 Stories and content in Weird Darkness can be disturbing for some listeners and is intended for mature audiences only. Parental discretion is strongly advised. Buck Lawson and his cousin Sanders trudged through the six inches of snow that had fallen on the simple streets of Germantown. It was a rare thing to see that kind of snow in North Carolina. But seeing as how it had fallen on Christmas, the boys felt no need to complain. It seemed like the perfect day for it. In fact, it was pretty much the perfect Christmas Buck thought to himself. The wiry sixteen-year-old had enjoyed a breakfast with his family and when he left on an errand to town, his sister and mother were busy starting on Christmas supper. His sister Marie and boy she could cook was making a special raisin cake for the family. Buck's mouth watered just thinking about it. Even Buck's father had been in a bright mood that morning. Buck's father Charlie could be a difficult man. He was prone to bad tempers and fits of rage and could be harsh and even violent with his family. Buck knew that he often stepped out of line and probably deserved some of the spankings that he had gotten as a child, but he also felt that his father often took things too far. Not long ago, he'd stood up to his father and the two of them had gotten into a real knockdown brawl. That had been an ugly day. Buck still remembered the way that his mother had cried and how scared his younger brothers and sisters had been. That was worse to Buck than his father's anger. But one thing was sure, Charlie hadn't hit Buck again. He hadn't hit Buck's mother or his brothers and sisters again either. That was worth the scrapes and bruises from that terrible day. Charlie seemed more like himself on Christmas morning. He was affectionate, funny and had a smile on his face. After breakfast he had suggested that he, Buck and Sanders who had spent the night with the Lawsons meet up with some of the other local farmers for a shooting competition. Buck smiled at the memory. They'd had a good time with the neighbors, blasting away at targets and good-naturedly joshing one another about their bad aims. It wasn't long though before they started running low on bullets and shells. Charlie finally called a halt to the shooting match. He wanted to go rabbit hunting later in the afternoon and didn't want to run out of shotgun shells. In fact, he told Buck he was pretty low already, would he mind going into town and buying some more? Buck agreed and Sanders volunteered to go along with him. It was only a couple of miles into town and even though none of the stores would be open on Christmas day, most of the owners lived on the premises and could easily be convinced to open just long enough for one sale. Charlie pressed a few dollars into his son's hand and the two boys walked off without a care in the world. Now, Buck and Sanders were on their way home. A box of shotgun shells rattled in the pocket of Buck's wool coat. The boys laughed and joked with one another, thought of ways to spend their afternoon and dreamed about the supper that was going to be on the Lawson table that night. They'd worked up an appetite, hiking to town and wondered if they could convince Buck's mother to let them sneak a little taste of Christmas ham. As the boys walked along, they heard the sound of tires crunching in the snow behind them. They'd been walking in the middle of the empty street. No one was out driving on Christmas morning or so they thought. Buck glanced back and pushed his cousin a little bit to edge him toward the side of the road. But then Buck looked back again. He recognized the car that was slowly creeping up behind them. It belonged to Charlie Hampton, the boyfriend of his sister Marie. Maybe Charlie was on his way out to the Lawson farm and could give them a lift. Buck turned around with a grin and waved at Charlie Hampton. But Charlie didn't wave back. Strange, Buck thought, he and Charlie were pals. Why did his friend look so serious? The auto came to a stop and Charlie opened his door and stepped out. Buck had never seen his face look so pale. His eyes were haunted and dark. Buck, Charlie said, his voice wavering and high, I need you to get into the car with me. Buck was no longer thinking about a ride. Something was wrong and he knew it. Charlie, what's going on? He asked. Hampton opened his mouth and started to answer but instead of words, he belched out a harsh, wailing cry. He began to sob. He buried his face in his hands and tried to choke out the words. That was when Buck knew that something terrible had happened and it was at that moment that he knew that his life would never be the same again. I'm Darren Marlar and this is Weird Darkness. Welcome, Weirdos. I'm Darren Marlar and this is Weird Darkness. Here you'll find stories of the paranormal, supernatural, legends, lore, the strange and bizarre, crime, conspiracy, mysterious, macabre, unsolved and unexplained. Coming up in this episode, it's the disturbing, dark, true story of the Lawson Family Massacre that took place on Christmas morning, 1929. If you're new here, welcome to the show. While you're listening, be sure to check out WeirdDarkness.com for merchandise, my newsletter, winter contests to connect with me on social media. Plus, you can visit the Hope in the Darkness page if you're struggling with depression or dark thoughts. You can find all of that and more at WeirdDarkness.com. Now, bolt your doors, lock your windows, turn off your lights and come with me into the Weird Darkness. Buck's father, Charles Davis Lawson, was born on May 10, 1886 in Stokes County, North Carolina. He grew up on a tobacco farm. His father worked the land and as a boy, Charlie, along with his younger brothers, worked it too. In 1911, Charlie married Fanny Manring and, as was common at the time, they started having children right away. Daughter Marie was born in 1912. She was quickly followed by James Arthur, who would grow into the nickname of Buck in 1913, followed by William in 1914. Another daughter, Carrie, arrived in 1917. Charlie's brothers, Marion and Elijah, decided to start their own farms and moved a short distance from their father's farm, settling near Germantown. In 1918, Charlie decided to follow them, packed up the family and moved to Germantown. He found a farm to work as a sharecropper, but his dream was to own his own land. Sharecropping could be a hard way of life. Charlie was essentially a tenant who worked the land and had to pay a share of the crop that he raised to the property owner. He was responsible for the cost of planting, seed, harvesting and labor. After the crop was sold, the landowner took his share of the profits as rent and the farmer kept the rest. Depending on the season and how well the crop did, a sharecropper could make a little or he could make next to nothing. It was almost impossible to feed a family as a sharecropper, which was why Charlie wanted to own his own land someday. It was his dream and he was determined to succeed. But the dream, along with his life, was almost cut short in November 1918 when he had a run-in with a black worker at a Winston-Salem tobacco warehouse. Charlie was visiting the Piedmont warehouse on Trade Street when Jesse McNeill clipped his leg when he pushed past him with a tobacco cart. Charlie gave McNeill an angry warning about watching where he was going, and the next thing anyone knew, the two men were rolling on the floor in a vicious fight. McNeill produced a knife and stabbed Charlie in the head and chest. After several onlookers broke up the fight, Charlie had to be rushed to the hospital. According to the Charlotte Observer, his condition is regarded as serious, little hope being entertained for his recovery. McNeill, meanwhile, had run off, later to be arrested and locked up by the police. Charlie beat the odds and was released from the hospital on December 5. After a short