Claude Allen Surrenders

The Bluefield Daily Telegraph, Bluefield, W. Va.
Friday, March 29, 1912

CLAUDE ALLEN STARVED INTO SURRENDER

Sleepless and Fatigued He Comes Out of Laurel Thicket To Give Himself Up.

CAPTURE OF OTHER THREE FUGITIVES BELIEVED NEAR

Although Young Man Thought to Have Left Country Denies It, It is Thought He Was Trying to Carry Share of Meagre Food to Them.

MAN WHO BROUGHT HIM TO HILLSVILLE A BLUEFIELDER

Hillsville, Va., March 28. --Starving, sleepless and fatigued, Claude Swanson Allen came out of the Laurel thicket in the Blue Ridge today, pointed two six-shooters toward the sky and gave himself to the posse which for nearly two weeks has hunted him. Complacent, almost happy, he sat tonight, sheltered from a driving storm, in the little brick jail. Claude Allen, who is a son of Floyd Allen, had been given up as having escaped.

Detective Lucas and four men were working toward Floyd Allen's house when, twenty-five yards or so off the Mount Airy road, a figure creeping stealthily through the undergrowth was dimly seen through the mist. The men brought their rifles to their shoulders when, to their surprise, Allen stepped out into the road, hands up, a raised pistol in each. He said; "I have not slept in a bed since the shooting; I'm hungry."

The young mountaineer swung in between his captors and they started back to Hillsville.

His pouched eyes and roughened face confirmed his plea of exhaustion.

"I could have shot you," said Allen, as he smiled toward Detective Lucas, "but I was a little excited at having you come up on me so soon. Anyway I didn't want to have to kill anybody."

Bread and a casket of water were found hidden in the thicket and Allen said they were all he had been living on for several days.

Claude's capture gives renewed hope of the capture of the three remaining fugitives--Sidna Allen, his nephew Friel and Wesley Edwards. Although Claude stoutly denied any knowledge of the hiding place of the three, it is believed he was attempting to carry some of his meagre stock of food to his relatives.

Young Allen probably will be taken tomorrow to the Roanoke jail.

Graphic Story of Assassination.

In the presence of a detective young Allen described his part in the court house tragedy, admitting that he had seen Sidna Allen shoot and he himself aimed for Clerk Goad's head four times. He told a graphic story of the assassinations.

Fifty-four men, traveling on foot through thickets or over rough trails, early this morning began closing in on the spot high in the Blue Ridge mountains in which Sidna and Friel Allen and Wesley Edwards have found their last hiding place. The search leaders thought they would either run down the outlaws or make certain they had escaped from this section.

Across the North Carolina line at Mount Airy, Sheriff Haynes has a posse of fifty men, awaiting word to join the Virginia searchers.

Judge Staples held court a few minutes this morning to enter a special order and adjourned, until April 23, the special term of Carroll county court. At that time dates for the trial of Victor Allen, Sidna Edwards and Byrd Marion will be set.

Judge Staples sits at Roanoke Saturday to hear argument on the motion for change of venue in Floyd Allen's case. Floyd Allen's trial will probably be held in Roanoke.