Down a Dusty Road/Murder in a Mill Town

Living a Tragedy

In a wood frame house, also called a “mill” house, on a dirt road in Erwin a mother answered a knock on the door. A young son who stood behind her had followed her to the door and was looking around her skirt. At the door was her son-in-law, Tom Wood.

Tom said, “I have come here to tell you about Ruby. She left sometime in the night and she took my pocket knife with her.” These are the words I heard and have never forgotten. Mama began to cry and Tom walked off the porch down the steps.

Arrangements had to be made to go to Durham to see daddy who was in the hospital being treated for manic

depression-now referred to as “Bi-Polar.” Dad was there and the treatment of the time was electric shock treatments.

When we got through the locked doors to where dad was housed mom told him the story Tom had told her. As soon as she finished speaking daddy said, “Ferbie, he’s killed her.” Right then we didn’t know how “right on” he would prove to be.

Then it came time to report Ruby, missing, Tom went with Ferbie to the county seat to tell Sheriff Salmon. The strange story she told was one with the possibility of tragedy but no reason for great alarm. It was a story that the sheriff had heard many times.

A girl was missing, 22 year old Ruby Wood, the eldest daughter of Mrs. Powers. Yet there were some things that made this story somewhat different.

Many people said that the marriage of Ruby and Tom just wouldn’t last. Ruby was a reticent, home-loving girl. She was not the party type while Tom was the opposite. He loved the bright lights and hot spots of the county.

In a short few months these skeptics had to change their minds. Tom had a steady job at the “mill” in Erwin working the 4-12 shift. When he came home he was always helping Ruby with the housework and as far as Ruby it was plain to see that she was devoted to Tom.

Ruby was pregnant with her 4th child. The first three had been stillborn. All this happened in a very short time of marriage. There are three tiny graves in the Erwin Cemetery and as this story progresses, there is soon to be a fourth.

The report of a missing daughter

While Tom and Ferbie were in his office Sheriff Salmon decided to ask Tom for a few details.

“You say you retired and you awoke to find her side of the bed unused. Didn’t she retire at the same time as you?” asked Salmon

“No, Sir, when I went to bed she was in the parlor reading. She often did that. Or at least that’s what she said she was doing,” came the reply.

This statement prompted Salmon to ask quite demmandingly, “What do you mean by that?”

Mrs. Powers then plied into the conversation, “He thinks Ruby is running around on him. I know that isn’t so. My girl, Ruby, is a decent person, she’s a good, and honest wife.”

In response to the sheriff’s question Tom Wood admitted he had no proof of his suspicions only that Ruby hadn’t been herself lately and that may be the reason she decided to leave like she did.

Tom added, “Mom feels that something must have happened to her or she would have been home by now.”

The sheriff assured them that this case would be thoroughly investigated and any information he learned would be passed on to them immediately.

You can see the trail when the dust settles.

When the visit ended and Ferbie and Tom had left the office, Sheriff W. E. Salmon picked up the phone and called Deputy Claude Avery in the township of Erwin.

Claude was a firm investigator and he stayed the course on the cases he worked. He had a nose for the scent and he could “smell” the trail. Sheriff Salmon told Claude of the story just related to him about the missing girl. He also told him of the four “angles” that he might pursue. One was the possibility that Ruby had just gone to visit friends or relatives, two that she had run off with another man, three that she committed suicide and four that she might have been murdered.

Avery started at the home of the couple at 206 W. “C” Street in Erwin. He questioned all the neighbors and all of the opinions about the couple were not complimentary. The one neighbor who was the most likely to know anything about the situation was the one who shared the building with them. Her name was Grace Thornton. Grace was the only one who gave a less than glistening statement about the couple to Deputy Avery.

Grace told Claude that Ruby had a male visitor who came by three or four times in the past week or so. Her opinion was not on the side of the suicide story. Avery asked if she could describe the man. She did the best she could to include every detail of the description complete with the make of the car he drove. Thanking her the deputy left to delve further into the mystery.