period of rest at home, he returned for McNeill's trial on December 20 and was in the courtroom to see the man found guilty of assault and sentenced to 18 months on the Forsyth County Road Gang. Charlie recovered from his wounds, and while he and Fanny sadly lost their son William to pneumonia in November 1920, they continued to add to their family. Maybel was born in May 1922, James in April 1925, and Raymond in February 1927. After years of scrimping and saving every penny, Charlie bought a house and barn on Brook Cove Road and 128 acres that went with it, just two months after Raymond was born. He borrowed $3,200 from the Wachovia Bank for the purchase, making a deal that set his mortgage payments at $500 a year. The farm was just outside of Germantown and close to the Lawson and Manring families. It was important to Charlie and Fanny to be near their families so that their children could grow up with cousins and other children all around. That sentiment became even more important in 1929, when another daughter, Mary Lou, was born. The family set about to make the primitive but sturdy cabin into a comfortable home, and soon Charlie's tobacco crop was doing well enough that he started thinking about replacing the cabin with a modern home. He was well respected by his neighbors, who all described him as a hard-working, sober and honest man. He was strict with his wife and children, often to the point of brutality, because Charlie had a bad temper. He was quick to punish the children with a switch or even with an open hand or his fists. Fanny was not exempt from his punishments. Neighbors saw it, as did family and friends, but in the 1920s, such behavior was rarely seen as abuse. It was far too common and it was either ignored or never talked about. It was no one's business, most believed, what a man did in his own home. In the summer of 1928, an incident occurred that likely affected the rest of Charlie's life. He was digging a trench to drain water out of his Tobacco Pack house's basement and using a mattock to do it. A mattock is a wooden-handled digging tool with a large flat blade on one side of the head and a spiked one on the other. Tom Manring, Charlie's brother-in-law, later recalled that Charlie had marked off an area to be dug, which was next to a wire fence. He was concentrating on where he needed to dig and forgot about the wire fence. The mattock stuck on a strand of wire and sprang back, swinging up and hitting Charlie in the head. The injury left Charlie with a nasty cut on his scalp and two spectacular black eyes. He didn't seem too severely injured at the time, but several weeks later started seeing the local doctor for the misery in his head. He began having blinding headaches and trouble sleeping. Charlie's nephew Claude Lawson later said that he thought the mattock had damaged Charlie's brain. Fanny said that he would often be sitting calmly at night and then suddenly jump up and run around the house to be sure his guns were loaded. The Lawson's family doctor, Jester Helsebeck, later confirmed that Charlie had suffered from some sort of nervous trouble. The exact definition of what he considered nervous trouble will never be known. Local doctors in the small towns of North Carolina in the 1920s were not known for their psychiatric expertise. We do know that Charlie's friends, neighbors, and relatives all thought he started acting strangely around this same time. He often walked away in the middle of a conversation, wandering about the cabin after dark, or making sure that he stayed in the shade when outside, as if avoiding any bit of direct sunlight. One night Fanny woke up to find the bed next to her was empty. She went outside and found Charlie kneeling alone in the middle of a harvested cornfield where he seemed to be alternating between fervent prayer and periods of uncontrollable weeping. It was only after she convinced him to stand up and come back into the house that she realized he had brought his shotgun with him. Charlie had always had a bad temper which he took out on his wife and children, but his fits of rage grew worse after his injury. Buck was the only one of the boys old enough to help with the heavy work on the farm, but Charlie often found fault with the job that he did and would beat him with a wooden switch. Buck endured this until May 1929. By then he was 16 years old, strong and an inch taller than his father. Charlie confronted him, told him to stand still for a beating, and Buck refused. You'll never be man enough to whip me again, he told his father, took the switch from his hands and snapped it in two. Charlie just looked at him and backed away. Buck was now determined that Charlie would never beat him or any other member of the family again. He started sleeping in his clothes, ready to defend the rest of the family if Charlie had one of his violent fits in the middle of the night. He was strong enough to control Charlie who had no choice but to accept the fact that his son was bigger and stronger than he was. Buck had become the family's protector, a responsibility that wore on him and haunted his sleep. The summer of 1929 passed into fall. Aside from Charlie's occasional outbursts of temper, now muted by the watchful eye of Buck, the Lawson family went on with their lives as they always had. They tended the fields, worked the garden, and cared for their livestock. The older children attended school, cared for the little ones, and overall, their lives were happy ones. Autumn came and went with relative calm. Buck stayed vigilant and Charlie managed to hold a temper. Winter arrived and the days got colder. The farm chores changed and the children spent more time indoors. Then, a little less than two weeks before Christmas, Charlie announced that he had a surprise for the family, but he had to take them to town for it. Any trip to town was exciting for farm children, but with the promise of a surprise, the littlest ones could hardly contain themselves. They piled into the truck and rode into Germantown, where Charlie sent them all on a shopping trip. He told all of them to pick out new sets of Sunday clothes whatever they wanted, no matter the cost. Many of the children had never had new clothes before. Handbie towns were common with so many children in the family, each outgrowing clothing that could be passed on to the next, so this was a special event. After they had picked out new clothes and changed into them, Charlie revealed the rest of his surprise. They were going to visit the town's photographer for their first family photograph. They excitedly lined up for the portrait and then waited patiently for the photo to be taken and the plates developed. It must have been a happy occasion, and yet the existing photograph shows a family that seems haunted by the cares of the world. Buck, a boy of only 16 and yet looking like a powerful young man in his 20s, seems already worn down by the weight to protecting his family. None of the children, save for a slight smile on Carrie's face, seem glad to be posing for the portrait. The eyes of Fanny, who was holding Mary Lou, the baby at just four months old, are filled with suspicion. While Marie, a beautiful young woman who had a boyfriend and was likely planning to soon move from her family's home, just seems stunned. If some versions of the Lawson family story are to be believed, Marie may have been hiding a secret from her family, a secret that some say led to her death. But it's the eyes of Charlie Lawson that are the most captivating in this family portrait. He is looking at something just off to the right of the camera. Was it the photographer or someone else in the room? We'll never know, of course, but in hindsight there is one thing that we can say about Charlie Lawson's eyes. They are the eyes of a madman. We'll continue with the Lawson family Christmas massacre when Weird Darkness returns. As Christmas