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THURSDAY. APRIL 5. 2012 PICKENS COUNTY PROGRESS PAGE 3A
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High school students raise $1,786
in Pennies for Patients drive
Courtesy Dragons’ Lair news
From Feb. 6-24, the Pickens
High School Student Council
hosted the Pennies for Patients
drive benefiting the Leukemia &
Lymphoma Society. All first pe
riod classes collected money and
competed for a breakfast pro
vided by Bojangle’s of Jasper.
Pickens High School students
raised $1,786.76 and the money
raised will go to help children of
all ages who face these diseases.
“$1,800 is almost $300 more
than last year! That’s AWE
SOME! We can do a lot with
$ 1,800, including cover the cost
of 10 CT scans and fund a re
searcher for a week!” replied
Monica Morse, the School &
Youth Campaign coordinator for
the Leukemia & Lymphoma So
ciety of Georgia. Bojangle’s very
generously donated biscuits and
bo rounds to the winning class
on Wednesday, March 21.
Local murder revisited from six decades ago
By Jeff Warren, staff writer
jwarren@pickensprogress
Just 23 years old at his death,
Grady Earl Holbert stood five
feet, nine inches tall and weighed
about 145 pounds. His eyes were
blue, his hair brown. A veteran,
Holbert served as a tank soldier
in the European theater of World
War II. He was just a teenager
then. Four years later, Holbert
drove a taxi, his own, based from
Jasper under the sign, Veteran
Taxi. He went missing the night
of Tuesday, February 22, 1949.
According to accounts in the
Pickens County Progress from
that time, Holbert left Jasper
around 6 p.m. that night, driving
a passenger. At around 7 o'clock,
he bought gasoline at the front of
Low's Store in Talking Rock, a
building that still stands on the
corner of Talonah Street and
State Highway 136.
Witnesses reported that
around 8 o'clock, Holbert and a
passenger entered Hub's Place,
apparently a roadhouse. It was
thought Holbert drove away
from there headed south. He
never made it home that night,
something unusual for him.
Holbert's father, John, alerted
authorities the next day, and a
search began that Wednesday. A
break came in the case the fol
lowing Friday, when Bryan
Tatum, age 21 of Blaine, and
Ernest Silvers, of Atlanta,
brought Holbert's car onto an At
lanta car lot to try to sell it.
They arrived in Holbert's
1947 Chevrolet (light gray body,
blue top) at Mark Robinson's
used car lot on Baker Street.
Tatum and Silvers happened to
arrive at about the time WSB
radio was broadcasting its noon
news. The broadcast included de
tails of the search for Holbert and
a description of his automobile.
Someone at the car lot be
came suspicious when the two
men offered to trade the '47
Chevrolet for a '37 model and
$400. That person phoned the
GBI, and a few minutes later,
Tatum and Silvers were arrested.
Pickens County Sheriff
Howard Cagle, local lawman
Fred Stancil and representatives
of the Georgia State Patrol im
mediately traveled to Atlanta,
where, under questioning, Tatum
confessed to a part in Holbert's
killing. He also told peace offi
cers where they could find Hol
bert's body.
Initially Tatum implicated
seven other people he said were
involved in Holbert's death.
Some were from outside Pickens
County. One was a woman. Two
he could not identify by name. It
was believed Tatum was in
volved in the illegal whisky
trade. His motive for killing Hol
bert was thought to have been
that Holbert somehow had
knowledge of Tatum's illegal op
eration, and that Tatum feared
Holbert would alert authorities.
As the case progressed, all but
two suspects were released from
arrest. Silvers, the man with
Tatum when Tatum attempted to
sell Holbert's car in Atlanta, was
found to have no part in the
killing. A Pickens County grand
jury indicted only Bryan Tatum
and Weldon Sullivan, both of
Blaine, for Holbert's murder.
Following information Tatum
provided, lawmen proceeded to a
home fronting Highway 136 near
Blaine and to a dug well behind
the house. A prisoner from the
county convict camp, Pop Ben
nett, went down the well and tied
a rope round Holbert's body so it
could be brought to the surface.
In daylight, a wristwatch on Hol
bert's arm revealed the watch had
stopped at 7:58.
Authorities transported the
body to the Poole Funeral Home
in Jasper, where Dr. Herman
Jones of Atlanta and Jasper
physician. Dr. C. J. Roper, made
an autopsy.They found Holbert's
skull fractured by some blunt in
strument. They also found two
pistol bullets in his body. One en-
J. H. Dilbeck-Atlanta Journal /Photo
In this 1949 photograph, Pickens County Sheriff Howard Cagle (right) stands with H. V.
