University of Virginia Library

I. THE McCUE MURDER.

Complete Story of the Crime and the Famous Trial of
the Ex-Mayor of Charlottesville.

CHAPTER I.

THE CRIME.

On Sunday, September 4, 1904, J. Samuel McCue, for twenty years a
member of the Charlottesville Bar, just retired from his third term as
Mayor of that city, reputed rich man, and officer in the Presbyterian
Church, arrived about 6 o'clock from Washington, where he had been
for several days, on what business does not appear, although Mrs.
McCue had been informed by him that he was in the National Capital
taking depositions in a murder case. An hour before he reached the
city Mrs. Fannie M. McCue, his wife, had come in from Red Hill, a
small station on the Southern railway, some seven miles south of Charlottesville,
and was at home when her husband entered the house.
Without going into the parlor, where she was with a visitor, he went
upstairs to the bath-room to rid himself of the stains of travel. When
he met her, the manner of his greeting, and all other details of that
evening until the supper hour, are lacking. The occurrences at the
evening meal come into the story at a later period.

The McCues were a church-going people. Deacon McCue invariably
sat well to the front in the sacred auditorium, and Mrs. McCue, always
looking trim, sat primly at his side. There was no lack of the conventional
courtesies and observances, and few suspected a want of
affectionate agreement. There was an air of dignity about the couple.

On the evening in question, Mrs. McCue entered the church unaccompanied,
which was an unusual thing, and went to her accustomed place.
Some time later, her husband took a seat near her. When the services
were at an end she left the church somewhat in advance of her husband,
who paused to shake hands with one or two of the worshippers.

McCue overtook his wife before she had proceeded far, and the two
exchanged greetings with others as they passed along the streets. It
was not long before they reached their own home, walking with Mr.
and Mrs. Marshall Dinwiddie, whom they overtook, or by whom they
were overtaken, and from whom they parted at the McCue gate at five
minutes after 9 o'clock.

Did the coming event cast a shadow over Mrs. McCue during the last
evening of her life? There are some who have said as much, and many
who believe that she was terribly depressed by some foreboding. On
her way to church she failed to respond to a courteous salutation, evidently
being too distraught to observe it, and, returning homeward, she
was silent in the company of those to whom she was in the habit of
conversing freely.

Whatever the truth may be, husband and wife crossed the threshold
of their home, and the door closed at once. Before it opened again, a
tragedy had run its red course in mystery—a mystery not yet entirely
cleared up.

When the door closed, and all seemed dark in the McCue home, Mrs.
Frank A. Massie, sitting on her porch across the street, said to her husband,
"How soon they retire!" But they had not retired, and it was
not long until Dr. McCue, with his emergency grip in his hand, rushed
into the McCue grounds and was admitted to the house. Sometime
afterwards Policeman Daniel C. Grady followed in the same hurried
way, and in a few minutes a piece of news—startling, horrifying news—
spread with the rapidity with which bad news alone seems to travel.
As it reached the public, the intelligence was that Mrs. Fannie M.
McCue had been shot to death in her bath-room by a burglar, while
her husband had been murderously assaulted and left for dead on the
floor of their bedroom.

Crowds hurried to the McCue home to learn the worst, and how it
had happened. News-gathering is an instinct. The many who could
not or would not go constructed conjectural narratives of a terrible
encounter, for that sort of thing is instinctive, too, giving the husband
a heroic part, because he was known to be every inch a man physically,
and was credited with moral courage to match his physique.

When Dr. McCue, the first outsider to arrive, entered the house, he
found his brother on the stairway in gauze shirt and pants, and, as the
Doctor afterwards testified, in a dazed condition. The only other person
in the house was John Perry, a stable boy. Sam McCue pushed
his brother "in the back" and said, "Go, find Fannie." It was not a long
search. She was soon found in the bath-tub, on the second floor, dead, and
submerged to her neck in water drawn from the hot-water spigot, which
was still turned and the water still running. The body was removed
to a bed-chamber. It was now seen that, in addition to the wound from
the load of shot, a huge hole in the breast, there were evidences of

MRS. FANNIE CRAWFORD McCUE.

three blows. One was on the right ear, made with some instrument
that cut it nearly in two, and a slight one on the nose. A small transverse
wound was found on the back of the head, above the mass of
hair, which was up and held in place by combs.

