Thirteen Loops: Race, Violence, and the Last Lynching in America

Seventh Loop: A Beating in Baldwin County - Mobile, March 17, 1981

SEVENTH LOOP A BEATING IN BALDWIN COUNTY Mobile, March 17, 1981 While they was arguing about whether they should kill me or not they decided to flip a coin. On Tuesday, March 17, just four days before Michael Donald’s death, Kenneth Jones, a white male identified as a homosexual, got off from work and picked up a cup of coffee at the McDonald’s on the corner of Washington and Government Streets before stopping for a drink at Crew’s Pub on St. Francis. “I had a couple of beers there,” Jones recounted. “I came out and I struck up a conversation with these two white guys who was parked next to me. They suggested that maybe we, why don’t we go get a beer down at the Royal Club. So I got in the car with them.” It proved to be a near-fatal mistake. Instead of turning right, the man in the driver’s seat—wearing jeans and a nylon jacket—careened the black Buick Wildcat through the tunnel leading to Baldwin County, in the opposite direction of the Royal Club. “What the devil’s going on?” Jones asked as he sat in the backseat "
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 with a greasy-haired man in a red shirt. The man pulled a knife on him and said, “This is what[‘s] going on” “He put the knife to my throat,” Jones continued, “and made me get down on the floor board of the car and actually made me lay my head down on the seat while he held the knife to my throat.” The car veered north onto Highway 225 before turning east just past Highway 31 a few miles deeper into the wilderness. As they pulled onto a dirt road, one of the men grabbed a rifle from the trunk. The two men pulled Jones from the backseat, smashing his glasses and robbing him. Jones recalled the men discussing whether or not they should kill him. Finding themselves unable to come to a decision, one of the men laid down his rifle and began beating Jones and smacking his face. “All the while,” Jones reported, “he did not even allow me to protect myself because they kept telling me they would cut my throat then, if I didn’t put my hands down by my sides.” The man wielding the knife cut off a portion of Jones’s beard, proving the blade’s sharpness. Kenneth Jones’s shirt was ripped from his back, and “while they was arguing about whether they should kill me or not they decided to flip a coin. [A]t first, [one of the men] pulled a coin out of his own pocket and then he decided that since they was going to rob me anyway, I should supply the coin.” Jones handed over the quarter that would decide his fate while the man with the rifle told the victim to continue stripping down, demanding he remove his shoes, socks, and pants. After taking thirty dollars from Jones’s wallet, the two men continued their conversation as to whether or not they should kill him, at which point the larger of the men decided killing him was unnecessary. The thinner man disagreed, explaining how he’d “done this one time before and they’d let the guy go and three days later, his house was burned.” 

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-001 As they continued arguing, Jones was ordered to get on his knees and pray. “I did a pretty good job of praying,” he admitted, “and [name omitted ] turned to put my clothes in the car and [name omitted] turned around to lay the rifle back down and I took this opportunity since both heads were turned away, to make a dash into the brush in the woods.” Jones ran as the car peeled off, only returning to the scene once he was certain his attackers had fled. He grabbed what clothes remained before sprinting to a nearby store, where the manager called the sheriff . It was dark, and by the time the sheriff and the victim returned to the scene, they found only tire tracks and scattered footprints. A Mobile Police car arrived soon after and drove the victim back to Mobile, where Jones was checked into a hospital. He was discharged the following Sunday, by which point a second victim—Michael Donald—had already been driven to the same spot and...