Shelton (left) and H. V. Brinkman by the well at Blaine where Earl Holbert’s body was recov
ered.
tered at the center of the back of
the head, the second at the top of
a shoulder, ranging downward
into Holbert's body, an indication
Holbert was shot after being put
down the well.
"There being no blood signs
in the routes the bullets traveled,
it was believed he died before
being shot," the Progress re
ported. The same newspaper ac
count says Holbert was killed
with claw hammers. Investiga
tors found a hammer and maul at
the well bottom. Another ham
mer turned up on the side of the
road near Antioch Church, not
far from where the taxi sign off
of the top of Holbert's car was
also found.
The well that hid Holbert's
body lay within a mile of Bryan
Tatum's home, the dairy farm of
his father. Carter Tatum. The
dairy bam and farmhouse from
that era still stand beside the
Highway 136 Connector just
south of the traffic Y at Blaine.
The second suspect in the
case, Weldon Sullivan, was 18
years old when the killing took
place. His employer suspected
Sullivan had a part in the crime
and brought the young man into
Jasper to speak with law officers.
"He confessed to the part of
being promised $100 to help do
away with Holbert, but that he
lost his nerve and did not actually
do the killing," the Progress re
ported. "He also informed the of
ficers where the body was."
In a modem interview, Wel
don Sullivan's younger brother
Vernon said he believes his
brother was heavily intoxicated
when Holbert was killed.
As the case unfolded, it came
out that on the night of Holbert's
murder, Tatum and Sullivan
drove the taxi driver's car into At
lanta by way of Cartersville.
They stored the vehicle in an At
lanta parking lot and returned to
Jasper that Wednesday morning
by bus. Between then and the
Friday he was caught, Tatum
produced a fake bill of sale he
meant to use when he went to
sell the car.
On the night drive to Atlanta,
Tatum ditched his bloody clothes
along a side road leading from
Cartersville to Allatoona. When
he later showed lawmen to the
place, the clothes were gone.
"Some passer by had seen
them and notified the Bartow
County Sheriff, who had taken
charge of them," the Progress ex
plained.
Carter Tatum sought to have
his son and Sullivan tried to
gether and defended by the same
counsel. Knowing Sullivan
needed a good defense lawyer
and concerned they could not af
ford one, the Sullivan family
agreed to cooperate with Carter
Tatum. Weldon Sullivan's
younger brother, Vernon, re
called this information in a tele
phone interview Tuesday, March
27, 2012.
The Wood & Tallant law firm
of Canton defended Bryan Tatum
and Weldon Sullivan at trial the
first week of April 1949.
"The case began Wednesday
morning [April 6]," the Progress
reported, "and when they went
through the 105 jurors already
summoned and secured only
eleven, counsel for both sides
agreed to try the case before an
eleven man jury rather than sum
mon more."
The verdict came shortly after
5 p.m. Thursday, April 7. Tatum
and Sullivan were found guilty
of murder and sentenced to die in
the electric chair on May 21.
Their counsel immediately
appealed for a new trial, but at
the local level, that appeal was
denied. An appeal to the Georgia
Supreme Court followed. That
court granted Tatum and Sullivan
a new trial, because some mem
bers of the jury that convicted the
pair were found to have relatives
who had contributed to a fund
that was to pay for extra legal
help to assist the prosecutor.
The second trial happened in
April 1950. A fresh jury again
convicted Tatum and Sullivan,
but the jury's call for mercy in the
case granted each a life sentence
instead of the death penalty.
Weldon Sullivan served seven
years in prison before his release
on parole, his brother Vernon re
counted. Bryan Tatum probably
served more prison time than
that, Vernon Sullivan indicated.
Tatum was eventually freed
from prison and was listed as a
Jasper resident at his death on
October 31,1990, though he died
in the hospital at Bremen, Geor
gia. Tatum never married. Life
long his profession was listed as
a dairy farm worker.
After he was paroled, Weldon
Sullivan lived in Gilmer County,
where, on April 23, 1958, he
married Shelby Black.
"He worked in Ellijay for a
while," Sullivan's brother re
called. "He finally went to South
Carolina. That's where his wife
was from. They went up there to
take care of her mother."
"He raised three children, one
killed at 21 in an automobile ac
cident," Vernon Sullivan said.
"He died in 2001," Sullivan
said. "He worked 25 years for a
man up there. When he had a
stroke, he was working at Rome,
[Georgia]." Weldon Sullivan
worked in pipeline construction
and was often away from home a
week at a time while working at
a job site, his brother explained.
"He had a stroke when he was
66 years old. He was 71 when he
died. I was just about 15 when
that trouble happened. He was 17
or 18," Vernon Sullivan said.
"Holbert and Tatum went to
[high] school together," Vernon
Sullivan noted. "My brother did
n't go to high school in Jasper up
here. He went through grammar
school at Talking Rock."
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