Deputy Avery departed that house with a clear description of the mysterious visitor. His next stop was at a relative’s house where he gave the description of the man and by it he was immediately told that it was Cecil Byrd. Byrd operated a little store where the children went every time they found money to spend. He had been a friend of the family for years. Asked why he visited the home of Tom and Ruby he said, “Ruby called me upset saying that she thought Tom was going to leave her for his first wife, Eula Gray Messer.” Messer had moved away to Ohio but had recently been seen around Dunn and Erwin. He told Avery that being an old friend of the family he came to her after she asked him what she should do. Cecil Byrd was quit a bit older than Ruby and he had known her since she was a little girl. Claude put that meeting with Byrd on the back burner. He didn’t forget it but he moved on to what he supposed to be a “hotter” trail.

The next stop for the detective was the home of Mr. Edward Walker Powers, Sr. and Ferbie Catheren Powers. Walker, as he was called, had worked for Johnson Cotton Company where he had an accident and had to miss work. While he was out of work he became very depressed. He had to be hospitalized for treatment of manic-depression (an inherited disorder easily passed on to children.) The name for that condition now is bi-polar.

The home of the Powers family was on “A” street in Erwin. The street had never been paved and every car, although there were few in the space of a day, made a great cloud of dust and you always knew someone was coming by the plume of dust behind the vehicle. You could tell at which house it stopped by where the dust ended. This time it ended in front of the place Ruby lived before marrying Tom. Layers of dust covered everything outside.

What he found out at that house would fill a thimble.

"He Said," "She said" was all he got.

Deputy Claude Avery had a mystery for sure this time. Was Cecil telling the whole truth or just trying to cast suspicion on someone else? Claude pondered all of this and couldn’t make any progress at all from what he knew to be the facts. Anyway the information Byrd gave was in direct contradiction to what another had told him.

Avery decided it was time to talk to Wood. Knowing that Tom worked in the mill from 4 PM until 12 AM Claude was at the gate to see Wood when he reported to work. But that day Tom didn’t go to work that day using the excuse that he was taking the day off to look for his wife. Before leaving the plant Avery did question several of Tom’s co-workers and the same type of stories were told to the deputy about how these two were deeply in love and how Tom was likable fellow and he stayed pretty much to himself.

One person, however, told a story that led Avery in slightly different direction as he searched for the truth. He said that a couple of weeks ago he gave Wood a ride home and just as they were getting into the car a shapely woman walked by and he heard Tom say, “What in the world is she doing in town?” After that Tom acted as though he was in deep thought. He became almost dumb. The story didn’t really lead to hard rock fact but it did shed a little light on Cecil Byrd’s story. It turned out the woman was in fact Eula Gray Messer, Wood’s first wife. Cecil might just be telling the truth.

The Deputy now had another person to contact but first he had to find her. But, finding her took second place to getting into the house at 206 W. “C” Street. He had to take a look at the inside of that apartment. He started a check of the places he knew Wood might just go around to Erwin. He found him on main-street in front of the drug store. Claude told him it was important that he inspect the house for clues. Tom rode with him to the house and the two went in. Avery was very impressed at the site of the house. There was not one thing out of place. It looked as if a perfectionist had cleaned the home. The bed was neat and folds were perfect at the corners. Claude thought to himself, “Why would a man take the time to clean a house to perfection when his wife was missing and possibly dead?” Here was another avenue to pursue later. There was nothing notable in the house that would help figure out the whereabouts of the dainty 4’5” frail, pregnant 22 year old Ruby powers Wood.

But, Deputy Claude Avery had made up his mind that he wouldn’t rest until the case was pursued to a conclusion.

Too much dust in the air.

Some folks around the area thought of Avery only as a figurehead-just a breather in a uniform. Fact is he didn’t even wear a uniform. He maybe had a hat or a badge on his shirt. He was looked upon as just a representative of he law and nothing more. Little did folks know of his dedication and diligence in solving crimes like this one?

Deputy Claude Avery kept thinking about the statement that Tom Wood made about going to Mrs. Powers to tell her of Ruby’s disappearance on Monday Morning, the day after she “left.”

Avery called Sheriff Salmon to report his progress. He was skeptical at the information he had obtained from Wood. He related his feelings to the sheriff the two of them felt the same way-it was time to talk formally to Tom. He became the first suspect in a short line.

