During The Lufkin Daily News' 100 years of covering the news in Lufkin and Angelina County, the stories which commanded readers' attention the most usually involved sensational murders.
One of the most sensational crimes in the county took place during the Civil War — long before Lufkin and The Daily News were founded — when Angelina County was politically divided over sentiments for the North and South.
Photo courtesy of Bob Bowman |
This headstone in the Shofner Cemetery marks the graves of Roy Morehouse and his first wife Lucille. Morehouse was acquitted by a Lufkin jury after he slashed the throat of Mott Flournoy in the courtroom of the Angelina County courthouse in 1941 as Flournoy stood trial for the ax-murder of Morehouse's wife, Lucille. The jury's verdict was not guilty by reason of temporary insanity.
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In January of 1864, a band of night riders, favoring the Confederate cause, rode west to the home of Sam Burris. Burris, along with friends and relatives like the Ganns, Massingills, Squyres, Wheelers and Gilleys, were among the county's earliest settlers and friends of Sam Houston, who had opposed secession from the Union.
The riders stopped at the Burris home and asked for 24-year-old Jim Burris, who was home from service with the Confederate Army. Told he was not at the home, the riders rode down the Homer Road.
When Jim Burris failed to return home that night, his parents found his body hanging from a large oak tree, a rope around his neck.
On the evening of the same day, the band of riders rode west to the home of John D. Gann. Although he was ill and knew his life was in danger, Gann rode away with the riders to protect his wife and five children.
Two days later, his body was found hanging from a dogwood tree, a bullet in his head.
In October of 1864, two more hangings occurred. William Anglin and a friend he brought home from the Civil War were hanged at Proctor Hill beside what is now South First Street in Lufkin.
While the identities of the riders were known, no effort was made to arrest them until October 1865, seven months after the end of the Civil War. Indictments were returned against Dr. John D. Windham for the Burris and Gann deaths. Windham was wounded in a shootout with Isaac Gilley, but recovered and left Angelina County.
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On March 27, 1905, as Fred Brunsterman, the manager of the Manton Fruit Farm east of Lufkin, walked down Lufkin Avenue, he heard someone call him, "Brunsterman, I want to talk with you."
The pursuer was George F. Fuller, the father of Brunsterman's young wife, Lula.
Brunsterman raced into the Lufkin National Bank, followed by Fuller, and then tried to take refuge in the bank's vault. But Fuller fired a pistol, striking Brunsterman in the head. He was dead when he hit the floor.
In the coming weeks, Fuller's trial became the talk of Lufkin. Much of the testimony revolved around Lula, her reputation among the town's men, and Brunsterman's insistence that she be examined before their marriage to determine if she was a virgin. They were eventually married without an examination.
Some of Lufkin's leading citizens and businessmen were called to the stand to testify during the trial.
On May 13, 1905, Fuller was found guilty of murder and sentenced to life in prison. But his lawyers appealed the decision and won a new trial in 1907. This time, he was sentenced to only 15 years.
Again, Fuller's lawyers appealed and won a third trial. For a third time he was convicted and sentenced to five years in prison, but a sympathetic judge suspended his sentence. He never served a day in prison.
The death of Fred Brunsterman impacted Lufkin in another way. The Manton Fruit Farm tried two other managers, but eventually ceased operations.
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On Feb. 26, 1924, when Andy Sulser, the popular manager of a sawmill commissary at Hoshall, was shot and killed south of Lufkin, it took less than six weeks for his murderer to be caught, tried and delivered to the electric chair in Huntsville.
The process not only set a state record for a criminal conviction in Angelina County, but marked the first time a person from the county had been electrocuted.
Sulser's accused murderer was Booker T. Williams, a black man who came close to being lynched by a mob.
Shortly after Williams was arrested, Lufkin's courthouse square was mobbed by infuriated men. The mob became so violent that additional lawmen had to be summoned by surrounding counties.
As Williams was being moved from the courthouse into the county jail, the mob almost broke into the jail. But Sheriff R.V. Watts fired a shot into the crowd, creasing a boy's nose and diffusing the mob's spirit.
Williams was brought to trial on March 1, convicted, delivered to Huntsville, and electrocuted on April 4.
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On July 31, 1936, a total of 800 people crowded into small Zavalla Cemetery to watch the burial of an electrocuted murderer. Another thousand were turned away as lawmen warily watched the crowd.
The crime for which young Glenn Warren had been executed led to five deaths, sent another man to prison for 99 years, and wrecked the lives of two families.
The chain of violence began during the early morning hours of Feb. 9, 1934. As C.E. Cansler Sr., known as "Uncle Charlie," was dressing, Glenn Warren, Roy Cusack and Bernard LaCoume broke into the home, struck Cansler with a pistol and beat and gagged his wife, Sarah. Cansler died, but his wife survived.
Leaving the home with Cansler's safe, LaCoume argued with Warren and Cusack and left their car. A Zavalla constable picked up LaCoume with bloody clothing and he identified Warren and Cusack as his partners. The two men were arrested in Galveston with the Cansler safe. It contained only $40.
When the three men were placed on trial, Warren and LaCoume were given the death penalty and Cusack was went to prison for 99 years, based on the testimony of Sarah Cansler.
But the string of deaths wasn't over.
Sarah Cansler died of her injuries in the coming months and Warren's father, Albert Warren, and M.H. Cansler, the son of C.E. Cansler, began threatening each other at Zavalla.
Cansler's son was vehemently opposed to burying Glenn Warren, after his execution, in the same cemetery where his father was interred.
The two men met in a duel near Zavalla on July 3, 1936. Cansler, who said Warren pulled a pistol, fired two shotgun blasts, killing the elder Warren. Cansler was charged with murder.
Fearful that new violence would erupt in Zavalla when Glenn Warren's body was brought home for burial, lawmen scrutinized the emotional funeral, but nothing happened except threats between the families.
When M.H. Cansler went on trial in November of 1937, famed lawyer J.J. Collins, who had helped prosecute Glenn Warren in his trial, was now defending Cansler. Collins convinced a jury to return a verdict of not guilty.
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On Nov. 24, 1941, as 70-year-old Mott Flournoy sat in Lufkin's courthouse awaiting trial for killing a pretty bride of only four months, a young man leaped from the audience, pulled Flournoy's head back and slashed his throat with a knife.
The young man was Roy Morehouse, the young bride's husband.
Flournoy had been charged with the ax murder of 19-year-old Lucille Morehouse on Aug. 14, 1941. When her husband came home from his job, he found her dead in a pool of blood on the kitchen floor.
The courtroom slaying became front-page news around the nation, largely because of an Associated Press dispatch.
Morehouse was charged with Flournoy's murder and was put on trial in March 30, 1942. A day later, he was found not guilty by reason of temporary insanity by a jury that deliberated less than an hour.
Morehouse marched off to serve during World War II war with hundreds of other Angelina County men, earned a Purple Heart, and returned home in 1945 to a job at Southland Paper Mills, Inc., where he worked 34 years. He also married Edna Kathleen Campbell.
When he died in 1994, Morehouse was buried in Shofner Cemetery, next to Lucille Morehouse's grave. When Edna Morehouse died, she was buried on the other side of Roy Morehouse's grave.
Bob Bowman is the author of four books about historic murders in East Texas.