approached, the children grew more excited. They knew that they couldn't expect many presents, especially since they had already received new clothes, but Christmas Day was always special. There would be lots of food, and Christmas was traditionally a time for special dishes that they only enjoyed once a year. Family and friends would spend the day visiting back and forth, and Christmas supper would be shared with the man rings, Fanny's parents and family. As often happens in much of the country, but not usually in North Carolina, it snowed on Christmas Eve. By Christmas morning there was a six inch blanket of snow outside. The day started with a hearty breakfast, shared by Charlie's nephew, Sanders, who had stayed the night. At the same time, a few miles away, another Lawson family was also having breakfast. It would be the one they would never forget. John, one of Charlie's brothers, had a premonition that something terrible was about to happen. He was not a superstitious man, but he just knew that something was wrong. The feeling was so strong that he started to cry and had to leave the table. He tried to convince himself that he was being foolish, but he couldn't shake the dread that had overcame him. He would soon receive news that proved his premonition was correct. After breakfast at Charlie's farm, Charlie, Buck and Sanders joined a group of other farmers for a friendly shooting competition. They set up bottles and cans to bang away at, all while pointing out the fresh rabbit tracks that could be seen in the snow. Several of the men mentioned trying to bag one for the stew pot later in the morning. Inside the house, Fanny and Marie, listening to the sounds of shots ringing out in the woods, prepared the family's festive evening meal. Marie made a cake for the occasion, coating it with white frosting and dotting the entire surface with raisins as decoration. She placed it in the center of the table, hopefully out of reach of little brother's probing fingers, and then turned her thoughts to the date she had that evening. She and her boyfriend, Charlie Hampton, were planning to attend the Christmas play at Palmyret Church in Germantown. Marie wanted to look her best. She put out a bowl of water to wash her hair and placed her curlers in front of the fire to warm them up. Fanny was keeping busy herself, dividing her time between the stove and the needs of little Marie Lou who was playing in her crib. She darted back and forth, wooden spoon in hand, stirring and preparing. Outside, Charlie, Buck and others continued the shooting match, joshing and teasing each other after every hit or miss. Charlie was in good spirits. Cooking smells began drifting out of the house around 11.30 and that started everyone thinking about lunch. One by one, the men drifted off toward their own farms and the hefty meals that awaited them at home. Soon, only Charlie, Buck and Sanders remained. Charlie reminded the two boys about his plans to go rabbit hunting in the afternoon and suggested they walk into Germantown to buy some more shells. It was doubtful that any of the local stores would be open, but Charlie assured them that they could find someone who would be open long enough for them to buy a box of shells. He really had a taste for rabbit, he grinned at them, but he needed more shells if he planned to shoot some. Buck and Sanders readily agreed. It was a nice walk into town, following the railroad tracks they could go and be back in plenty of time to eat. With a wave, they started toward town. Charlie watched them go. His shotgun was resting on his shoulder and his hand was buried in the deep pocket of his winter coat. It was loaded with shotgun shells. They rattled together as they moved through his fingers. He had lied to his son. He had plenty of shells, more than enough for what he planned to do next. About an hour after Buck and Sanders left, Fanny glanced at the clock on the masterpiece and saw that it was almost 1 p.m. She had arranged for Carrie and Mabel to visit their Uncle Elijah's family for Christmas lunch, so she called the girls over, buttoned them into their winter coats and sent them out the door. It was a short walk to Elijah's house. Marie was still busy with her hair. James and Raymond were happily playing on the floor in front of the fireplace, and Mary Lou was content in her crib. Fanny finally relaxed for the first time that day. The cooking and dishes were done, and the house was in order. She could rest a bit before she had to get things ready for supper. Carrie and Mabel's trip to their Uncle's house took them along the old stagecoach road that ran the length of the Lawson's farm. Trudging through the snow, they passed the family's woodpile and the tobacco pack house that Charlie had been draining when he was struck in the skull by the medic. The girls followed the curve of the road toward the first of Charlie's two barns. The barn stood only a few hundred yards from the house, and like all the farms, other big buildings, it faced directly on the stage road. As they rounded the road's sharp curve, the girls could see the barn looming ahead of them. They had no idea that their father was waiting for them there. Charlie was standing out of sight behind the northwest corner of the barn with a 12-gauge double-barreled shotgun and a .25-20 rifle. Hearing his daughter's excited laughter as they approached, he pressed himself against the wooden wall of the barn, making sure that he could not be seen. He gripped the shotgun tightly in his hands and waited for the girls to pass by. As soon as they had, he took careful aim at Kerry's back and pulled the trigger. As she started to fall, he fired the second barrel at Mabel. A cloud of red mists spread over the snow as she fell to the ground. Charlie snatched up the rifle and walked over to the girls. Mabel was perfectly still, but he could see that Kerry was still breathing. He fired a single rifle bullet into her head. Then he took a piece of scrap wood from outside the barn and bludgeoned the two little girls' heads until they were nothing more than bloody, unrecognizable masses. He stood there for a moment, the board dripping gore onto the snow, and looked down at his daughters. Then he tossed the plank aside and picked up each girl in turn, carried them into the barn, and laid them on the floor side by side. He put a stone under each of their heads as a pillow, crossed their arms on their chests, and drew their eyelids closed. He looked lovingly back at the two dead girls as he latched the barn door shut and started walking toward the house. As he walked, he loaded two more shells into the shotgun. When he approached the cabin, he saw Fanny outside. She had gone out into the yard to gather some more firewood for the stove. She turned toward Charlie as she started back to the house and he raised the shotgun and fired directly into Fanny's chest. The wood in her arms flew into the air and she fell dead before she hit the ground. Charlie dragged her to the house and dropped her on the front porch. Her skull knocked hollowly when her head struck the boards. Inside the house, Marie heard the roar of the shotgun and looked out to see her father dragging her mother toward the house. Fanny was covered in blood. Marie began to scream. The front door banged open and Charlie fired the second barrel. The load slammed into her chest. Pellets pierced her heart and shattered the mantle clock behind her. Both died at the same time. The two youngest boys, James 4 and Raymond 2, have been quietly playing on the floor when Charlie burst through the door. After the door slammed open, thundering blasted the shotgun and Marie falling to the floor, the boys began to scream. They both ran to hide but not before Charlie saw them. He went after James first. The little boy ran to his bed and crawled underneath, getting as close to the far wall as he could. But Charlie reached