Up to this time no alarm had emanated from the McCue home. Dr.
McCue said he received information from his brother by 'phone, a statement
afterwards contradicted by the 'phone operators on his "board,"
and certainly he gave no alarm on his way to the house. The police
were notified from a private residence—the only one to which Samuel
McCue is admitted to have 'phoned that night.

After the body of the murdered wife and mother had been removed
to a bed, Policeman Grady began a search of the premises. He found
no signs of a struggle in any room, and no evidence of a crime anywhere
except in the bath-room. A blood-stained base-ball bat was
standing in a corner of the bed-room. The shotgun—McCue's Winchester,
of the "pump" style—was beside the bath-room door. It contained
only an empty No. 6 shell, which Perry threw out.

Steps were immediately taken to discover the assassin. The burglar
and revenge theories were ascendant in the official mind. The belief
in intended burglary and resulting murder soon had its run. Nothing
was missing, and, besides, the method was not that of the house-breaking
fraternity. Later hours and more secret ways characterize their
enterprizes. It was thought, however, that there might be something
in the revenge theory. Samuel McCue had been a hard man. He had
sent scores to jail, and had seldom tempered justice with mercy. He
had been threatened, and possibly somebody had made a bold attempt
to carry his threat into execution. Telegrams were flashed about the
State in a search for available bloodhounds, but without formidable
results. The Baldwins, noted detectives at Roanoke and Bluefield, were
summoned, and reached the city the next day. The people were
indignant and public sentiment was so exigent that the City Council
met and offered a reward for the detection of the criminal, although
their action was without warrant of lawful authority. At a hint from
some one, a few hours after the murder, Lester Marshall, a young
painter, who lives near Proffiitts, north of Charlottesville, was brought
under suspicion, and two persons were sent in search of him.

McCue participated in encouraging a search for the burglar or
avenger, and in due time the following advertisement appeared in
the Daily Progress and in handbills:

$1,000 REWARD.—A reward of one thousand ($1,000) dollars will be
paid for the arrest and conviction of the person who made an
attempt on my life, and murdered my wife at my house in Charlottesville
on the night of September 4, 1904.

J. SAMUEL McCUE.

Much of the time that people were thronging his house on the night
of the murder, McCue was lying on a sofa in his bed-room. Many
sought him to learn particulars of the assault upon himself.

The accounts he gave varied in important particulars, but did not
contribute to a clear comprehension of any phase of the tragedy. Before
the night was over, the story was a composite of McCue's narrations
and of the conclusions and conjectures drawn from fragmentary
data.

According to McCue's statement, he and his wife had returned from
church, and were preparing to retire. The gaslight in the bed-chamber
was turned low, Mrs. McCue had donned her night dress, and
McCue was just drawing his shirt over his head, when a man rushed
in the room from the one adjoining and made for the husband, supposing
that the shirt would allow him to deal a fatal blow with the
base-ball bat he carried.

McCue, however, had gotten the garment off sufficiently to see his
assailant, and ran to a corner of the room for his shotgun. The man
followed, and struck his victim a blow on the right cheek, as he
turned to level the weapon, knocking him unconscious. Mrs. McCue
had screamed when she saw the man, and supposing that she would
arouse the neighbors before he could escape, the man seized the
weapon and shot her.

The wound resulting from the blow which was said to have rendered
McCue unconscious was very slight—so slight as to cause comment.
A little blood came from it, and there was practically no swelling
or discoloration. So far as McCue's story goes, the reason for and
the details of Mrs. McCue's death were all missing. That she was
dead as the result of a terrible gunshot wound, was known to all who
looked at her. John Perry contributed something to the story of her
last moments—a contribution which more than hinted at the horrible
physical and mental terror of her taking off. He was in his room—
a rear one on the second floor of the McCue home, and separated by
a locked door from the hall, at the end of which the bath-room is
situated. He afterwards told—and then denied telling—that he heard
Mrs. McCue in awful distress, begging some one not to kill her, that
she was going to die anyhow—and then a shot! After that there was
silence, except for the noise of some one going down stairs.

