Charles Davis Lawson

Background

Charles Davis Lawson was an American tobacco farmer from Stokes County, North Carolina, remembered for having committed one of the most notorious mass murders in the state's history on Christmas Day 1929. He was born in Lawsonville, an unincorporated community located ten miles from Danbury, the Stokes county seat.

Lawsonville was the home of Lawson’s parents, Augustus and Nancy. In 1911, Lawson married Fannie Manring. They had eight children. The third child, William, was born in 1914 and died of an illness in 1920.

In 1918, after his younger brothers Marion and Elijah moved to the Germanton area, Lawson followed with his family. The Lawsons worked as sharecroppers. By 1927, they saved enough money to buy their own farm on Brook Cove Road.

The offence

Shortly before Christmas in 1929, Charlie Lawson took his family into town to buy new clothes and to have a family portrait taken. His wife was 37-year-old Fannie, and the children were: Arthur (16), Marie (17), Carrie (12), Maybell (7), James (4), Raymond (2), and Mary Lou (4 months).

The new clothes became burial outfits.

On that day, Lawson began the slaughter with his daughters Carrie and Maybell, who were setting out to their uncle and aunt’s house. Lawson waited for them by the tobacco barn. When they were in range, he shot them with a shotgun and then ensured that they were dead by bludgeoning them. He placed the bodies in the tobacco barn.

Afterwards, he returned to the house and shot Fannie, who was on the porch. As soon as the gun was fired, Marie, who was inside, screamed. The two small boys, James and Raymond, attempted to find a hiding place. Lawson shot Marie, then found and shot the two boys.

Lastly, Lawson killed the baby, Mary Lou. It was thought that she was bludgeoned to death.

The bodies of the family members were found with their arms crossed and rocks under their heads.

The only survivor was Lawson’s eldest son, 16-year-old Arthur, whom he had sent on an errand just before starting his deadly work.

Investigation

After the murders, Lawson went into the nearby woods and, a few hours later, shot himself.

The gunshot signaling Lawson’s own suicide was heard by the many people who learned of the gruesome event on the property and had already gathered there.

A police officer who was with Lawson ran down and found Lawson dead and letters to his parents.

As footprints encircled the tree, it was supposed that he had been pacing around the tree prior to taking his life.

Trial

No trial information was provided.

Sentencing

No sentencing information was provided.

Appeals

No appeal information was provided.

Outcome

Lawson committed suicide by shooting himself a few hours after the murders.

Aftermath

Shortly after the murders, Lawson’s brother Marion Lawson opened the home on Brook Cove Road as a tourist attraction. A cake that Marie Lawson had baked on Christmas Day was displayed on the tour. Because visitors began to pick at the raisins on the cake to take as souvenirs, it was placed in a covered glass cake dish and thus preserved for many years.

A folk song entitled “The Murder of the Lawson Family” was among the remembrances of the event. The song was recorded by the Stanley Brothers in March 1956, released by Columbia Records on the CD “An evening long ago” in 2004.

Other details

Speculation and rumors

There were rumors as to why Lawson would take the lives of himself and his family, including speculation that Lawson did not murder his family at all and that it was staged to look as though Lawson had committed suicide.

One explanation was that Lawson had witnessed an organized crime incident, had been found out, and he and his family murdered for it. Another involved a black man Lawson had started a fight with. Neither of these rumors seemed plausible, or could fit with the facts, and all signs pointed to a murder/suicide.

Incest theory

In 1990, when the book White Christmas, Bloody Christmas was published, a strong claim surfaced. In interviewing many people regarding the Lawson family murder, the book’s authors, M. Bruce Jones and Trudy J. Smith, found that several people recounted rumors and stories regarding Charlie, Marie, and incest.

In 1989, the authors had received a call from an anonymous woman. She said she had gone on a tour of the Lawson home shortly after the murders, and the tour guide had told about the incest rumor, which he stated as fact.

The day before the book was to be published, the authors received a phone call from Stella Lawson, daughter of Marion Lawson and cousin to the Lawson children. Stella told them she knew the truth as to why Charlie did it. At the funeral for the Lawsons, Stella said she had overheard Fannie’s sisters-in-law and aunts, including Stella’s mother Jettie Lawson, discussing how Fannie Lawson had confided in them that she had been concerned about Charlie and Marie.

Jettie died in early 1928, so Fannie was said to have been suspicious of the incest at least that long before the murders in late 1929.

More evidence was described in “The Meaning of our Tears”.

A close friend of Marie Lawson’s, Ella May, claimed that just weeks before Christmas, Marie told her that she was pregnant and that it was Charlie’s. Ella May also said that Charlie and Fannie knew about this.

Hill Hampton, another close friend and neighbor to the Lawson family, was interviewed. He said he knew of serious problems going on within the family and he knew the nature of the problem, but that it was personal, and he chose not to reveal what it was.