NC State Senator John Walter Stephens: Men Participating in Killing

Based upon the confessions of Felix Roan in 1891 and John Green Lea in 1919, the following men participated in the 1870 killing of NC State Senator John Walter Stephens:

Denny, James G. (Jim) (born c.1847)

Fowler, Joseph Robert (Joe) (born c. 1844)

Lea, John Green (1843-1935)

Mitchell, James Thomas (1828-1898)

Morgan, Pinkney Kerr (Pink) (c.1849-1930)

Oliver, James Thomas (Tom) (c.1843-1883)

Richmond, Dr. Stephen Tribue (1824-1878)

Roan, Felix (1837-1891)

Wiley, Franklin A. (1825-1888)

All purportedly were members of the Caswell County Ku Klux Klan, which had "tried" Stephens in absentia, found him guilty, and sentenced him to death.

Here is a portion of the 1819 John Green Lea confession [paragraph breaks added]:

"Stevens was tried by the Ku Klux Klan and sentenced to death. He had a fair trial before a jury of twelve men. At a democratic convention he approached ex-sheriff Wiley and tried to get him to run on the republican ticket for sheriff. Wiley said he would let him know that day. He [Wiley] came to me and informed me of that fact and suggested that he would fool him into that room in which he was killed. He did so and ten or twelve men went into the room and he was found dead next morning. A democratic convention was in session in the court room on the second floor of the courthouse in Yanceyville, to nominate county officers and members of the Legislature. Mr. Wiley, who was in the convention, brought Stevens down to a rear room on the ground floor, then used for the storage of wood for the courthouse.

"I had ordered all the Ku Klux Klan in the county to meet at Yanceyville that day, with their uniforms under their saddles, and they were present. Mr. Wiley came to me and suggested that it would be a better plan, as Stevens had approached him to run on the republican ticket for sheriff and he had told him that he would let him know that day, to fool him down stairs, and so just before the convention closed, Wiley beckoned to Stevens and carried him down stairs, and Captain Mitchell, James Denny and Joe Fowler went into the room and Wiley came out. Mitchell proceeded to disarm him (he had three pistols on his body). He soon came out and left Jim Denny with a pistol at his head and went to Wiley and told him that he couldn't kill him himself Wiley came to me and said, "You must do something; I am exposed unless you do." Immediately I rushed into the room with eight or ten men, found him sitting flat on the floor. He arose and approached me and we went and sat down where the wood had been taken away, in an opening in the wood on the wood-pile, and he asked me not to let them kill him.

"Captain Mitchell rushed at him with a rope, drew it around his neck, put his feet against his chest and by that time about a half dozen men rushed up: Tom Oliver, Pink Morgan, Dr. Richmond and Joe Fowler. Stevens was then stabbed in the breast and also in the neck by Tom Oliver, and the knife was thrown at his feet and the rope left around his neck. We all came out, closed the door and locked it on the outside and took the key and threw it into County Line Creek."

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While Felix Roan purportedly confessed to participating in the killing of John Walter Stephens and was arrested in connection with the event, he is not listed as a killer by John G. Lea.