under the bed, pulled James out and slammed the butt of the shotgun into his head until his skull shattered. While James screams filled the house, Raymond had frantically scrambled behind the stove, trying to wedge himself in the corner. Charlie first tried to pry him out with the shotgun, using the barrel to try and lever the stove far enough from the wall to get at the boy. As the left barrel began to bend out of shape, Charlie gave up and began clawing for him, ignoring the heat from the stove, which singed his shirt. He managed to snag Raymond's shirt and he jerked the boy from his hiding place. As Raymond tumbled onto the floor, he slammed the butt of his ruined shotgun into his face, fracturing his skull, just as he had done to James. Only one child remained alive in the house, baby Mary Lou. She was lying in her crib, screaming at the sounds of terror around her. Thankfully, she was too young to understand what was about to happen to her. Charlie raised the shotgun and crushed her tiny skull with the butt of the weapon. He slammed it down on her head over and over again. She was now reunited with her mother, brothers and sisters in death. Frantic and soaked with blood, Charlie went to work preparing the bodies to be found. Family members could start arriving at any time for a Christmas visit. He had no time to spare. He dragged Fanny inside, closed the door and satisfied himself that his entire family was dead. He laid Fanny out on the floor and placed Mary Lou in her arms. He then laid Marie, James and Raymond alongside their mother. He then climbed the narrow staircase to the house's attic room where the children had slept. He collected four pillows, brought them downstairs with him and gently placed one beneath each of their heads. Just as he had with Carrie and Maybell, he closed their eyes and crossed their arms on their chests in a position of quiet repose. Charlie sat down for a moment on the bed that he shared with Fanny in the house's main room and looked at what he had done. He believed in that moment that he had saved the souls of his family. He truly believed that his wife and children lying on the floor in spreading pools of blood would rest in peace. Almost done, he sighed to himself. Almost done. One of Charlie's brothers, Elijah, along with his two sons, Claude and Carol, had spent their Christmas morning hunting rabbits south of the Lawson Farm. Claude had killed a rabbit which now hung proudly from his belt. By 2 pm, all their ammunition was gone and they started for home. Since their route across the railroad tracks would take them close to Charlie and Fanny's house, Elijah suggested that they stopped there and wished the family a merry Christmas. When they got within sight of the house, Claude ran excitedly on ahead and bound it onto the porch ready to greet everyone with great holiday spirit. He threw open the door with the greeting on his lips but the words froze before he could speak them. What he saw inside of the house was more than his young mind could comprehend. Years later he would remember nothing in that room except for one thing, blood. He stepped back from the door with no recollection of leaving it open or of slamming it to try and make it all go away. Either Claude slammed the door or his father did because Elijah's view of the carnage came through the front window. He saw the blood and now he noticed the drag marks on the porch. Something was terribly wrong at Charlie's house. It was obvious that everyone was dead and they had not been dead for long. The blood that was pooled on the floor was still wet and it was dripping between the floorboards. Elijah's first thought was that an intruder had entered the cabin and for some unknown reason had murdered the family. But where was Charlie? Realizing that they had walked into something horrible and with no ammunition to defend themselves if the killer was still around, Elijah and the boys ran for their lives. Thrashing through the snow they made it to the top of the hill overlooking the Miller Farm, which was closest to Charlie's house. Elijah yelled down to Mr. Miller telling him to call the sheriff and alert the neighbors someone had killed Charlie's whole family. Word spread in person and along the telephone lines and soon farmers from all around were grabbing their shotguns and converging on the Lawson Farm. They wanted to see what had happened and wanted to see what they could do to help. Dr. Helsebeck was summoned from town and he was followed by Sheriff John Taylor. The first arrivals saw the bloodstained snow outside the house. Someone had obviously been shot there, but it was the bodies they found inside that stunned the men. One newspaper account reported the bodies of Marie and James were lying with their heads near the bureau. Raymond's body in a pool of blood was to the right, the mother's body at the foot of the cradle. There was a big puddle of blood in front of the fireplace and in this blood were several combs similar to those used by women to hold their hair. Photographs that were taken of the blood-spattered room tell their own story. Even with the bodies removed from the frame, the house was a horrifying sight. There was a dark semi-circle of blood covering the floorboards around the fireplace like a ragged and torn rug. Marie and James stained pillows were prompt against the bureau. The black and white photographs showed a black spray of gore at the head of Mary Lou's crib. There was another grim stain on the bed next to the fireplace, left there when Charlie sat down to contemplate the horror he had unleashed. One eyewitness later recalled, there was blood all over the place. I mean blood everywhere, I haven't forgotten a bit of it. As the news of the murders spread throughout the county, more and more people arrived. Worried men left home with instructions for their wives and children to prop chairs under the doorknobs. Few people in the area had locks on their doors and to let no one inside until they returned home. There was, they believed, a deranged killer on the loose. At this point, Charlie, Buck, Kerry and Mabel were still missing. Sheriff Taylor began organizing men into a search party to find them. First though, they had to make sure the killer was not hiding in the attic of the house. It was the one place where no one had looked. Elijah Lawson feared that they had all been killed and their bodies perhaps laid out as carefully upstairs as the bodies that had already been found. Could the killer be hiding up there too? The only access to the attic was by way of a narrow, enclosed staircase which would make anyone climbing those stairs an easy victim for a killer waiting above. Deputy Robert Walker and a local doctor named Bynum carefully climbed those stairs with guns in hand, but found nothing in the attic except for a few bloody footprints that Charlie had left behind. Searching the house downstairs, others in the search party discovered Charlie's rifle and both his shotguns were missing. Had the killer taken them? He had, but at this point no one realized who the killer of the Lawson family actually was. A neighbor named Stephen Hampton found the bodies of Kerry and Mabel in the barn. He first discovered blood and drag marks in the snow and followed the trail into the building. As the men looked around the barn, they found a trampled spot in the snow where their killer had waited in ambush for the two girls, along with a discarded plank of wood with one end that was soaked in fresh blood. A little blue hat that had belonged to Kerry now crushed and blood soaked was found near her body on the floor of the barn. Word had finally reached the farm that Buck was in town with his cousin, which meant that only Charlie was missing. Was he another victim? Or was he, as some were beginning to fear, the perpetrator of this terrible crime? Someone in the search party spotted tracks in the snow