The Lawson Family Case

THE LAWSON FAMILY, COLD CASE MURDER, GERMANTON NORTH CAROLINA USA, The murder of the Lawson family indicates to the Germanton, North Carolina event on December 25, 1929, in which sharecropper Charlie Lawson killed his wife and six of his seven children. In 1911, Charles Davis Lawson wedded Fannie Manring, with whom he had eight children. The third, William, born in 1914, died of a disease in 1920. In 1918, following the move of his younger brothers, Marion and Elijah, to the Germanton area, Lawson followed suit with his family. The Lawsons worked as tenant tobacco growers, saving sufficient money by 1927 to purchase their farm on Brook Cove Road. In 1929, quickly before Christmas, Charlie Lawson (age 43) took his wife (age 37) and their seven children, Marie (age 17), Arthur (age 16), Carrie (age 12), Maybell (age 7) James (age 4) Raymond, (age 2) and Mary Lou (age 4 months) into town to purchase new clothes and to have a family picture taken. This would have been a unique circumstance for a working-class rural family of the period, which has led to assumptions that Charlie's act was premeditated.

On the afternoon of December 25, Lawson first shot his daughters, Carrie and Maybell, as they were setting out to their uncle and aunt's home. Lawson stopped for them by the tobacco barn; when they were in range, shot them with a 12-gauge shotgun, then assured that they were dead by bludgeoning them. He then put the corpses in the tobacco barn.

Afterwards, he returned to the home and shot Fannie, who was on the porch. As soon as the gun was fired, Marie, who was inside, cried out, while the two small boys, James and Raymond, strived to find a hiding place. Lawson shot Marie and then found and shot the two boys. Lastly, he murdered the baby, Mary Lou. It is believed that she was bludgeoned to death. After the killings, he went into the nearby forests and, many hours later, shot himself. The only survivor was his eldest son, 16-year-old Arthur, whom he had sent on a chore just before executing the crime.

The corpses of the family members were discovered with their arms crossed and stones under their heads. The gunshot sounding Charlie Lawson's suicide was listened by the various people who already had known of the killings on the property and huddled there. A police officer who was with Arthur Lawson ran down to find Charlie's body along with letters to his parents. As footprints surrounded the tree it was presumed that he had been striding around the tree before taking his life. Months before the incident, Charlie Lawson had endured a head injury; some family and friends speculated that it had distorted his mental state and was associated with the killing. Nonetheless, an autopsy and examination of his brain at Johns Hopkins Hospital found no irregularities.

Many rumours circulated as to why Charlie Lawson would murder himself and his family, comprising a theory that Charlie had witnessed an organized crime event, had been discovered out, and that he and his family had been massacred to silence them. Soon after the killings, Charlie's brother, Marion Lawson, opened the home on Brook Cove Road as a tourist interest. A cake that Marie Lawson had baked on Christmas Day was shown on the tour. Because tourists started to pick at the raisins on the cake to take as souvenirs, it was positioned in a covered glass cake server for many years. The house was finally torn down. Trespassers on that territory are unwelcome, and today frequently met at gunpoint by holders suspicious of thrill-seekers. A nearby bridge made from the committees of the Lawson home was reported to be haunted.

Arthur Lawson lived until 1945 when he was quickly killed in an automobile accident.

The event motivated many songs and other tributes including the murder ballad "The Murder of the Lawson Family". This song was recorded by the Stanley Brothers in March 1956.

The Lawsons were laid to rest in a family graveyard ascertained in 1908, originally for the use of the W. D. Browder family and selected friends and neighbours. Today, it is open for funerals only for direct descendants of W. D. Browder, owing to restricted plot availability

 the family Burial grave site is at ,

 Browder Family Cemetery 

 Germanton

 Stokes County

 North Carolina, USA