This is Part One of a series about a notorious crime in Williamson County history. Check back Sunday for Part Two.
Bootleggers, murders in the night, armed and angry mobs. Lawlessness, indifference and fear among officials and citizens alike. The Klu Klux Klan parading with burning crosses down Main Street in Franklin.
High-speed car chases and a powerful Whiskey Ring with only hot lead for anything in its way.
Life in Williamson County in 1925 was defined by all these things.
These and the impending murder trial of Jim Kelton, who ambushed and gunned down Constable Sam Locke on the night of March 7, 1925.
Nothing was done
For several years prior, Williamson County had fallen into near lawlessness. Murder had become almost common place.
From the Review-Appeal, June 29 1963:
“Bootleggers hauled whiskey down Main Street in Franklin openly as hard-faced out of town strangers appearing from God-Knows-Where stared back insolently at law-abiding citizens. In more rural areas, distilling had blossomed into a major industry- strangely immune to raids.
“Shadowy characters swaggered across the Public Square, their forty-fives concealed, if at all, contemptuously. The locations of gambling dens were as well known as those of Franklin’s churches.
“Everybody knows, whispered residents, that bribery and corruption have riddled the county’s law-enforcement agencies.
“You can’t do anything about a combination of home-made gangsterism and officers who sell out.”
The cold-blooded ambush of Constable Sam Locke
With the National Prohibition Act outlawing alcohol, Williamson County’s already-illegal stills found the growing thirst for their “white mule” moonshine unquenchable. Fortune followed those willing to ignore an unpopular law. And ruthless violence found anyone wiliing to enforce it.
Constable Sam Locke was willing and, a few days after raiding a huge still hidden in the country, Jim Kelton found him.
The enormously profitable whiskey ring in Williamson County was run in part by father-and-son John and Neely Truett. In the aftermath of Locke’s raid, unable to stop him with bribes, they decided to use bullets.
The Truetts picked Kelton as their trigger man, planning the hit in the nights after the raid.
A little after 9 p.m. on the night of March 7, Locke left Franklin driving to his home on Hillsboro Pike. Kelton and an accomplice named Frank Cain followed, speeding past Locke along the way. They cut the headlights and parked just beyond Locke’s house. Kelton, grabbing his shotgun, hopped out of the car and ran to hide in the shadows behind a stone wall surrounding the property. He waited.
Locke pulled in. Maybe humming to himself, maybe thinking relaxing and listening to the radio after a long day, he absently fumbled with the chain on his gate. Suddenly headlights blinded him and before he could turn his head a brighter flash broke through the night. And then another.
Kelton, when Cain hit the headlights, had fired once and hit Locke in the head. He almost immediately fired again into Locke’s stomach and arm.
Locke slumped forward, dead on the soft Spring ground.
Kelton ran to the running car, shoved Cain over and sped wildly off up Hillsboro Pike toward Nashville, then right onto Granny White, and left onto Franklin Pike toward Brentwood. Hearts racing, they eventually slowed down and turned onto Murfreesboro Pike and headed home to Franklin.
Part Two
For the rest of the story check back on Sunday.
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