Scrap by scrap the seekers after the truth pieced the story together
under the guiding of reason, and it is beyond dispute that many who
were that night much about the home where murder had worked its
awful purpose upon a faithful wife and tender mother, saw and heard
enough to make them shake their heads, if not enough to talk about
except in whispers to confidants tried and found true. There was a
terrible suspicion in the minds of more than one. There were questions
that pressed for answers. Was Mrs. McCue in the room where

her husband was assaulted, and did she receive there the injuries that
showed only too plainly on her nose and ear; or did she run in terror
to the bath-room, followed by the assassin? Was she shot in the bedroom
and carried to the tub? If murdered in the bed-room, why was
she conveyed to the bath-room at all, and how was it accomplished
without blood stains on the floor? In that case, why was the gun by
the bath-room door? If the assaults were the premeditated acts of a
revengeful spirit, why was the more terrible vengeance wreaked upon
the woman?

By dawn the morning after the murder there were hundreds who
took no stock in either the burglar or revenge theories. They had
another theory.

The McCues have always been prominent in Albemarle, exhibiting
on all occasions positive and masterful dispositions in the conduct of
their affairs. J. Samuel is a grandson of the late Samuel O. Moon,
of Albemarle, and son of the late James C. and Sallie J. McCue, of the
same county. He was reared on a farm, and engaged in assisting
his father in a large farming and cattle business. He attended private
school at home, later entering Pantops Academy, preparatory to
an academic and law course at the University of Virginia. It is not
likely that he took to books from a love of letters, but with the well-defined
purpose to make use of his attainments as an asset in getting
along in the world. The sparkling of the cadmean waters did not
tempt him to deep and frequent draughts, and when he hung out his
shingle as a young lawyer in 1884, his academic achievements and
legal attainments were probably unattested by parchments.

For a time he was a partner in the law business with Samuel B.
Woods, the style of the firm being Woods & McCue, but the connection
was soon dissolved, and McCue opened an office for himself. He was
diligent and successful in the special branch of practice to which he
devoted himself—that of collections—and accumulated and saved with
great prudence. In the meantime his reputation grew among business
men, who turned over to him accounts they had failed to collect, however
urgently they had sought payment, with the almost invariable
result that "Sam McCue" got the money. There was growth of reputation
in another way—those who were in debt soon knew him, as
they said, "for an hard man." The attorney said in his own praise
that his mission on earth seemed to be to make people pay their
honest debts, while the impecunious debtor was haunted by a feeling
of terror that was finally epitomized in the lines which are a characteristic
fragment of local history—

It would be easy to tell many a story illustrative of this energy
looked upon by the hard-ups as little short of diabolical.

He went into politics, and in the end was successful, in spite of
alleged unpopularity. His success was explained to the satisfaction
of some by the belief that McCue had on file in his office claims
against a large number of suffragans who were afarid to vote against
him, in view of his ability to press them to extremity, and by the additional
conviction that he had plenty of means to "finance" his campaigns,
and was unrestrained by any hair-splitting theories on the subject.
Whether or not injustice was done him, it is now too late to
inquire, but there is often a flippant injustice in gossip and rumor
which it is well to guard against.

THE McCUE RESIDENCE.

His first candidacy for Alderman was before the Council when that
body was engaged in filling a vacancy from the First Ward. Another
citizen—not a candidate—was elected. He was afterwards chosen by
the voters and held the office six years. In 1894 he was a candidate
for Mayor, but was defeated, running third in the race. He was successful
two years later, and served two successive terms—1896-1900.
His third term was from 1902 to 1904, closing four days before the
murder of his wife. During his first and second terms the Mayor's
duties included the trial of police cases, and whether his reputation
was justly earned or not, many who were the recipients of his justice
insisted that the quality of his mercy was badly strained. In 1900,

by a charter enactment, a Police Court was constituted. Mayor McCue
was a candidate for Police Justice, but after a brisk fight his
brother, Edward O. McCue, defeated him decisively.

J. Samuel McCue and Fannie M. Crawford were married November
4, 1885, and four children are the result of this union—J. William,
Samuel, Ruby and Harry. Mrs. McCue was a daughter of the late
Dr. William Crawford, of Mt. Sidney, Augusta county. Her entire married
life was spent in Charlottesville, where she was recognized as a
woman of fine character. The home of the McCues, on Park street, is
one of the most attractive residences in this city.