised to fix him up once they were released. The first night out of jail, Jack and Lester went to call on Victoria. It was obvious Victoria had something else on her mind when, grabbing Jack by the hand, she pulled him into the bedroom, leaving poor Lester to pass the time with her mother. Jack made arrangements for him and Lester to meet Victoria and her friend, Ruby Bates, the next evening at the entrance gate to Margaret Mills and introduce Lester. After stopping at a shot house and having a few drinks, Victoria suggested going someplace where they could have some privacy. Slightly tipsy, the two couples made their way to a group of trees located next to the railroad tracks known to locals as a "hobo jungle." As Lester would later testify, "I hung my hat on a limb and went about having intercourse with Ruby Bates while Jack was doing the same with Victoria Price." During the night, their love making was interrupted by a rain shower. Getting up from the honeysuckle bushes, the four sought shelter in an empty railway car where they continued drinking and carousing. No one knows how the argument began, but sometime during the early morning hours Jack and Victoria got into one their legendary fights. "I'm tired of this whole damn city," Victoria cried. "I'm leaving and if you don't want to come -- the hell with you!" Jack, by now, was tired of arguing. "Go on," he said. "I'll meet you in a few days." After just getting out of jail for adultery, there was no way he was going to cross the state line with her. Victoria was furious. If Jack wasn't coming, she would go by herself, just to prove her point. That afternoon Victoria Price, Ruby Bates and Lester Carter met in the train yards and hopped a freight to Chattanooga, Tenn. As is the case with most people in love, Victoria started missing Jack before they had barely left the Huntsville city limits. They arrived in Chattanooga and after spending a fretful day, Victoria talked Ruby into heading back to Huntsville. As the train approached Paint Rock, Alabama, it began slowing down. Lining the tracks on both sides were armed men, flagging the train down and ordering everybody off. No one can say for certain what was going through the girls' minds, but we can be sure they were aware they were breaking the law and could be arrested for "hoboing" and vagrancy. And Victoria also knew that if she got locked up, Jack might find himself another girlfriend. One of the posse members told the two girls to have a seat under some nearby trees. Sitting there, the girls watched as the armed men took nine black males, who had also been on the train, into custody. A deputy told Victoria there had been a fight on the train, with the blacks throwing a group of white men off. Later, trial testimony would show that when the men finished arresting the prisoners and had secured them by tying them together with a rope, a deputy approached the girls and asked what they were doing on the train. Victoria evaded the question by crying, "It's their fault," while pointing to the black prisoners. "Those boys held me and my friend down and raped us. All nine of them." By the time the truck carrying the prisoners reached Scottsboro, word of the vile accusation had spread like wildfire. Within twenty-four hours the courthouse resembled a military camp, with armed soldiers guarding the entrances and a crowd estimated at ten thousand filling the square. The good citizens of Scottsboro took up a collection and purchased for the girls, who were wearing overalls, new dresses. When the trial was held a few days later, Price and Bates both identified the boys and swore they had been raped. All nine boys were tried and sentenced to death in a matter of hours. The youngest of the boys was only thirteen years old. Within days an appeal on the boys' behalf had been filed. Unfortunately for the accused, the case was about to take on a new dimension. People all across the country had become interested in the case, and offers of help for the defense started pouring in. None of the families of the accused had money to hire lawyers, so the boys were at the mercy of whatever organization that chose to offer help. Although most of the organizations meant well, some of them were not exactly the best choice to represent a defendant in an Alabama courtroom in 1932. It was the most absurd scenario anyone could dream up. Nine black boys on trial for their life in Alabama, accused of raping two white women, represented by a Yankee Jewish lawyer who was being paid by the N.A.A.C.P., and with the backing of the Communist Party. It quickly became a case of Alabama versus the World. "Even if the girls were common prostitutes and even if they were lying," according to one old- timer, "the Blacks, the Jews, and the Communists were still wrong and had no business messing in Alabama affairs." Returning to Huntsville as a martyred woman, Victoria once again set her sights on Jack Tiller, and within a matter of days they were back living together. In May of 1933, Victoria indicated to the lawyers defending the "Scottsboro boys" that she might be willing to change her story if she was induced with "the right price." After much negotiation, two attorneys from New York chartered a plane and flew to Nashville, Tenn. Upon landing, they were arrested by the Nashville police. In their possession was the $1,500.00 they had agreed to pay Victoria for changing her story. At the same time in Huntsville, police arrested J.T. Pearson in connection with the bribery attempt. According to one source, Jack and Victoria had gotten into a big fight when Jack found out about her offer. In an attempt to pacify Jack, and at the same time remain the martyred woman, Victoria went to the Huntsville police and informed them of the bribery attempt -- neglecting to say, of course, that