Troy’s ‘crime of the century’ still shocks long-time residents

Chiropractor Eugene Gault left ‘trail of blood’ through south Alabama.

Update: Part 2 is now published here.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: The account that follows hopefully qualifies as the most comprehensive summary written to date chronicling a tragic series of events still talked about by residents of three south Alabama counties 64 years later. Source material for this story came from articles published in approximately a dozen newspapers, written material from other sources and my own interviews.

This story originally appeared in the April 2021 edition of Troy Life magazine, an excellent magazine produced by the staff of The Troy Messenger. Photos are from The Montgomery Advertiser and were accessed by my subscription to newspapers.com.

Part 1 of 2 …

By Bill Rice, Jr.

With temperatures reaching the mid-90s, Tuesday, May 22, 1962 was a stifling hot day in Troy. Local residents had plenty to talk about besides the early arrival of July-like temperatures. For students, summer break was almost here. At Troy State Teachers College, 189 new graduates would receive their diplomas June 1.

Statewide, newspapers were replete with articles about the May 29th gubernatorial run-off between George Wallace, a former circuit judge from Barbour County, and state senator Ryan deGraffenried. Nationally, the big story was astronaut Scott Carpenter, who two days later would become the second American to orbit the earth.

What no one could have known early on this day was that a terrifying series of events - taking place over 90 minutes and leaving behind a “trail of blood” in Ozark, Clio and Troy - would become national Page-1 news the next day.

For those who weren’t alive in the Spring of 1962, Here’s what happened when a “mild-mannered” chiropractor named Dr. Eugene S. Gault travelled from his apartment in Prattville to Ozark to rob a bank … and everything broke bad.

***

The night before he coldly and callously murdered three men - leaving eight children without a father, and wounded two other men - 43-year-old Prattville chiropractor Dr. Eugene S. Gault drove to Montgomery to reschedule a dance lesson at Arthur Murray Dance Studio.

“He said he was busy and re-scheduled the lesson for Wednesday,” the studio’s owner told a reporter. (According to Gault’s dance instructor Betty Welty, her student was “very quiet and shy” … and his favorite dance was the Waltz.)

Somewhere between 9 and 10 the next morning Gault left the small apartment behind his Prattville chiropractic office “as if he was in a hurry,” a witness later reported.

Before leaving, Gault left a note on the door: “Emergency. Called out. Please come or call for appointment Wednesday.”

Either before or after departing, Gault stole a license plate from a Montgomery vehicle and placed it on the rear of his 1953 baby blue Cadillac.

Approximately five hours later - 100 miles south in downtown Ozark - resident Gordon Hubbard saw a man wearing a suit standing near Commercial Bank and “wondered why a man would wear a coat on such a hot day.”

At 2:28 p.m. - two minutes before the bank was set to close for the day - the man entered the building with a .45 caliber pistol in one hand and a small suitcase in the other.

The man “dressed like a regular businessman … walked quietly” to the loan cage where the bank’s executive vice president Fred Flowers was standing.

“I didn’t hear him ask any questions, but the next thing I knew the man was climbing up on the loan cage and firing a shot,” said bank employee Mrs. Wood Osenbee,

Mr. Flowers, probably the first bank employee to recognize a bank robbery was in progress, ducked behind the counter. One news report speculated Gault might have thought Flowers “was going for a weapon” or perhaps “reaching for a phone.”

“Apparently the man got scared and started shooting,” said Ozark Police Chief W.C. Head.

Flowers, 55, a deacon at First Baptist Church and a long-time civic leader, was shot once in the back and died instantly. He left behind a wife and four children.

(Author’s note: I later learned that Mr. Flowers was the grandfather of CHCHC dentist Dr. Amy Flowers).

Gault then chased five other bank employees towards a book-keeping room near a rear exit of the bank. Four of the employees were females. The lone male was David Jackson, 20, who also attempted to flee the “crazed madman,” but not before letting his four co-workers escape in front of him.

Gault again fired his weapon, striking Jackson in either the back or the neck. Some reports said Jackson died instantly while another said he died in an ambulance while being rushed to the hospital.

David Jackson had been an excellent student and athlete at Carroll High School, where he graduated in 1959. He left a young widow and an 18-month-old son. He’d been working at the bank only two weeks.

Once outside the bank, the terrified, screaming women fled in four different directions.

