A time to kill

"Channel Four, Memphis. Last night she interviewed Cobb's mother, and of course she kept on pushing till the old woman broke down. All they showed on TV was the cryin'. It was sickenin'. Night before she had some Klansmen from Ohio talkin' about what we need here in Mississippi. She's the worst."

The State finished its case against Carl Lee Thursday afternoon. After lunch Buckley put Murphy on the stand. It was gut-wrenching, nerve-wracking testimony as the poor little man stuttered uncontrollably for an hour.

"Calm down, Mr. Murphy," Buckley said a hundred times.

He would nod, and take a drink of water. He nodded affirmatively and shook negatively as much as possible, but the court reporter had an awful time picking up the nods and shakes.

"I didn't get that," she would say, her back to the witness stand. So he would try to answer and get hung, usually on a hard consonant like a "P" or "T." He would blurt out something, then stutter and spit incoherently.

"I didn't get that," she would say helplessly when he finished. Buckley would sigh. The jurors rocked furiously. Half the spectators chewed their fingernails.

"Could you repeat that?" Buckley would say with as much .patience as he could find.

"I'm s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-sorry," he would say frequently. He was pitiful.

Through it all, it was determined that he had been drinking a Coke on the rear stairs, facing the stairs where

the boys were killed. He had noticed a black man peeking out of a small closet some forty feet away. But he didn't think much about it. Then when the boys came down, the black man just stepped out and opened fire, screaming and laughing. When he stopped shooting, he threw down the. gun and took off. Yes, that was him, sitting right there. The black one.

Noose rubbed holes in his glasses listening to Murphy. When Buckley sat down, His Honor looked desperately at Jake. "Any cross-examination?" he asked painfully.

Jake stood with a legal pad. The court reporter glared at him. Harry Rex hissed at him. Ellen closed her eyes. The jurors wrung their hands and watched him carefully.

"Don't do it," Carl Lee whispered firmly.

"No, Your Honor, we have no questions."

"Thank you, Mr. Brigance," Noose said, breathing again.

The next witness was Officer Rady, the investigator for the Sheriffs Department. He informed the jury that he found a Royal Crown Cola can in the closet next to the stairs, and the prints on the can matched those of Carl Lee Hailey.

"Was it empty or full?" Buckley asked dramatically.

"It was completely empty."

Big deal, thought Jake, so he was thirsty. Oswald had a chicken dinner waiting on Kennedy. No, he had no questions for this witness.

"We have one final witness, Your Honor," Buckley said with great finality at 4:00 P.M. "Officer DeWayne Looney."

Looney limped with a cane into the courtroom and to the witness stand. He removed his gun and handed it to Mr. Pate.

Buckley watched him proudly. "Would you state your name, please, sir?"

"DeWayne Looney."

"And your address?"

"Fourteen sixty-eight Bennington Street, Clanton, Mississippi."

"How old are you?"

"Thirty-nine."

"Where are you employed?"

"Ford County Sheriff's Department."

"And what do you do there?"

"I'm a dispatcher."

"Where did you work on Monday, May 20?"

"I was a deputy."

"Were you on duty?"

"Yes. I was assigned to transport two subjects from the jail to court and back."

"Who were those two subjects?"

"Billy Ray Cobb and Pete Willard."

"What time did you leave court with them?"

"Around one-thirty, I guess."

"Who was on duty with you?"

"Marshall Prather. He and I were in charge of the two subjects. There were some other deputies in the courtroom helpin' us, and we had two or three men outside waitin' on us. But me and Marshall were in charge."

"What happened when the hearing was over?"

"We immediately handcuffed Cobb and Willard and got them outta here. We took them to that little room over there and waited a second or two, and Prather walked on down the stairs."

"Then what happened?"

"We started down the back stairs. Cobb first, then Willard, then me. Like I said, Prather had already gone on down. He was out the door."

"Yes, sir. Then what happened?"

"When Cobb was near 'bout to the foot of the stairs, the shootin' started. I was on the landing, fixin' to go on down. I didn't see anybody at first for a second, then I seen Mr. Hailey with the machine gun firin' away. Cobb was blown backward into Willard, and they both screamed and fell in a heap, tryin' to get back up where I was."

"Yes, sir. Describe what you saw."

"You could hear the bullets bouncin' off the walls and hittin' everywhere. It was the loudest gun I ever heard and seemed like he kept shootin' forever. The boys just twisted and thrashed about, screamin' and squealin'. They were handcuffed, you know."

"Yes, sir. What happened to you?"

"Like I said, I never made it past the landing. I think

one of the bullets ricocheted off the wall and caught me in the leg. I was tryin' to get back up the steps when I felt my leg burn."

"And what happened to your leg?"