When the body of Craig Kirkpatrick was found in March 1896 in the woods between his home and Melville Grier’s, near Newell, in Crab Orchard Township, the Mecklenburg Times ran a headline — before any verdict— saying “Mr. Melville Grier’s Son Slays A Negro.”

Documents and other news stories suggest the “Melville” Grier reported in the Observer and Times (“Melvin” in the Democrat; see below) was James Melville Grier, and that his son Sam, then 23, was the suspect. James Melville Grier was Mell Grier’s uncle; Mell would have been 18 at this time.

The Times published a “statement” from county physician Dr. H.M. Wilder after the inquest, in which he said that Sam Grier had gone to the Kirkpatrick home at breakfast time, chatted and ate some “stickeys” with the couple, then asked Craig Kirkpatrick to come to Grier’s home so he could pay back some tobacco he’d borrowed.

Kirkpatrick’s wife, not named in the story, reportedly said she then saw the two walking toward Melville Grier’s house, about a quarter-mile away – and that her husband never came home. Two shots were reported heard.

The couple had three young children.

The verdict of the coroner’s jury was, the Observer reported, that Kirkpatrick “came to his death from a shot from a pistol in the hand of Sam Grier.”

A Daily Charlotte Observer story said Sam had not been seen since the day before Kirkpatrick’s body was found. The Charlotte Democrat (March 6 edition above) noted he’d “gone to parts unknown.” Newspapers around the state reported  Sam Grier was “still at large” and that “the police have heard nothing from Grier.”  Though the Mecklenburg grand jury brought in a true bill for murder against him April 10, there is no record of him being tried.

Some records document where James Melville Grier’s son Sam was, after 1896:

The 1900 Census, taken in June of that year, lists Sam Grier as a brother-in-law living in the household of Anna and John P. Hawkins in St. Clair County, Alabama. Anna Grier had married J.P. Hawkins in Crab Orchard in 1895 and bore their first child in St. Clair County, Alabama, in October 1896 — seven months after the Kirkpatrick killing.

A month after the 1900 census-taker recorded his name, Sam Grier would be dead, at 27. The Birmingham (Ala.) News reported his death, saying he had fought in the Spanish-American War, worked as a logger, and died of a fever and consumption. It said his remains had been shipped to “Newell, N.C.,” accompanied by his brother, the Rev. J.J. Grier.