leading away from the tobacco barn where Kerry and Mabel had been found. They veered off toward the trees and the creek beyond. The footprints were those of a full-grown man and from the length of his stride he had apparently been running. Cautiously, the men followed the tracks into the first thicket of trees across an open field and into the woods again. It was there at just after 4 p.m. that they found Charlie Lawson s body. He was slumped against a tree, a few hundred yards from the house and barn. The scene around him was a strange one. Charlie had evidently been in the woods for some time walking around and around a single tree. He had circled the tree so many times that the snow had melted in the path he walked. He eventually sat down on the ground at the base of the tree, put his single-barreled shotgun to his chest and pulled the trigger. He had a gaping wound in his body and the gun had fallen on the ground beside him. Four men picked up Charlie s body, each taking a limb and hauled him back to the farm. His suicide confirmed with the lawmen and Charlie s neighbors had started to suspect that Charlie had finally snapped and murdered his entire family. The coroner s jury convened by Dr. Halseback agreed. Sheriff Taylor searched the dead man s pockets and found several bills of sale recently struck with tobacco buyers in the area. Two of them had Charlie s penciled handwriting on the back. One note cryptically read, Trouble will cause. The other began, Blame no one but. Everyone assumed the missing word was me, but no one could say for sure. He never finished writing it. A few believed that Charlie had started to explain his actions that day and then decided against it. Perhaps in the end he decided to leave it a mystery. No one will ever know what was going on in Charlie s head when he decided to slaughter his family. He had $58 in his pocket when his body was found and the tobacco paperwork showed that his business was doing quite well. Whatever problems had led to Charlie s breakdown, poverty was not among them. Why did Charlie spare Buck from the murder spree, intentionally sending him away that day? Was it because he loved him more? Or did he want his son to suffer as the only surviving member of the family? This seems to be the most likely scenario, a bit of petty revenge against the boy who stood up to him. He knew that Buck would have to live with his failure to protect his family for the rest of his life. Buck would have died to protect his mother, brothers and sisters, and Charlie knew it. He was the only obstacle in Charlie s twisted plan. He sent Buck off to town, and the boy had gone willingly, never realizing that he would never see his family alive again. Charlie Wade Hampton, Marie s boyfriend, found Buck on the snowy streets of Germantown after he learned of the murders. He had to break the news that his entire family had been dead. Buck was brought straight back to the farm, where his uncles and their families tried to comfort him as best they could. I don t know why he did it, Buck wept to one of the reporters on the scene. I guess it s just like they say, he must have suddenly gone crazy. There were no formal crime scene arrangements in those days, and no official police cleanup crews either, so it was left to Charlie s relatives and neighbors to help Sheriff Taylor deal with the aftermath of the massacre. Women from nearby towns brought their own bedsheets to give the bodies a decent covering. Volunteers dug the loss in grave at Bouter Cemetery, excavating a trench that would hold eight caskets. Mary Lou would be buried in her mother s arms. The snow of the past few days had made the steep road leading up to the Lawson s House impassable for most cars, so all the remains had to be carried down to wading herses by hand. Bolley Tuttle, the owner of a local hardware store, took Mary Lou s battered little body in his arms and carried her gently down the hill. Years later, he recalled, it was just awful. I barely made it to the hearse. The bodies were taken to Madison about 13 miles to the east, where an embalming firm, run by T. Butler Knight and Yelton s funeral parlor, were waiting to care for them. Dr. Halsebek was waiting there as well. He worked through the night to complete his formal examination of the corpses. By a remarkable stroke of luck, Sheriff Taylor s brother, a newly qualified pathologist at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, was visiting his family for Christmas. Dr. James Taylor volunteered to assist Dr. Halsebek with the autopsies. These, combined with what Dr. Halsebek had seen at the farm, allowed the two men to determine the cause of death in each case, and to piece together each step of the massacre. Initially, it was thought that Carrie and Mabel had died while fleeing the carnage in the house, but this was discounted when it was pointed out that they certainly would not have taken the time to bundle up in their winter coats before they ran away. In addition, Charlie wouldn t have had time to kill all five of the others in the house and still overtake the two girls before they reached the nearby barn. Carrie and Mabel, they realized, had been the first victims. The disturbed snow by the barn, the bloodstains, and the discarded wooden plank told the rest of the story. Anyone who heard the first shots, including Charlie s family, would have shrugged them off as more noise from rabbit hunting in the woods. The bloodstains outside showed that someone had been killed there. The drag marks in the snow and across the porch led to Fanny s body. Buck testified that the clock on the cabin s mantelpiece had been working perfectly when he had left the house just before noon that day, but Sheriff Taylor had found it stopped at 1.25 p.m. The only shot fired inside of the cabin was the one that killed Marie, which marked her time of death and provided the window of time during which all the killings occurred. Based on the footprints in the attic and the tracks leading from the barn to the woods and not from the house, Charlie was likely hiding in the attic when Elijah and his boys approached the house after the murders. Would he have killed his brothers and his nephews if they had climbed the stairs? We ll never know, but as soon as they left, Charlie seems to have dashed to the barn for one last look at his slain daughters before running into the woods. He paced around the tree until he worked up the nerve to take his own life. The coroner s jury confirmed that it was that single-gauge shotgun that killed him. On the morning after the murders, the massacre at the Lawson Farm made front-page news in at least 19 different states. Wire services, like the Associated Press, sent the story out from New York to California. Radio broadcasts and local gossips spread the story even further. There is, as one newspaper editorial correctly stated, a peculiarly morbid interest in contemplating this terrible affair. Coverage was naturally the heaviest in Charlie s home state. By December 27, newspapers were illustrating their stories with a copy of the family portrait that Charlie had so thoughtfully provided a few days before things went so terribly wrong. On the same front page, they also carried a crime scene photograph that showed the family s living room painted with blood. The newspaper and radio coverage brought scores of curiosity seekers to the scene. Everyone wanted a piece of history. There was so much blood in the house that one of the volunteers who helped clean up the crime scene had to scoop it up with a hole shovel. He dumped it onto an old tin wash tub and a neighbor helped him carry it outside. Out of decency, they dug a shallow grave and poured the blood into the ground before covering it over. While they were doing it, he later recalled a visitor was busy funneling Fanny s blood from the house s porch into a little souvenir jar. The morbid visitors