George J. Cox Writes Letter Exonerating Fields Anderson From Charge of Killing Gimsley Halsey.

(Special to the Times-Dispatch) From the Richmond Times Dispatch in 1911

Bristol, Va., May 2, 1911 – The facts about a murder, for which an innocent Virginian was sentenced to be hanged twenty years ago, have just recently come to light, as the result of a confession on the part of the man who committed the killing. It was in the winter of 1890 that Grimsley Halsey, of Grayson county, was shot to death in a drunken row, as it then appeared, in Alleghaney county, N. C. Halsey, Fields Anderson and Edwin J. Cox, of Grayson county, Virginia men, had gone into North Carolina, and the fatal row followed. Cox made his escape, and was never apprehended, but Anderson was arrested and jailed at Sparta, N.C. As a result of the trial of Anderson, witnesses were placed upon the stand who swore that he killed Halsey. Anderson was convicted and sentenced to be hanged. His friends feeling confident that he was innocent, went to the Sparta jail and liberated him one week ahead of the date for the execution. Anderson hastened away to the West, where he is supposed to still reside. His mother, in company with her brother, H. M. Jenkins, who now resides at Flatridge, in Grayson county, Va., started for the West to join her son. The train on which she was riding was wrecked, and Mrs. Anderson was among the passengers who met death in the wreck. This was early in the year 1891.

Cox’s letter of confession was written November 1, 1910, but was not mailed until the 12^th day of last month (April 1911), and the date mark is too obscure to decipher the place from which the letter was mailed.

In this letter he declares that Anderson had nothing to do with the murder, and that he killed Halsey himself, his act being in self-defense. He requests that some of Anderson’s friends will see that he gets a copy of the letter.