Volume 8 , Issue 24

Ben Warrick - Old Newspaper Obit (Brother of Sid & Wiley Warrick...

"The Dothan Eagle-12 Feb 1915 (a newspaper in Dothan, Houston Co., AL) -- Ben Warrick Ben Warrick, brother of Sid and Wiley Warrick, of Dothan, died Wednesday at his home in Goldsboro, NC. There is an interesting bit of history connected with the dead man.

In 1883 it is alleged Ben Warrick killed a man named Lee at Brundidge in Pike County, where the Warricks lived. He was tried, convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. Shortly after the trial he escaped from the Pike County Jail and left the state and has been living in North Carolina most of the time since. It is said that public opinion was strongly in favor of Warrick and one of the largest petitions for pardon ever gotten up in Pike County, a petition signed by the presiding judge, solicitor and jury was ready for presentation to the governor, but Warrick was not then in the custody of the state, hence a pardon could not be granted.

It is said that there has probably not been a governor of the state who would not have pardoned Warrick if he had only returned to the state and surrendered to the authoriities. They say he would never consent to do that, preferring to remain in North Carolina where he was a prosperous citizen. No effort was ever made by the Alabama authorities to bring him back, it is said, and it is the universal belief that he was justifiable in killing Lee. He was unmarried."
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