THURMAN's QUEST

Allen Granberry Thurman (1813 - 1895) Vice Presidential Candidate - 1888

"Old Murder, New Mystery - Found Bible rekindles interest in Virginia's last hanging"
From "The Virginian Pilot, The Daily Break" page E4, 11 Apr 2000
Spectators crowded rooftops overlooking the Norfolk jail yard, while many more watched from the police station. The sun was just rising at 6:02 on April 10,1908, when Norfolk Sheriff John F. Lawler sprung the trap on the gallows. A sharp snap resounded. "Like a flash, the body of the doomed prisoner shot through space until it had plunged eight feet to the end of the rope," read a newspaper account of the time. And Leo C. Thurman, a notorious fugitive in one of the city's most sensational murders, became the last man executed by hanging in Virginia before the electric chair replaced the gallows in July 1908. That afternoon, Thurman, only 25, was quietly buried in Norfolk's Elmwood Cemetery in a wood coffin in a plot designated for strangers and paupers. His grave, somewhere among the ornate headstones and granite mausoleums, is unmarked. And he was forgotten. Until the Bible surfaced. Just as bulldozers prepared to demolishe the W.E. Smith Garage in Suffolk last fall, a dusty, tattered King James Bible was recovered. Near the back cover, where folks might list family births and marriages, several pages of faded notes included this notation:

Leo C. Thurman was hanged on April 10, 1908, in Norfolk, age 25.
The long-ago writer, who apparently had some familiarity with Thurman, wrote that he had married a Kentucky woman in 1903, but she left him two years later. "She left Thurman as his people told her he was insane. It was his people who caused her to leave."The last notation on the page: Walter P. Dolsen. Who was Dolsen? Who was Thurman and why was he hanged? Who scrawled the cryptic notes, and how did the Bible land in Suffolk? Some of the answers would never be found: the identity of the person who wrote in the Bible, a connection between Thurman or Dolsen and Suffolk. The late Elva Smith, whose family owned the garage, was a collector, friends say, and probably acquired the Bible somewhere along the way. But the answers that did surface provide a glimpse of crime and punishment in Hampton Roads early in the last century.

The Norfolk Landmark, April 11, 1908
Early on the morning of the 1st of April two years ago the city was shocked by the news of the horrible murder of Walter P. Dolsen, a discharged United States Marine, and then the gruesome efforts of his murderer to conceal the crime by packing the dead body in a trunk with the ostensible purpose of shipping it out of the city.

If you believe newspaper accounts of the era, Thurman was a thief and a cold-blooded murderer. Thurman himself, writing in a death-row autobiography, says he was a brilliant con artist caught in a violent struggle with his drunken roommate. According to news accounts, Thurman murdered Dolsen with an ax at their rooming house on Main Street, hid his body in a trunk, then planned to get rid of the evidence by shipping the trunk to Edenton, N.C. "Robbery was the motive and it is said that Thurman secured several hundred dollars," The Virginian-Pilot reported. Thurman panicked when, shortly after he had hidden Dolsen's body, a housekeeper noticed blood spatters on the floor and laughingly suggested an ax murder had taken place. By the time Dolsen's body was discovered a few hours later, Thurman had already fled Norfolk. The ensuing manhunt stretched across the country, with Thurman's description posted in police stations and post offices, as well as in the police publication, The Detective. Thurman recounted his escape in the autobiography, which he wrote during his last 10-day stay of execution. Proceeds of his life story, filled with adventure and humor, were to support his widowed mother in West Point, Ky. Elinor Antis, a Wakefield librarian and genealogist, tracked down the single remaining copy of the book in the state library in Richmond. Thurman claimed the boarding house killing was self-defense against a drunken Dolsen, who was advancing on him, hatchet in hand:

I quickly caught up the ax, not with the intention of striking him, but to keep him from me until I could make my exit.... I told him for God's sake to keep back. He paid not the slightest attention and raised the hatchet as if to strike but before he could deliver the blow I had struck him. Dolsen staggered and fell, but immediately started to regain his feet. Having lost all self-control, when he attempted to get up I struck him again but whether one or a dozen times I have not the slightest idea.
Thurman said he intended to summon a doctor, but Dolsen was already dead. He doubled the body into a trunk, planning to ship the remains to Edenton. As morning approached, however, Thurman decided to grab his hat and flee, "borrowing" Dolsen's watch and wallet containing $245 in discharge pay.

After my departure from Norfolk the police expected evidently that I was in hiding. Instead I was on the main thoroughfares of all cities visited and at all times associated with better classes. While my leaving Norfolk and my success in evading the police department has been construed by many as remarkable, yet it was very simple: Nothing more or less than the intelligence of one man pitted against that of another.
For a year, he rode the rails, catching rides on trains across the country and Canada, confidently outsmarting his pursuers. He assumed disguises so effective that he claimed to have visited police stations to view his own wanted posters. Arrested for stealing a horse in Butte, Mont., Thurman, with his habitual glibness, talked himself into an acquittal. Hungry and broke, he conned an entire Florida village into winning and dining him for several days as the representative of a mythical telephone company. Arrested on March 30, 1907, for forgery in Vancouver, British Columbia, he was recognized as the fugitive ax murderer. He denied ever being in Norfolk-but the label in his hat band gave him away. The luck and confidence upon which Thurman had always relied finally ran out. The youngest of four children, Thurman was born in West Point, Ky. Quick-witted and charming, he played baseball and enjoyed great popularity, devoting pages of his autobiography to romantic escapades. In 1903, disaster struck in the guise of a fly ball during a game between West Point and a town in Indiana. Dashing across center field for the catch, Thurman was struck in the right temple. "Young Thurman remained in a semi-conscious state for several days," a Louisville newspaper later reported. "When he regained his senses afterwards the lad who had always enjoyed such an excellent reputation began leading a reckless and wild life." After his marriage ended, Thurman traveled, worked and courted women- frequently more than on at a time. Late in 1905, he enlisted in the Marines and was assigned to duty in Norfolk. Thurman's military career was short- seven weeks, of which six were spent in the Portsmouth Naval Hospital with an unspecified disability. His next stop was the boarding house on Norfolk's Main Street, where the landlady asked if he'd mind having a roommate.A fellow named Walter P. Dolsen. Thurman was found guilty of murder in the first degree in May 1907. After failing in his appeals for a new trial, he was sentenced to hang. In his autobiography, Thurman was introspective about his fate and offered advice to other young men:

"Let every young man reflect; let him give his future a moment's thought. If he sees where he can better his position morally (and there are few who cannot) as in any other manner, let him do so."
News stories detailed Thurman's last day- how he played ball with the other prisoners, chatted with the death watch, and enjoyed his last meal of fried chicken, German fried potatoes, coffee and custard pie. The next morning, the mood was different. Reported the Norfolk Landmark:
A deep silence fell over the throng surrounding the scaffold when the prisoner appeared and when he knelt beside his spiritual adviser, every head was uncovered and many were bowed. Thurman, on a bended knee, supplicated God in silence for probably a minute, made the sign of the cross without the twitching of a muscle and took his stand squarely on the trap.... There was an audible gasp from the witnesses as they realized the awful fate of the young prisoner. Many eyes were averted, though many were not. Soon after, Sheriff Lawler ordered the scaffold demolished and cut into firewood. The commonwealth had a new method of execution: the electric chair.

(Editor's Note: Interestingly enough, the picture of the Wanted Poster was taken from EBAY, an-line auction house where it was up for bidding. Thanks to Marie Thurman Vann for providing the photo and this article.


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