Young Brothers Massacre

11. Word Goes Out: "Find the Killers"

11 WORD GOES OUT: "FIND THE KILLERS" In the entire sad saga of the Young family, perhaps the greatest tragedy was Willies. Innocent, a good, religious woman, a devoted mother, a hardworking farm wife with both the skills and limitations of that role, she found herself caught up in a train of events that left her homeless and grieving. All that she had hoped and worked for was ruined; her family had become nationally infamous. She was inconsolable. Just how and when Mom was alerted to what had gone on at her farm between the hours of three and eight o'clock on January 2, 1932, is not clear. When, to her utter astonishment, she was first taken to jail and questioned, the police were merely trying to find out which, and how many, of her sons were at the farm. At that point, they were only interested in finding and arresting automobile thieves and in breaking up what was rumored to be a nationwide conspiracy and ring of car thieves. Knowing nothing of these matters, Willie could not comprehend why she was being held in a smelly cell of the womens section of the Greene County Jail. The police questioned her about the rumored secret caves and labyrinths leading from her house to her barn, and "the white-haired mother of the desperadoes" was said to "grow hysterical." Assistant prosecutor Jim Hornbostel confirmed that questioning her was very difficult: "She was so wracked and exhausted from crying that she could hardly understand or answer questions." A reporter described Willie Florence Young on the morning of January 4 when jailer Wiley led her from her cell: "She wore a figured dark blue dress, and a 82 Word Goes Out: "Find the Killers" 83 scarf pinned around her neck as if to keep her warm. A piece of old jewelry held it together, and brown and gold beads hung around her neck. Gray hair with streaks of black was pulled back into a tight knot on her neck and very blue eyes looked at the people to whom she talked when she choked up and dropped her head."l On the third day, Monday, Morn learned that her sons had killed six law enforcement officers and wounded three more in a siege at her farmhouse. Now she became truly hysterical , sobbing, unbelieving, trying to find some possible reason for the horror. "If Harry killed people like they say, he was crazy like he was ten years ago when we lived down at Ozark." When the Youngs were living in Ozark, Harry "had a crazy spell," she said. "He said all of a sudden that Clarence , my son-in-law was comin', that he knew, and when I asked him how he knew he burst out crying. He talked about how he wanted to be buried there, too, and knocked window glasses out of doors, and bent the dipper. We had to confine him six weeks."2 A next-door neighbor in Ozark, a teenage boy, had been an inadvertent witness to one of Harry,!; fits of unaccountable behavior. The boy was playing in his yard one day when he noticed Harry, barefoot, in blue overalls and blue shirt (the unofficial uniform of Ozark farm boys of the day), as he walked across his yard. Suddenly there was a piercing, shrieking yell, and Harry leaped several steps and fell on the ground on his belly, kicking and pounding the ground with his fists and bare feet.3 Years later, a clinical psychologist, hearing these reports of Harry'!; "crazy spells," hazarded the opinion that he might have been a victim of psychomotor epilepsy.4 When these accounts were called to Vinita's attention years later, she not only expressed doubt as to the accuracy of the reports but rather firmly insisted that such episodes never occurred. This is the only known occasion on which she contradicted Morn or cast doubt on anything she said or did. The reporter who was interviewing Willie in Springfield 84 Young Brothers Massacre did not attempt verbatim quotation after her revelation about Harry, but instead narrated the interview: "She thinks hes still a good boy at heart in spite of all the worry he's caused her. Tears welled in her eyes as she said, 'He bought me a $1 bill for a Christmas present when he came back that time. ' " Harry had gone through eighth...