it was she who made the first overture. Jack had always taken pride in being a truthful person and expected the same of others. He was also highly protective of anyone that had been wronged, and it was this weakness that Victoria played on. Meanwhile, Ruby Bates was having her share of trouble, too. Miron Pearlman, aka Danny Dundee, was arrested by the Huntsville police on a routine charge of public drunkenness. While searching him, the police found a letter that Ruby had written to her boyfriend. The letter read: "Huntsville, Ala. 215 Connelly Alley Dearest Earl, i want to make a statement too you. Mary Sanders is a.... lie about those negros jazzing me. those police man made me tell a lie. that is my statement because i want too clear myself.... i hope you will believe me. the law dont. i love you better than any Body else in the World that is why i am telling you this thing. i was drunk at the time and did not know what i was doing. i wish those negros are not Burnt on account of me.... P.S. This is one time that i might tell a lie But it is the truth so God help me. Ruby Bates" When Pearlman, under intense pressure from the Huntsville police department, realized that this letter did not coincide with the police department's public statements, he quickly came up with a story about being paid to get Bates drunk and getting her to write the "confession." A visit from the police produced a statement of Bates to the effect that she was drunk at the time the letter was written, and that it was all a lie. A later investigation would point to Bates and Pearlman being coerced by the police into signing false statements. Several days after signing the statement for the police, Bates disappeared. The second trial of the Scottsboro boys was scheduled to be held in Decatur with Judge Horton to preside. Leibowitz, the defendants' attorney, quickly began to make a shambles of the whole case, or so he thought. Medical evidence was presented to prove the girls had never been raped. It was ignored by the jury. One witness for the state testified to seeing Victoria assaulted by the boys. When asked how he knew it was Victoria, he replied, "because of her dress." Victoria was wearing overalls at the time. When questioned about her actions in Chattanooga, Tenn., prior to the alleged rape, Victoria testified she had spent the night at a boarding house while seeking work. The boarding house did not exist, except in her imagination. Witnesses testified she had spent the night in a hobo jungle. During this whole time, Jack Tiller had remained loyal to Victoria. Many times he had doubts, but in the end she was always able to make him believe her. Now, as he heard testimony unfold, he began to have doubts again. Witnesses later recalled seeing him standing in the back of the courtroom shuffling uneasily from one foot to another as he listened to evidence that seemed to indicate his girlfriend was lying. Victoria would probably have been able to talk Jack into believing her again if it had not been for a surprise defense witness. Just when it seemed as if everyone had forgotten about Ruby Bates, she walked into the courtroom. Only this time she had a different story to tell. The rape had never happened, she testified. Victoria had made her tell the story. As Ruby Bates continued her testimony, she portrayed Victoria Price as a cold hearted woman who was willing to send nine innocent people to the electric chair. The whole story was a lie, told to keep from being arrested for vagrancy. There was shocked silence in the courtroom. Jack Tiller, Victoria's strongest supporter, looked across the courtroom to where she was sitting, a look of disgust on his face. Slowly he stood up and made his way out of the crowded room, shaking his head in bewilderment. He never looked back. Victoria ran out the courtroom trying to catch Jack, but it was too late. His car was already pulling away from the curb. "Damn you," cried Victoria, as she stood there on the courthouse steps with tears of rage and frustration running down her cheeks. "You'll never find another woman like me." That afternoon when Victoria returned to Huntsville, Jack had already moved out. Epilogue: Even though few people believed Victoria's testimony, Alabama authorities insisted on continuing to prosecute the case. The defendants would spend a total of almost a half century behind bars until the case would finally be closed and all the defendants released. Ruby Bates was forced to leave town after changing her testimony. She became active in the Communist Party and toured the country as a speaker. At one time she even met with the Vice President of the United States and presented him with a petition asking for the boys' release. Eventually her notoriety died down and she moved to Union Gap, Washington where she died in 1976. Jack Tiller never again had any contact with Victoria Price. Despite notes and telephone calls that continued up into the 1950s, Tiller steadfastly refused to talk with her. For the rest of his life he would condemn Victoria Price for her infamous lies. He remarried in 1938 and made Huntsville his home until he died there in 1966. Victoria Price, feeling bitter at the way the state had abandoned her after the trials, offered to change her testimony in 1940, but only for a substantial price. The defense attorneys, having heard this once before, wisely refused the offer. After giving contradictory evidence in eight different trials, her credibility had reached an all time low. At first, Huntsville's citizens tolerated her, but as time passed and the truth began to come out, sentiment began to turn against her. Six months after the last trial, she moved across the state line to Flintville, Tenn. She died in a Huntsville hospital in 1982. |
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