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| Name | The Dawson Five Trial (August 29, 1977) |
| Video Uploader | Video From Foggy Melson |
| Upload Date | This Video Uploaded At 11-12-2022 18:14:11 |
| Video Discription | Various court room sketches from trial. Shot of the outside of a convenience store where someone was shot and killed. Four men walk out of a building and through a parking lot. (Probably relates to the January 22, 1976 murder of Gordon B. Howell, Jr., who was shot during the robbery of a grocery store located at Bridges Crossroads, near Dawson, Ga.) The Dawson Five were defendants in a criminal court case in Dawson, Georgia, where they were charged with the murder of a white customer in a roadside convenience store. The five young black men, one of whom was a juvenile, became known as "The Dawson Five": Roosevelt Watson, Henderson Watson, J. D. Davenport, Johnnie B. Jackson, and George Poor.[1] On January 22, 1976, Gordon B. Howell Jr. was shot during a robbery of Tiny's Grocery, located at Bridges Crossroads near Dawson.[2] On December 19, 1977, after over a year of imprisonment, time in the national spotlight, and contentious pretrial hearings; District Attorney John Irwin announced that he was dropping all charges against the five defendants, after a ruling by the presiding Judge Geer that voided Roosevelt Watson's forced confession.[1] The court dropped the charges after finding evidence of police misconduct, including coerced confessions, intimidation, and improper identification procedures.[1] Murder of Gordon B. Howell Jr.[edit source] On January 22, 1976, in mid-morning, store owner Tiny Denton[3] testified that Gordon "Bubba" Howell, a white male customer in his small roadside general store, Tiny's Grocery, located in the outskirts of Dawson, was shot and killed during an armed robbery by five black youths.[4] Howell, a farm manager and horseman from Lee County, often stopped at Tiny's for cigarettes while traveling through rural Terrell County on State Highway 32.[3] He bought two cartons that morning. Tiny later testified that Howell paid for the cigarettes and asked him to order a box of tangelos.[3] A little after 10 a.m., unknown assailant/s robbed Tiny's Grocery of $150 and put a gun to the back of Gordon Howell's head and pulled the trigger. Howell, 61, died later that day at an Albany Hospital.[3] According to Tiny, the assailants wielded a .38-caliber Saturday night special.[4] The assailant/s also cleaned out Howell's pockets, speeding away in his truck before abandoning it at a pond less than a mile away.[3] The murder weapon was never recovered. Arrests and investigation[edit source] Arrest of five youths[edit source] Tiny Denton told the Dawson police that he recognized one of the youths that allegedly committed the hold-up murder. Denton identified Howell's killer as Roosevelt Watson, 19, a young man who lived with his mother in a rickety house near Denton's store at Georgia Highway 32 and Callis Road, six miles east of Dawson.[3] Denton told investigators from the Terrell County Sheriff's Office and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation that he identified Watson as one of four black men in dark clothing who entered his store after Howell did. Denton testified that he looked up and they had pulled ski masks over their faces.[3] The young Watson was promptly taken into custody by the sheriffs department and an agent of the GBI. Under interrogation thirty miles away at police headquarters in Americus, Watson gave a forced confession under threats of violence, admitting to the shooting and implicated four others-his older brother, Henderson, 21, a cousin, J. D. Davenport, 18, and two friends, James ("Junior") Jackson, 17, and his brother, Johnny, 18.[4] On Feb. 1, 1976, the Dawson Five were charged with robbery and murder. Despite Watson's confession, the youths claimed they were innocent. Denying the coerced confession, the five claimed to be carrying water from a well half a mile away to the Watson home when the robbery and slaying occurred.[4] Seeking the death penalty[edit source] Based primarily on Denton's eyewitness account, a partial palm print removed from the hood of Howell's truck, the forced confession by Roosevelt Watson and the forced confessions from the others, District Attorney John Irwin and special prosecutor Michael Stoddard sought the death penalty for all five of the accused.[4] Forced confessions[edit source] The Dawson Five case took place in the volatile post-civil rights era racial climate of Dawson. The racial tension in the community, paired with the racial break down of the criminal accusations, put pressure on the police force to satisfy the community demands that the killer be found.[4] Dawson is the county seat of Terrell County, a county labeled "Terrible Terrell" by the SNCC in the 1960s for the county's racist law enforcement practices. |
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