"THREE CHARGED WITH MURDER TALK FREELY"
The Daily Free Press, September 5, 1921
"Mrs. William Whitley, 37; Thomas Hayes, white farmer, and Wright Rouse, negro farmhand, will make a clean breast of the murder of the woman's husband in the Walstonburg section when they go to trial at Snow Hill, Greene county officials believe, and leave their fates in the hands of the jury. Reports today stated that the prisoners had talked freely of the crime to additional interviewers, their separate accounts corroborating one another. The trial will not be held before December.
The trio, apparently overwhelmed by the detection of the guilt they are alleged to have confessed, have talked with a number of officials, newspapermen and others.
Will Whitley fell asleep while curing tobacco at a barn on his farm on the night of August 3. Rouse, a one-armed neighborhood character, crept up and shot him dead. The reported confessions say Rouse was in the employ of Mrs. Whitley and Hayes, who desired to get Whitley out of the way. The price of the murder was $500. Rouse was never paid, he declares."
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