James Logan, the owner of a dry-cleaning business adjacent to Commercial Bank, couldn’t help but notice the commotion. He then saw a man in a suit walking calmly out of the bank.

Unaware of the horror that had transpired inside, Logan got into his car and followed the stranger he’d watched get into a light blue Cadillac. Logan twice pulled in front of Gault’s car attempting to stop him, but Gault avoided his vehicle. The Samaritan chased Gault toward Ariton but eventually lost him.

Gault, who’d not gotten a dime in the aborted bank robbery, was now on the run. Law enforcement officers issued an all-points bulletin. Be on the lookout for a light blue Cadillac, last seen heading towards Ariton, and then Clio, 24 miles north of Ozark. Roadblocks were quickly set up.

Clio shootout

From his squad car radio, Bill Roberts, 62, the chief of the two-person Clio Police Department, learned that a bank robbery suspect was heading toward his town. Roberts parked his vehicle on the edge of town and waited for the bandit to arrive.

Not much time had elapsed when Roberts spotted a car fitting the description and immediately pulled behind it. At a traffic light on the main road through Clio, he turned on his siren and signaled the driver to pull over.

Gault stopped at a curb as Roberts maneuvered his police vehicle near the Cadillac. In the middle of the street, Chief Roberts got out of his car and, with his .38 revolver pointed at the driver, walked towards the Cadillac, telling the driver to get out with both hands in the air.

Gault, feigning surrender, raised his left hand out the car window, opened his door and when his foot hit the pavement opened fire through his open driver’s seat window.

Multiple stories would later point out that the chiropractor was an “expert marksman.”

Gault’s first shot hit Roberts in the right side of his chest below his shoulder. The round went through Roberts’ body, puncturing one of his lungs.

“It felt like somebody had hit me with a fist,” Roberts recalled later. “It knocked me back, but I shot at his head.”

At first Roberts thought he’d killed Gault, who fell back into his car. However, the shot had just grazed Gault’s head. Gault soon popped back out of the car and began firing again, this time not as accurately.

By then Chief Roberts had retreated to the protection of his open car door. The two men exchanged multiple shots.

Amazingly, Roberts’ wife - who worked at a dry goods business next to the intersection - was the closest eye-witness to the shootout - only “25 feet” away.

She later reported hearing “three or four” shots, but there had to be more than that. When the shootout ended, Roberts’ six-bullet revolver had only one round left.

Roberts later told a reporter his life was probably saved when one of Gault’s shots hit a solid metal strip of his squad car’s door. Another of Gault’s shots pierced the front windshield of his police cruiser. Yet another flew high, hitting a sign post.

At some point, Chief Roberts fell back into the front seat of his police cruiser. Gravely wounded, he was searching for another weapon to continue the fire fight.

During this pause, Gault got back into his car and took off towards Brundidge.

According to several newspaper accounts, the chief never fell to the ground. His wife was the first person to reach him. With her assistance, he somehow managed to walk two blocks to a doctor’s office. He spent 11 days in an Ozark hospital in serious condition but was soon able to resume his duties as police chief.

Clio residents pursue Gault …

Three Clio citizens - Robert Baker, justice of the peace in Clio, and civilians B. F. Ketchum and William Floyd Holland - rushed to the scene. Following another bank robbery, the City had recently purchased two carbine rifles, which the town’s mayor gave to the men. Alas, in a rush, the mayor had not found any ammunition for the weapons.

One of the men grabbed Roberts’ service revolver, which had been discarded in the front seat of the Chief’s squad car. The three men then jumped into another vehicle to give chase to Gault. (Several reports said the men “commandeered” Roberts’ police cruiser, but this apparently was not the case.)

Gault drove towards Brundidge but bypassed the town by turning onto the Banks Highway towards Troy.

By this time, radio stations and at least one TV station were broadcasting the news of a bank robber on the loose in south Alabama. (One story erroneously reported Gault had a “female hostage.”)

According to one article, businesses in Brundidge “immediately shut down” as citizens nervously awaited the arrival of the bandit.

The three Clio citizens never lost contact with Gault as he made his way to Troy. They later reported seeing Gault taking off his coat, which he used several times to mop blood away from the wound on his head. But with only one bullet available to them (the one round left in Roberts’ revolver), they couldn’t do much except follow Gault and hope he didn’t attack them.