looted the cabin. Even the tree that Charlie leaned against as he took his own life was stripped bare within a few hours of the discovery of his body. The crowds wanted something to take with them, something to say that they had been at the scene of the tragedy. They took Charlie s guns, the bricks from the house that was later demolished, and even the raisins from the cake that Marie had baked a few hours before her death. The crowds also turned the funeral into a nightmare. Charlie had been a member of a fraternal organization called the Junior Order of United American Mechanics, and the local chapter helped Buck and his uncles organize the family s funeral. There would be no formal church service. There was to be just a few words from the pastors at Browder s cemetery and burial in the mass grave that had been dug there by neighbors. The ceremony was scheduled to start at noon on December 27. Six herses were loaded with bodies at Yelton s in Madison that morning. Since Mary Lou would be laid to rest with her mother, there were seven caskets in all. Yelton s had been hard pressed to handle so many bodies at once, so despite the fact that the family had wanted white coffins for everyone, a light gray one had to be substituted in Charlie s case. Someone scrounged up a piano stool and a small table to supplement Yelton s five coffin stands for the viewing at the ceremony. Lacking a seventh hearse, it transported little Raymond s casket in a private car. Rows of men with only a few women in the crowd lined the sidewalks to watch the herses pull away. Hundreds of tourists were waiting at the cemetery to watch them arrive. Automobiles had crowded the highway coming into town and were parked several miles up the road. People walked through mud, water and wet grass to be close to the show. They soon filled the surrounding woods too. Reporters circled through the crowd and found onlookers who had traveled more than 100 miles to view the funeral. The newspapers agreed that at least 5,000 people turned up at routers that day. Some watched in silence. Some came and went, taking the opportunity to also visit the lossen house while they were in the area. The quarter-mile dirt road leading from the highway to the cemetery was too wet for cars and soon the highway was also impassable. It had not been designed for so much traffic and the melting snow soaked the ground. Dozens of cars became stuck and had to be pushed out. The traffic and muddy conditions caused the herses from Madison to arrive more than an hour late. The vehicles got as close to the cemetery as they could and then men from Charlie's fraternal order had to shoulder the caskets the rest of the way. Sheriff Taylor, who had already recruited some men to keep an area next to the grave free of spectators, pushed open a path through the crowd for the pallbearers to use. The seven coffins were laid out in a line, starting with Charlie's full-size casket and tapering down to Raymond's tiny one at the other end of the row. Charlie had been a member of the Primitive Baptist Church whose elders, Watt Tuttle and Boss Brown, conducted the service at the graveside. Why this thing has occurred, Brown said, I do not know. The coffins were then opened so that anyone who wished to do so could say one last goodbye. Seeing the battered faces of the family was too much for Buck, he collapsed in grief and had to be helped to recover so the viewing could continue. His distress was made worse by what would haunt him for the rest of his life. If he had not fallen for Charlie's ruse in sending him to Germantown, he might have been able to stop his father before the killing ever started. As friends consoled the heartbroken boy, a line formed on each side of the coffins and people started to slowly file past. It took more than three hours for everyone present to get a look. As the afternoon light faded, the coffins were sealed once more and were lowered into their shared grave. For the mourners and the ghouls gathered at the graveside, it was time to go home. Buck, his uncles, cousins, and relatives were not the only ones haunted by the murders. The entire community was confused, angry, saddened, and stunned by the tragedy. The mystery of why Charlie had done it hung over them like a dark, angry cloud. It was a topic of conversation at every dinner table, over coffee at the local diner, and across every neighborhood fence. People wanted to know, they needed to know, why he had committed such a horrible act. Rumors spread, stories were concocted, everyone had an idea but no one had any real answers. Most believed that Charlie's head injury was at the root of the murders. He had been driven insane by the blow to the head. Or perhaps he was in such pain that he believed he was going to die and decided to take his whole family with him. In his delusional state, he would spare them the pain and suffering that would result from his death. It seems likely but the evidence says otherwise. When Charlie was autopsied by Dr. Halsebek and Dr. Taylor, they were well aware of Charlie's 1928 accident with thematic. They had heard the gossip that suggested that the accident was the cause of the killing spree. Eager to investigate this possibility, they concluded their overnight work by removing Charlie's brain to study it. The next morning, Dr. Halsebek made a sobering announcement. There was no evidence of any damage to Charlie's brain. As painful as the maddox blow might have been, its impact stopped with Charlie's skull and did not damage to the brain inside. But there was more. The doctors did find an unusual spot in the middle of Charlie's brain that was caused by disease, not injury. Dr. Taylor was going to take the brain back to Johns Hopkins so that it could be studied further. In January 1930, it was announced that the study was underway and that results were expected in four weeks. And that was the last anyone ever heard about it. No report was ever made. No findings were ever released. If the murders were caused by a tumor or defect in Charlie's brain, we'll never know. But we do know that he didn't kill his family because he was hit in the head. Whatever was going on in his brain remains a mystery. We'll continue with the Lawson Family Christmas Massacre when Weird Darkness returns. The injury was just one theory that went around the community. There were plenty of others. Since the murders coincided with the start of the Great Depression, some leapt to the conclusion that Charlie's farm had gone bust. But there's no evidence of that either. According to the papers found on Charlie's body, his farm was doing pretty well in December 1929. Ruined financiers may have been jumping from skyscrapers on Wall Street at the time, but the crash hadn't affected Charlie Lawson. Like his neighbors, he had no stock market investments to lose. The craziest theories were, of course, the ones that people talked about the most, namely that Charlie hadn't killed anyone and his suicide was staged to make him look guilty. Some fingered Jesse McNeill as the killer. He was the black worker who had served time for stabbing Charlie back in 1918. However, most people who told that story claimed that the warehouse fight took place no more than a year before the massacre, when it actually happened more than a decade before. Even assuming that McNeill was still alive on Christmas Day, 1929, which is by no means certain, it seems hard to believe that he would nurse a grudge for 11 years before taking such extreme and calculated revenge. Others theorized that Charlie might have witnessed some sort of organized crime activity, perhaps a mob murder. He and his family must have been killed in retaliation, they claimed. But since Stokes County wasn't exactly a hotbed for gangsters, this theory doesn't hold water either. The discussion about Charlie's motives went on for years. Then, six decades after the massacre, the