Since a taxi was the quickest way to get to Dunn he thought Wood might have taken that option to get over there. Avery went to the only taxi stand around to talk to the driver. There was also a bus that ran between Erwin and Dunn. It was mostly for the mill workers to travel back and forth. It was called “Queen City Bus Company” to the best of this writer’s knowledge. When he talked with the cab driver he learned that the man had seen Tom over in Dunn earlier that morning.

Claude had to make the six-mile trip to Dunn.

The Deputy went straight to the police station to inquire about Tom Wood and also his first wife Eula. He was surprised, and pleased, that several of the officers knew Wood and Eula Gray too. They told Avery just where to find her house.

Avery went to the house and when he pulled up a shapely brunette with a grabbing smile came out onto the porch. Claude got out of the car and asked her if Tom Wood was there. Just then Tom appeared in the doorway and the woman said stiffly, “He came over to tell us of Ruby being missing.” No doubt he had come for that reason but did he come for another reason-to try and get Eula to come back to him? Now that puzzled Avery. The deputy asks Tom, “How about you come with me while I visit some other places.” Tom agreed and came toward the car. When they had pulled out of the drive Avery asked him straight out, “Where did you spend Sunday Night?” You know what he said without me writing it down. The reply was, “I was at home of course.”

Avery let it go for now. He stood on shaky ground as far as pushing Tom Wood for answers just yet but there were a few things he wanted to know now.

His next inquiry was dealing with the ex wife. “Tom,” he said, “Have you been seeing Eula Gray Messer for he past little while?”

The infuriated Wood said, “I surely have not.”

Avery didn’t want to confront him too early with the story Cecil Byrd had told.

Deputy Avery became discouraged with the way things were going and he returned Wood to his home.

This time he drove to Lillington to give his report to Sheriff Salmon in person.

Witnesses from the woodwork

As Sheriff Salmon sat at a desk in a little room called the sheriff’s office in Lillington he was trying to figure out what to do with Tom Wood. Deputy Avery walked in and took a seat in the only other chair in the room.

“What have you found out Claude?” Salmon said even before his rear was settled in that chair.

“Well, sheriff I just don’t know what to think of Wood” Avery began and he continued, “I talked with him for quite a while this morning and he may not be telling us all the truth.”

“You tell me what you think will help get this thing turned out and I will see you get it,” W. E. Salmon promised.

“I just don’t know what to think about to be facts I know. That Eula Gray Messer needs to be talked to without Tom being there. I’m going there tomorrow and see what I can find out” promised Avery.

The next day found Avery at the home of Eula Messer. There were some pointed questions he wanted to ask and he meant to get answers. He knocked on the door and Eula came to answer. After entering the “living” room he sat in a platform rocker and she sat on the couch.

“Eula, I need to know if Tom Wood has been trying to get back with you” he started. To his surprise the answer came quite candidly.

Eula Gray’ answer made her an immediate state’s witness should Tom be arrested and carried to trial.

She said quite frankly, “Yes Mr. Avery, he has been trying to get me back. He has come over here and called me but every time I told him no. It seemed he just wouldn’t take no for an answer.” All this seemed to make Tom a more viable suspect. Claude felt he had made progress.

Back at home he found several messages from someone other than those who he now knew to be directly helpful in the case. There was a name he didn’t recognize. It seems the Reverend James McNeil wanted to talk to Mr. Avery claiming to have information about the missing girl.

Sheriff two, Tom Wood zero

The Reverend James McNeil lived out the “Old Wire Road” down the hill out of Erwin toward Buies Creek. That was an area referred to as the “swinging bridge.”

Deputy Avery was at Rev. McNeil’s house early the next morning. After exchanging handshakes and greetings Claude ask the Reverend, “Preacher McNeil I got a note at home telling me you might have some information about that missing girl in Erwin.”

McNeil said, “Well sheriff, I don’t know whether it will help or not but I do know something about a man that came to my door last Sunday saying his car was stuck and he needed a ride to Dunn to get help.”

Avery came back with another question, “Did you know this man?” That question got a negative reply from Rev. McNeil.

Claude asks the next logical question, “Can you give me a description of that man.” McNeil’s description matched Tom Wood to a “T” but it is what he said next that meant more than Avery had heard so far.

The preacher said, “You need to go and ask Howard Reardon ‘cause the same man went to his house last Sunday Night too.”

