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PAGE 4A
MAINSTREET NEWSPAPERS
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 16, 2017
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We Remember 50 Years Ago:
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This was the scene leading up the drive to Floyd Hoard’s house the morning of the murder. A number of law enforcement officials came to the scene, as did
curious community people who had heard about the murder. The bomb blast was heard three miles away in Jefferson.
PART 3:
Hoard killed: ‘Who would have done this?’
(EDITOR’S NOTE: This is Part 3 of a 5-Part
series recalling the death 50 years ago of solici
tor general Floyd ‘Fuzzy” Hoard at the hands of
a local bootlegger. In the 1960s, Jackson County
was notorious for its car theft rings and boot
legging. In 1964, Hoard ousted the incumbent
solicitor in that year’s elections and soon began
a crusade to break up local organized rackets.
In May, 1967, Hoard led a raid on the A. C. “Cliff”
Park bootlegging ring based in Pendergrass that
led to 14 arrests and the confiscation of over
$21,000 worth of booze and a move to padlock
the operation. Park was unhappy about the
raid and padlock order and sought revenge on
Hoard.)
I n June 1967, just after prosecutor Floyd “Fuzzy”
Hoard had led a major raid of Jackson County boot
legging operations and gotten a padlock order from
the court, bootlegging kingpin A.C. “Cliff” Park sought his
revenge.
Douglas Pinion, 40, who had worked for the Pendergrass
bootlegger since 1965, approached fellow bootlegger Lloyd
Seay, 24, of Dawson County and asked him if he wanted to
make some “easy money.” Seay said he was interested.
Seay came into bootlegging and the criminal world
naturally. His uncle, Carl Lloyd Seay, was a famous Georgia
bootlegger and early stock car race driver from Dawsonville
who had been shot to death in 1941 by a cousin over a
moonshine dispute.
The younger Seay, who had dropped out of school in the
10th grade, was in and out of trouble in Dawson County,
often riding around the town square with other thugs, dar
ing local law enforcement officers to stop them. Seay had
also served some time in the Jackson County “chain-gang”
for assault and battery in Lumpkin County in 1963.
Seay was no stranger to Park, either. As a child, Seay had
lived in Pendergrass for a while, about a mile from Park’s
house. Later, Seay had talked with Park about supplying
some moonshine to the Park operation.
Pinion told Seay in June 1967 that to make some “easy
money,” he “wanted a man done away with.” He said it was
Hoard, the crusading prosecutor.
During the conversation, Pinion referenced “the Old
Man,” a nickname used to refer to the 76-year-old Park, as
wanting Hoard done away with.
Pinion offered Seay $5,000 to do the murder and said
it would be best if he did it on the road with a shotgun as
Hoard was driving home from work.
Seay told Pinion he wasn’t interested in doing it himself,
but would try to find someone who would. Seay then
approached George Worley, 40, of Commerce about the
killing, but apparently didn’t tell him at first who the target
would be. Worley wanted $7,500 to do the hit.
Seay went back to Pinion and told him he had found
someone to do the job, but it would take more money.
Pinion told Park of Worley’s price, but Park refused to pay
more than $5,000.
Pinion relayed Park’s message to Seay and said that he
would add $500 to the payment from his own pocket. Seay
then went back to Worley with the offer of $5,500. Worley
was reportedly reluctant to do it, but said he would go
ahead.
Seay also asked fellow bootlegger John H. Blackwell, 23,
of Pickens County, if he had the nerve to kill someone.
Seay and Blackwell had been making moonshine together
in Dawson County for a few months. Blackwell had been
kicked out of the military after he got caught running moon
shine while home on leave.
Blackwell said he didn’t have the nerve to kill anyone,
but was asked by Seay to join the hit operation anyway.
Blackwell, who later testified that he was hooked on
“speckled bird” pills, said he had never met Hoard.
Seay later said he had approached four people about
doing the hit, but it’s not known who the others were.
PLANTING THE DYNAMITE
On August 3, 1967, Seay, Blackwell and Worley met at
the Firebird resturant on 1-85 in Banks County and drove
up 1-85 to Anderson, S.C. Blackwell went into Freeman’s
Grocery, a one-room store operated by what he later said
was an “older” woman, and bought 10 sticks of dynamite,
five blasting caps and four bottles of beer. He used the
name “Harold Smith” when he signed the receipt. He told
the woman the dynamite was going to be used for “well
drilling.” The dynamite cost about $9 or $10, Blackwell
later recalled.