Tragedy at Hickman’s Store

In 1962, Troy’s Police Department wasn’t that much bigger than Clio’s. David Johnson joined the force in 1978 and has now been retired for 22 years. Johnson remembers veterans of the force telling him the department had between eight and 10 full-time officers around this time.

One of these officers was Jean Hayden Youngblood, 37, who had been on the force 11 years (another story said seven years).

Troy Chief of Police Curtis Bull instructed Youngblood to take a position out the Banks Highway and await Gault’s arrival.

Youngblood, parked at Union Hill Church, soon spotted Gault’s car, and radioed that he was following him, noting that one vehicle was between his squad car and Gault’s (the vehicle of the three Clio men).

Chief Bull told Youngblood to follow Gault, but that he shouldn’t try to make an arrest until help arrived.

According to Bill Rice, Sr.’s history of Troy - and unreported in press accounts of the time - the three vehicles at some point approached a line of cars that was part of a funeral procession.

Among those in the procession was 12-year-old Marsha Boutwell, who “remember(ed) seeing Youngblood’s police car and thinking that the Troy police were helping with the funeral caravan.”

About three miles from downtown Troy, Gault turned off Highway 29 and suddenly drove behind A. E. Hickman Grocery Store. The store, razed years ago, was located at the intersection of Highway 29 and Needmore Road. Rice (my late father) speculated in his book that Gault may have seen the funeral procession and turned to avoid it.

Whatever the circumstances, Gault’s Cadillac was now behind the country store.

Youngblood, who’d been told not to apprehend Gault by himself, no doubt felt he had to protect the operator of the store, Mrs. Frances Hickman Brantley, the daughter of the store’s owner and the wife of Troy Postmaster “Tack” Brantley.

Based on information broadcast on his police radio, Officer Youngblood had legitimate reasons to think Gault may try to take hostages.

Perhaps thinking he’d blocked Gault’s exit, Youngblood parked in a side drive, rushed into the store and asked Mrs. Brantley if she had a shotgun.

At about the same time, the Clio vehicle whipped into the driveway, which circled the building.

According to an account in The Troy Messenger, Mrs. Brantley asked, “What’s the matter?”

“There’s a bank robber in back of the store,” Youngblood replied.

“Oh my God,” Mrs. Brantley uttered.

James Jackson, a salesman with Petrey Wholesale Grocery, was the only other person in the store.

Mrs. Brantley did not have a shotgun, but did find a .22 caliber rifle. She was walking towards the front of the store, attempting to locate bullets for the rifle, when she heard one shot and then two more.

Apparently Gault had circled back around the building, spotted Youngblood and opened fire from his car.

While several published reports said Officer Youngblood was killed in the two-door entrance of the country store, others say he was killed while peering out a rear side door of the business.

When they heard the shots, both Mrs. Brantley and Jackson dove for cover behind counters. Neither she nor Jackson saw the exchange of gunfire nor Gault firing his weapon.

When Mrs. Brantley looked up, she saw a pair of man’s legs extending from the rear of a soft drink box.

According to another newspaper account, B. F. Ketchum, part of the three-man posse from Clio, was standing next to Youngblood and actually caught Youngblood’s falling body and helped ease the large man to the ground. According to the article, Youngblood’s blood “soaked Ketchum’s clothing.”

Youngblood died instantly from one shot to the center of his chest (one report said the bullet struck him in the heart).

Jackson and Mrs. Brantley rushed to the fallen officer. As Jackson checked for a pulse, Mrs. Brantley called an ambulance, even though she knew Officer Youngblood was almost certainly dead.

Realizing there was nothing he could do for Officer Youngblood, Ketchum took Youngblood’s service revolver, jumped back in his car and continued the pursuit of Gault.

***

My late father’s account - related to my father by the late Riley Green, who was a district attorney in Troy at the time - leans toward the view that Officer Youngblood was at a rear side door of the store when he was shot, and states that while Officer Youngblood did fire at least one shot, it probably missed Gault.

Still, most reports of the day said that Officer Youngblood wounded Gault in the arm, and that the shooting happened at the front door. When his body was later examined at McGehee Funeral Home, four gunshot wounds were found on Gault’s body - one to his face, two to his “upper body” and one on his arm.

******

Part 2 (‘Hundreds converge on Needmore Road’) to come tomorrow …

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