rumors took an even more sinister turn. Stella Bowles, born in 1915, was Marion Lawson's daughter and she had a front-row seat for everything that went on in the family before and after the murders. She confirmed some dark Stokes County rumors by telling the story of a meeting of Lawson women that took place on December 27, 1929, when she was 14 years old. Ida and Nina Lawson, who at each married one of Charlie's brothers, were among the group. Years later, Stella questioned her Aunt Nina about what was said that day. Nina told her that Fanny had discovered that Marie, Charlie's daughter, was pregnant and to make matters worse, Charlie himself was the father of the baby. Charlie had warned his daughter that if she told her mother or anyone else about the baby, there would be some killing done. Fanny had discovered the incest in her family just before Christmas and had confided in Ida and Nina. She agonized over what she should do. Even years after the fact, Nina insisted that Stella keep the information to herself and so Stella did not reveal the secret until 1990. A few years later, Stella's story was confirmed by Ella May Johnson, who had been Marie's best friend. Ella May said that Marie had slept over at the Johnson's house a week or two before Christmas 1929 and confided that she was pregnant by her own father. Soon, others grudgingly admitted that they too had heard the rumor. If Marie was pregnant, she clearly wasn't very far along. The family portrait, which was taken about the same time as the sleepover at Ella May's house, shows Marie's belly quite clearly and she doesn't look pregnant. This might explain why neither of the doctors who conducted the autopsy noted any sign of pregnancy. It's certainly possible that the shame over such a horrible misdeed could have helped to spark Charlie's killing spree, and I'm also sure that a family of that era would have guarded such a secret very closely. Bill Hampton, Charlie's closest friend and neighbor, later admitted that he knew of serious problems going on within the family. He knew the nature of the problem, but it was personal and it was not his place to reveal it. If the pregnancy was real, Charlie may have felt trapped by his own actions. Maybe he felt the only way out was to destroy all the evidence and the witnesses. His religious beliefs claimed that everything he did in his life was preordained. He had no real choices. God had intended him to wipe out his family before he was even born. In the end, the only thing that we really know about what was going on in the mind of Charlie Lawson is that we will never know. It was then and remains an unsolved mystery. With the funeral behind him, Charlie's brother, Marion, started worrying about financial matters. Buck was the next in line to inherit the farm, but that was a mixed blessing since that also put him in line to inherit Charlie's mortgage payments. Buck was only 16, so he could hardly be expected to run the place, so this meant that another source of income needed to be found. Marion remembered the huge crowds that had come to town to watch the funeral. There were still at least 90 carloads of strangers showing at the Lawson House every single day to look around. There was no indication that interest in the murders was going to fade away anytime soon. Most of the family's property was still in the house just as they had left it. Many things had already been stolen, even though relatives tried to keep a close watch on the place. They had their own farms to operate, though, and couldn't be on hand all the time. The neighbors weren't much help. Most of them took exception to the ghouls and several fights had started when sightseers were run off the property. The most serious involved a man who needed three stitches in his arm after being slashed by a neighbor's knife one night. He'd been peering into the window of the Lawson House. Clearly, a long-term solution was needed. After consulting some friends, Marion came up with a decision. Along with his sons and a few other relatives, they went out one morning and started planting posts in a circle around the house and tobacco farm. They strung heavy chicken wire between the posts, effectively fencing off the murder scene. Some of the neighbors believed that Marion was trying to keep the curiosity seekers away, but he had a much different idea. With all of the interest in the killings, he decided to charge visitors 25 cents each to take a guided tour of the property. The cash raised would go to Buck to help him make ends meet, make the mortgage payments, and hopefully make sure that the farm stayed in the Lawson family. Buck agreed to the scheme, even though Fanny's family was appalled by the idea, as were Charlie's other brothers. They tried to talk Marion out of it, but he refused to listen. The new attraction was opened on January 15, 1930, and the steep admission price failed to deter visitors. Sometimes as many as 100 people showed up every day. Marion recruited friends and family to staff the cabin tours. He supplemented the income from admissions by offering refreshments and offering a pack of five souvenir photographs that visitors could buy before they left. Fanny's family, the Man Rings, made one more attempt to get through to Marion about the tastelessness of the tours. They met with him and begged him to stop, but Marion was unmoved. He told them that people were going to come see the place anyway, so someone should benefit from the attention. The tours continued. Locals, especially people in Germantown, complained too. The tours were shameful, they said, and Marion was embarrassing them all. A committee approached him and asked him to stop. Again, Marion refused. Interest in the murders dropped off a little while after the first few months, but held steady for a surprisingly long time. By then, several murder ballads had been written that told the story of the Lawson Massacre. The Lawson Tragedy by Wesley Hall, the song of the Lawson family murders by Albert Puckett and most popular, The Murder of the Lawson Family by Walter Kidd Smith, and this helped to keep bringing tourists to the door. The site had become a legitimate attraction to the people who came to see it, like an alligator farm or an amusement park. They paid their admission and could walk right in and see the blood stains on the floors and walls without having to sneak in after dark. So, they kept coming for a long time. After several months, the locals stopped complaining. There hadn't been any real trouble, and while they still considered it in bad taste, the tourists who showed up stopped in town to buy gas, eat in the diners, shop in the stores, and stay at the new hotel. Soon, Germantown was thriving during a time when most of America was suffering from the Great Depression. All thanks to Charlie Lawson. In time, interest in the Lawson farm started to fall off, but the 1930s saw a rise in popularity in traveling carnivals and side shows, so the Lawson murders were taken on the road. Parts of the murder scene were sold off to a sideshow promoter, and he took the artifacts on tour. Whatever the family wouldn't sell, he simply duplicated and passed them off as the real thing, like Charlie's guns and Marie's raisin cake. The raisin cake is an interesting side note to the story of the Lawson attraction. When the house first opened for tours, Marie's cake was still sitting on the table. Over time, it hardened and dried out, but it was left in place. Soon though, family members noticed something unusual about the cake. The raisins were disappearing. As visitors made their way through the house, they occasionally reached out and plucked a raisin from the cake. They wanted a little piece of gruesome history to take home with them. The cake eventually crumbled into pieces and was thrown out. The Lawson family's sideshow toured the country for years, appearing along with Bonnie