When he got back to the car, Blackwell couldn’t find an
opener for the beer he had bought, so the trio stopped at
a gas station at 1-85 to borrow a bottle opener before driv
ing back to Commerce. Worley went home while Seay and
Blackwell headed back to Dawson County.
On August 5, a Saturday, Seay showed Blackwell how to
connect the blasting caps to the coil of an automobile at the
Seay home in Dawsonville. Officers later found three dyna
mite caps where Blackwell had practiced doing the job.
On the night of August 6, Seay met Blackwell and driving
Seay’s mother’s white 1964 car, went to Commerce where
they picked up Worley around 10 p.m. With Seay driving,
Worley showed the other two men Hoard’s rural house on
the Brockton Road near Jefferson.
Seay reportedly told Blackwell “the man (Park) wanted
it done that night before he (Hoard) went to court on
Monday.”
The three drove by Hoard’s house the first time around
11 p.m. to midnight, but were confused at first about which
house was Hoard’s.
They parked and Blackwell approached Hoard’s house
the first time to see if his car was there. He came back and
told the others the car wasn’t there because he didn’t “want
to go through with it.”
The group drove around some more, then between 12
and 1 a.m. returned.
While Blackwell and Worley used some black electrical
tape to bundle the 10 sticks of dynamite together on the
side of a nearby dirt road, Seay went to find Pinion to see if
Hoard had traded cars. Pinion wasn’t home and Seay then
went to Hoard’s yard to confirm the prosecutor’s green car
with a special antenna was parked there.
Worley punctured the center stick of dynamite on one
end after the bundle had been taped together. Carrying the
dynamite and one blasting cap, Blackwell, who had been
drinking beer and popping pills that Sunday afternoon,
approached Hoard’s house twice more before putting the
dynamite under the hood. He said later he thought he was
along for the operation that night to be a lookout, but at
some point, consented to plant the bomb.
Hoard’s dogs began barking as Blackwell tried to cross
the large field in front of Hoard’s house, but it turned out
they were on the backside of the house barking at some
thing in the woods. Blackwell then approached the house
from the east side. On a nearby hill, workers were catching
chickens in a poultry house and loading them into trucks
heading to area processing plants.
Wearing brown cotton gloves, Blackwell raised the hood
on the car and groping in the darkness — he didn’t have a
flashlight — attached one wire of the blasting cap to the coil.
Taking a knife, he then “skinned” about two inches of rub
ber off of a wire or metal bar and wrapped the other end of
the blasting cap around the exposed metal for the ground.
After attaching the blasting cap to the dynamite, Blackwell
laid the bundle of explosives sideways on a support
between the motor and left front fender, not far from the
firewall and steering column on the driver’s side.
Worley and Seay waited in the vehicle on a nearby dirt
road as Blackwell put the explosive in place. After the
bomb was planted, Blackwell returned to the others, telling
Worley and Seay, “It’s done.”
The three then drove to a nearby bridge and threw out
Blackwell’s shoes and gloves. They took Worley to his
home in Commerce, then Seay and Blackwell drove the
rest of the night down to Wrightsville, arriving around 8
a.m. There, they went to a local restaurant to meet with
two bootleggers, the Powell brothers. They didn’t stay long
— perhaps an hour — then drove back to Dawson County,
hearing of Hoard’s murder on the radio along the way.
During the drive back, Seay told Blackwell to take off his
shirt and throw it out the window, just in case it had any
dynamite residue on it.
Several days later, Pinion brought $5,500 ($40,000 in 2017
dollars) to Seay, throwing the cash on a bed, then turning
and walking away without saying anything.
Seay called Worley to come get his share, then divided
it out: $2,000 to himself, $2,000 to Worley and $1,500 to
Blackwell. Blackwell gave $800 back to buy a 1958 car from
Seay.
•kick
Hoard was at his office in Jefferson late that Sunday night,
spending part of the time showing his new office to Rep.
James Paris of Winder, a fellow attorney and friend. When
he came home, he reportedly checked on something out
side, then turned in for the night, leaving his paperwork for
Monday’s court session in his car.
THE BOMBING
Hoard didn’t say much about any threats he had received,
at least not to his wife, Imogene.
“He didn 't want to upset me, ” she said.
She did overhear one conversation that might have been
indicative of the kinds of threats her husband was getting:
One summer evening, three men came to their house, she
recalled, and stood outside talking to Hoard in the front
yard. When he came back into the house, Hoard called the
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