Deputy Ken Matthews had been sent by the sheriff to aid the investigation. He met Avery at McNeil’s house and the two of them proceeded to the home of Howard Reardon. When each of the deputies had introduced themselves to Reardon and he had done likewise with the handshakes over Matthews began to inquire as to just what the man knew.

Pay dirt

Deputy Matthews began by making a statement, “Mr. Reardon there is one of your neighbors who said that he knew you had a visitor on last Sunday Evening with car trouble. Did you indeed have such a visit?”

To that Reardon replied, “Yep I sure did. It was around 11:00 o’clock at night. He said he wanted me to carry him to Dunn ‘cause his car was in the ditch and he needed to go over there to get help. I’m always suspicious of someone out at that hour even if I did know him.”

When he said that Ken Matthews swallowed hard and paused just a split second. During that split second Claude Avery piped in with a show of surprise. “Did you say you knew this man?”

Reardon said simply, “It was Tom Wood.”

What a break! Tom Wood had lied and he had not been home on Sunday Evening. He was now positively identified as a suspicious man in the area of the “Swinging Bridge” on the Cape Fear River on the night Ruby disappeared.

Matthews and Avery hurried to a phone and reported to Sheriff Salmon. What they said to him started the wheels rolling. The sheriff said, “That’s spectacular news! We will gather a posse together and search that area out there. I believe she’s there somewhere.” Avery and Matthews were in complete agreement.

Although it was the middle of the afternoon, deputies and civilians were in front of the Courthouse. Loading portable floodlights and more than a dozen people from Lillington loaded into cars and went to Reardon’s house. That is where the search would start. They came prepared to search into the night if necessary.

Seek and you will find



It was at Howard Reardon’s house that the search began and fanned out along the banks down to the Cape Fear River.

Deputies Avery and Matthews were the official leaders of the search. Prepared to search into the night and divided into smaller groups the entire search was concentrated mainly along the banks of the river and small creeks falling into it. The search was short and profitable. In a little over an hour there was a report heard through the woods that brought the entire search party to a single area near the river’s edge. A civilian searcher had found a pair of womens glasses covered with blood.

By this time Sheriff Salmon had arrived at the search area. As he made his way to the site where the glasses were found another cry came through the trees. A dark object was seen in the edge of the water. It turned out to be a body. The body turned out to be that of Ruby Powers Wood. The short frame was pulled from the water and placed on a blanket not far from where it was discovered. Several clues led to the identity of the dead person. It was the right height-a little over 4 feet tall; the fact that you could tell the victim was pregnant. The clincher was the Yellow coat found at the scene that the mother of Ruby Wood told deputy Avery was missing from her closet of the Wood home. It was indeed Ruby.

Ripples of horror filled the lungs of the crowd of searchers as the significance of the find was absorbed. The small body was mutilated with wound after wound visible to the face, neck, and head. These wounds appeared to be stab wounds. Her throat had been slashed and there were stab wounds in the top of her head. The upper portion of her dress was in shreds where the blade had torn into it time after time.

Avery took a long look at the body and then moved slowly over to Deputy Matthews and said, “Come on Ken, there’s somebody we need to talk to.” In the few minutes it took to travel the winding, rock-strewn, dusty dirt road leading to Erwin, Claude Avery and Ken Matthews rehearsed what they would do when they reached the home of Tom Wood. They were disappointed to find that Wood wasn’t there. Bill King, from the apartment across the hall, told them that Tom had left a little while ago telling him that he was going to check out a new “lead” he had found in the disappearance of his wife.

Avery and Matthews thought for sure that the telling of the discovery of the body, which spread like wild fire, had alerted Wood and he had fled. Knowing that Wood had no car it was very possible that he had gone to the train or bus station over in Dunn to facilitate his escape. The investigation of this theory proved fruitless. No one answering Tom’s description was seen at either place. Returning to Erwin the two went to the drug store on Main Street and found Wood in a phone booth near the front of the store. They stood on either side of the door and as Tom stood from the seat in the booth he saw them. They waited for him to come out onto the sidewalk then they “nabbed” him. Tom played it off with the remark that he was glad to see them because he was just on the phone to Lillington to divulge information about His missing wife. He told them that Ruby was sighted in Raleigh. A man who Tom didn’t name was supposed to have seen her there the day before according to Wood.

