Christmas Slay Ride: Most Mysterious and Horrific Christmas Day Murders by Jack Smith Page A

Fannie company. She was the one who had noticed the unnatural light flickering in the windows of the Gibbons place at 6:00 a.m. and screamed for assistance.
    Two days later, on December 26, services were held for the three murdered teenagers at the Methodist Episcopal Church. Afterwards, they were interred in Ashland Cemetery. Hundreds attended both events, eyes red-rimmed and faces tight with anger. The community’s sense of security had been shattered, and someone had to pay.
    Later that afternoon, acting mayor John Means called a meeting to raise money to hire detectives as well as offer a reward. One private detective from Ohio thought John Gibbons was the murderer, but Deputy U.S. Marshal Heflin had serious doubts. He thought that more than one assailant must have been involved, and besides, Gibbons had no motive to do something so terrible. On December 31, he located Gibbons in West Virginia and gently broke the news. The grieving father was able to prove that he had been out of state when the crime occurred.
    A few days later, a bricklayer named George Ellis walked into the Ashland General Store. Powell, the proprietor, sold him a cigar and tried to make conversation by saying, “Well, now that old man Gibbons is in the clear, I wonder who it is going to fall on now?”
    Ellis looked frightened and lowered his gaze. Hands trembling, he said he knew who the killers might be and muttered something turning about state’s evidence. Then he hurried out and walked the streets for hours. Finally he went to Marshal Heflin’s hotel room and said he “might” know something about the murders. After asking Heflin about the logistics of turning state’s evidence, Ellis confessed that he and two other bricklayers, George Craft and William Neal, had committed the crime.
    This is his first version of events, as it appears on the record:
    “A few evenings prior to the 24 th , I met (George) Craft who stated that he was going to see Fanny Gibbons and take her some black candy, and that he was going to have intercourse with her, and he wanted me to come along. About midnight, the fatal night, we all started; Craft, (William) Neal, and myself. When we got to the house, Craft raised the window with an old axe and stepped in first. Neal followed, and I stayed behind on the porch, and afterwards I went in. Robbie was the first aroused and started to get up when Craft said, “You had better lie still.” Craft then went to the bed where the two girls were sleeping and began to take improper liberties with them. Robbie said, “You had better stay away from there,” when Craft hit him with the axe. He fell back on the lounge, then plunged forward and fell fully six feet from the bed under the stairs where he was found. The girls screamed when Craft jumped on the bed, and they both said, “George Craft, what are you here for?” Emma also started to jump from the bed when Neal choked her and pulled her onto the floor. She fought him, and I held her while he outraged her. Neal then struck her on the head with the big end of the crowbar, and she instantly died after throwing up her hands. Craft also had some trouble with Fanny Gibbons and called on me to come and help him. He then outraged her and killed her. Neal proposed killing the girls, and after they were dead, I took some coal oil, poured it over the bodies, and set fire to them with a match. We then left the house.”
    George Ellis would make more confessions, each one tailored to fit the current circumstances, but this initial one was damning enough for Heflin to arrest George Craft and William Neal. The two men, along with Ellis, were incarcerated in the county jail in Catlettsburg. The following morning, Ellis tried to recant his confession, saying it had been forced out of him at gunpoint, but it was too late.
    When rumors of upcoming vigilante justice started to make the rounds, officials ordered the removal of the prisoners to the jail in Lexington. When they were placed