and Clyde's blood-spattered and bullet-ridden death car, a mummy that purported to be the real John Wilkes Booth and other morbid attractions. Years passed and side shows vanished along with their attractions. No one knows what happened to the artifacts from the Lawson house. They vanished many years ago. The Lawson farm attraction closed and the sideshow disappeared to likely gather dust in a barn somewhere, but stories of the Lawsons lived on. The subjects of the tales now turned from murder to ghosts. People were starting to claim that some of the members of the family did not rest in peace. Rumors spread of eerie happenings that were occurring in the Lawson house after dark, long after the tour guides had gone home, and the doors had been locked behind them. Articles appeared in newspapers that freely stated that the house was haunted. A new batch of curiosity seekers began parking on the road at night, watching the house, unsure of what they might see. Would it be the mysterious lights that people spoke of, dancing about in the darkness, or would they hear the reported moans and cries that others had reported echoing in the stillness of the night? The local chapter of Charlie's Old Fraternal Order, the junior order of United American Mechanics, began using their most infamous member as part of their initiation ceremony. After the stories of the haunting began to circulate, new members were told to go out to the Browder Cemetery and take a rock from the Lawson grave. After that, he had to go to the abandoned Lawson house and walk around the property with only a lantern to light the way. If the prospective member was brave enough to pass the initiation, that he was considered worthy of becoming a junior. Decades passed, and the house fell into decay. Children and adults wandered the property, exploring and sometimes looking for ghosts. Many who ventured onto Charlie's Old Farm claimed to leave the place with a feeling of deep sadness. Many inexplicably burst into tears. Photographs taken there were often found to be blank when developed. Batteries failed in the flashlights that were used for nocturnal explorations. By 1980, the Lawson house was gone. Some of the wood was salvaged for a small bridge that was built a few miles away, but aside from that, it had vanished. The side of the house and tobacco barn was plowed under. There is nothing left to see today. But even so, it is said that the ghosts remain. The land once owned by Charlie's closest neighbor, Hampton Hill, is now home to the Squires Inn Bed and Breakfast, a rustic farmhouse that plays host to scores of travelers each year. They come for the peace and quiet of the secluded farm, not for murdering ghosts. Sometimes, though, they get more than they bargain for. Shortly after the owners opened the Bed and Breakfast, one of them saw a little boy and girl peering in at her through the glass of the front door. She walked over to the door to open it, but the children disappeared. The porch was empty. There were no children anywhere nearby. Over the next few weeks, the children kept coming back. After seeing them several more times, she started investigating and spoke with a local historian, which is how she first heard of the Lawson murders on the neighboring farm. During the discussions, the owner was shown the Lawson family portrait taken shortly before the family was killed. She immediately recognized her two visitors in the photograph, Mabel and James Lawson. There was no doubt about it, she told the historian. The mystery was solved, but the sightings continued. In fact, they still go on today. According to local recollection, the Lawson children often crossed the field where the Bed and Breakfast now stands so that they could play with the neighbor children. They continued to make this journey even after death. Their lives violently ended, but perhaps they have finally found some peace. The old Lawson farm was not the only thing haunted by the past. Buck, the massacre's only survivor, eventually married and started a family of his own. He and his wife Nina had a son and three daughters. His son Arthur was his namesake, and he named two of the girls for his murdered sisters. Buck tried to have a good life, and while he had many happy times, he was terribly damaged by the events of Christmas Day, 1929. He drank to forget, and when things got especially bad, usually around the holidays, he locked himself in a room with a bottle and played one record over and over again. It was a recording of a popular bluegrass group, the Carolina Buddies, performing the Lawson family murders. Buck escaped death in 1929, but he was not destined to grow old. On May 10, 1945, he and another man were riding in a work truck that became stuck in a deep crevice that had been cut in a road for repairs. Witnesses said that they had not seen the warning signs, and had accidentally driven into the construction zone. The passenger in the truck was seriously injured. Buck was killed instantly. Even in death, he was haunted by his father's actions. The first three paragraphs of his obituary were a description of the murders in 1929. Buck's life and death were not even mentioned until the fourth paragraph. Arthur Buck Lawson was laid to rest in the Browder Cemetery, alongside the family he had lost years before. In his lifetime, Buck never stopped believing that he had failed his mother and his siblings, so we can only hope that he found some comfort on the other side. Please leave a rating and review of the show in the podcast app you listen from. WeirdDarkness.com is also where you can find all of my social media, listen to audiobooks I've narrated, shop the Weird Darkness store, sign up for monthly contests, find other podcasts that I host, and find the Hope in the Darkness page if you or someone you know is struggling with depression or dark thoughts. Also on the website, if you have a true paranormal or creepy tale to tell, you can click on Tell Your Story. You can find all of that and more at WeirdDarkness.com. All stories in Weird Darkness are purported to be true, unless stated otherwise, and you can find source links or links to the authors in the show notes. 1929, a Lawson family Christmas was written by Troy Taylor from his book, Suffer the Children. Weird Darkness is a production and trademark of Marlar House Productions. Copyright, Weird Darkness 2022. And now that we're coming out of the dark, I'll leave you with a little light. Matthew 25, Verse 40. The king will reply, Truly, I tell you whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me. And a final thought, slowly is the fastest way to get where you are going. I'm Darren Marlar. Thanks for joining me in the Weird Darkness. First off, Spooky Santa returns with holiday chillers for kids every day from December 14th through Christmas Eve. My partnership with author Sylvia Schultz also returns with the 12 Nightmares of Christmas, posting December 13th through Christmas Eve. Holiday horrors also returns with more terrifying stories that take place around the holidays, and those episodes will post every day beginning December 10th and going through Christmas Eve. On Saturday December 10th, we'll also have a brand new Christmas special from our Microterror's Scary Stories for Kids series too. On Christmas Day, it's my narration of the entire novel A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. Plus, I'll be posting regular episodes of Weird Darkness the whole month long as well, so if you like a little horror in your holidays, some perturbation in your plum pudding, if you like frighten your festivities, terror in your tree, nervousness in your noel, and cruel in your yule, then be sure to come back every day for more episodes, and be sure to tell your friends and family as well so they can get creeped out at Christmas too. Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas from Weird Darkness!