At the trial there would be more surprising testimony.

This Time The Dust Stopped at Our House

Sheriff W. E. Salmon had the sad duty of informing Walker and Ferbie Powers of the finding of their daughter’s body. He didn’t make tracks but he made dust as he went a little faster than usual. He wanted to get there first. He tried to travel faster than the news. Turning right on “A” Street he began leaving a dusty swirl in his wake. That trail of floating dirt stopped at our house.

Being a man of great compassion and tender heart, when he told the parents the news he too cried.

An autopsy statement made by Coroner C. B. Allred and Dr. W. W. Stanfield told how the young bride of Wood’s had been stabbed 48 times. Some of the blade remained in her brain.

Eula Messer gave most damning evidence in the trial. When Deputy Avery had come to her house and found Tom Wood there he couldn’t very well talk to her. He returned the next morning and was given statements by Eula of how Tom wanted her to get back with him. She said, “I tried to talk him out of the notion that we would ever get back together. I never dreamed he was capable of a thing like this.”

Rev. McNeil and Howard Reardon gave the story of the late night visitor on the night Ruby disappeared. The evidence mounted against Wood.

Confronted with this mountain of evidence and fighting overwhelming odds, the defense attorney changed the plea for his client from innocent to not guilty by means of insanity. The defense presented two prominent physiatrists who said that Wood was indeed insane. To the surprise of the court and the courtroom filled to capacity with people interested in the proceedings these two psychiatrists told of how Tom Wood confessed to them the details of the murder.

District solicitor Jack Hooks had visited the scene of the murder before the body was removed. After witnessing the body of that young girl and the horrendous way in which she was killed he vowed to convict whomever was responsible. In court he vehemently denied that Wood was crazy. “He is just as sane as you or I,” he told the jury. One of these psychiatrists told the story that Tom had related to him of how Ruby pleaded with him not to kill her. She begged for her life and asked him to throw that knife away and KISS HER ONE MORE TIME BEFORE SHE DIED.

A Packed Courtroom

The material evidence against Wood was placed on a table in the courtroom. Sheriff’s Deputy Claude Avery is shown as he presented it to the court. The bloodied clothing, the broken glasses, coat and belt all belonging to Ruby were presented piece by piece. With each showing the courtroom seemed to take a deep breath. The walls seemed to breath in along with the crowd. Avery was meticulous in describing each object.

The parade of witnesses for the prosecution included, Cecil Byrd, Rev James McNeil, Howard Reardon, Eula gray Messer, Claude Avery, Ken Matthews, O. B. Tyson and his small son’s testified that they had seen Wood and his wife walking in the woods the day she disappeared Inez Tart and Jean Moss gave the same testimony. Charles Grimes an employee of a furniture store in Dunn testified that Tom Wood had come into the store and asked that he go and pick up some furniture that Wood was paying for by the week because his wife had left him and he didn’t want to continue making the payments.

The jurors were taken to the site of the gruesome murder and were able to see first hand where the body was pulled from the water. No questions were allowed and no explanations were given they all stood in forced silence and gaped at the ground, trees and the water. It was so silent it feigned a wake.

Back in the courtroom there was still an overflow crowd. More than 500 souls tried to attend the proceedings. That many people crowed the entire building. Standing room only was the rule for the three days it took for the trial to be completed.

Dr. Leslie Hohman and Dr. George A. Silviar from Duke University testified for the defense that Tom Wood was insane.

In three short days all the evidence for both sides was presented. The jury took the case at approximately 8:30 PM on Wednesday evening. It took only an hour for them to do their work. They returned to the courtroom and were polled. The verdict was GUILTY! Tom Wood stood in silence as Judge Burgwin sentenced him to die in the North Carolina’s gas chamber.

Lawyer Doffermyer had one last job to do. He wanted to spare his client from the death chamber. In order to do this it would take a plan that included contacting the parents of the victim. This he did and when asked by Doffermyer if they concurred with the sentence of death for Tom Wood, Walker of course said yes but Ferbie Catheren Powers searched deep inside and said, “I don’t want him killed.” It was these five words that eventually spared Wood life and placed him in prison for life. He died in prison in the late 90’s.

Tom Wood became a preacher while living out his life in prison, or so it was reported.


THE END!