Thank you once again for tuning in each evening to discover a new grave and perhaps a new horror in North Louisiana and/or South Arkansas! Every single year, I wonder if I will have enough tales and every year I run out of time and have so many more to tell that have to wait til next year! This evening I will leave you with two stories that contain the alleged last words of the deceased and a third story that made me smile and gave me a little chill, perfect to tell for a Halloween campfire!

The Murder of JS Sharp at Laran. This story caught my attention in that I found an article (not about the killing or an obituary) about his widow pleading for leniency! Turns out, Mr. Sharp’s widow and his adult also widowed daughter had been convicted of murdering him and committing insurance fraud in 1919!

Daughter Lena Lockwood’s story had been that her father told her: “go fetch a box of shells for this shotgun out of that next room in yonder.” And that was the last thing she heard…before her father somehow blew his own head off from the back side! But upon closer inspection of the story, Lena had been having an affair with a Latin buggy driver and it was thought that she, her boyfriend and her mother came up with a plan to kill her father and make it look like an accident. His life was insured and his insurance would pay double for an accident!

But the plan didn’t go well, her lover turned on her and both women wound up in Angola. By 1920, Lena was pleading for a pardon for her mother to allow her to return home to the large group of children left behind by both of them. From what I can tell from census records, I don’t think that request was granted. I do not know where JS Sharp is buried but I hopes he rests well.

The Ambush and Slaying of Chief John Tom Sisemore. On November 17, 1898, Chief of Police, JT Sisemore had gone home and eaten supper with his wife and five children. Ruston had recently been a somewhat lawless place and JT was a Deputy US Marshal who had been appointed to the Chief of Police position and he had taken a hard line with the outlaws, particularly the moonshiners. Unfortunately, he had made himself a target. As Sisemore began to patrol on foot that evening, he heard a noise which caused him to briefly draw his sidearm…and then he was cut down in a hail of bullets.

The assassins fled quickly before the locals arrived on the scene. When JT was asked who shot him, he said, “I do not know, I could not see them.” He died shortly after.

This case was thoroughly investigated but is still considered an open and unsolved murder investigated to this day! JT Sisemore is buried in Greenwood Cemetery in Ruston, Louisiana.

Bonus Creepy Tale: I wandered across this little story during research. During 1869, Louisiana State Government had put the highly intelligent but slightly unorthodox Colonel Samuel Henry Lockett in charge of visiting every parish in the state to make a report of its living conditions and population. The most interesting aspect of this little journey is that old Lockett spent his time traveling in an old Victorian hearse that he converted for the trip pulled by two mules! I thought to myself, what a great ghost story that would be! So if you find yourself out in the woods late at night and you see the spectre of a dark Victorian hearse being pulled by two vaporous mules…well maybe there’s an answer for that!

Lockett continued to adventure for many years after his journey through Louisiana and died in South America. He is buried somewhere in Colombia in an unmarked grave.