In September 1941, the body of Davis Timmerman was found in a small store in South Carolina. At first, the police searched for a random attacker, not suspecting that the crime was rooted in a complex web of family vendettas. A two-month investigation uncovered a conspiracy that sent three people to the electric chair, including a woman linked to one of the state’s most powerful politicians. This case could be a movie script—except it was all real.
Revenge Served Cold
The year before, Davis Timmerman had shot and killed John Wallace Logue but was acquitted because the court ruled it was self-defense. For the Logue family, that verdict was unacceptable. Sue Stidham Logue, the widow of the victim, together with her brother-in-law George decided to take justice into their own hands.
They drew Clarence Bagwell and Sue’s teenage nephew, Joe Frank Logue, into their scheme. The plan was simple: an ambush in Timmerman’s store. The execution proved effective, but their secrecy did not.
The police methodically dismantled the group within two months. All four were put on trial, and all were sentenced to death. Southern justice was unforgiving—at least for some.
Shootout at the Farm
Before the trial began, the case had claimed more victims. In November 1941, Sheriff Allen and his deputy William Clark went to arrest the Logues at their farm. The sheriff was unarmed, a decision that cost him his life.
When the officers entered the house, they were met with gunfire. George Logue and Fred Dorn opened fire without warning. Sheriff Allen was killed immediately; Deputy Clark managed to return fire, wounding George and fatally injuring Dorn.
Clark, gravely wounded, was taken to a hospital in Augusta, Georgia, where he died two days later. The toll of a single arrest attempt: three dead, one wounded. The Logue family clearly had no intention of surrendering without a fight.
Lover on the Electric Chair
Sue Logue’s trials attracted statewide media attention, but a secondary, retrospective detail proved most shocking. Sue was the lover of Strom Thurmond—then a state prosecutor, later a U.S. Senator and presidential candidate known for his segregationist platform.
Thurmond volunteered to personally escort Sue from the women’s prison to the facility where she would be executed. Driver Randall Johnson later testified that during the journey, the pair had sexual intercourse on the back seat of the car. Last hours before execution spent in a lover’s embrace—an ironic twist worthy of fiction.
On the morning of January 15, 1943, at seven o’clock, Sue Logue took her place in the electric chair, the first woman to die this way in South Carolina. Her brother-in-law George was executed right after her; Clarence Bagwell followed. Sue went down in history as the state’s first female to be executed by electric chair.
One Escaped Death
Joe Frank Logue, Sue’s teenage nephew, was luckier than the rest. His trial took place after the others had already been executed, and he received the same death sentence.
On January 23, 1944, Logue ate his last meal and was prepared for execution. Then, Governor Johnston personally visited death row. A conversation with the young condemned man convinced him to commute the sentence to life imprisonment. The specifics of their conversation remain a mystery.
Logue was assigned to the prison’s bloodhound kennel, where he worked training and caring for the dogs. In 1960, after nearly two decades behind bars, he was paroled. His release was supported by 37 out of 40 sheriffs in South Carolina—the same men who remembered their slain colleagues.
The Logue family story illustrates how thin the line between justice and revenge was in 1940s America, and how close those in power could come to breaking the law they were supposed to uphold.
Autor
Rory Thornfield
Rory's grandfather left behind a wartime diary filled with accounts of a minor Burma skirmish that history books never mentioned. Reading it, Rory realized: behind every famous battle are dozens of forgotten struggles, each with its own human drama.
His preferred topics: The overlooked corners of military history – secondary campaigns, shadow battalions, local conflicts that never made headlines. From medieval sieges to twentieth-century expeditions, he focuses on the soldiers, not the generals. The people who faced impossible choices and carried those experiences forever.
Rory strips away the romanticism without losing respect for those who served. He combines tactical analysis with personal stories, examining human endurance and moral complexity rather than celebrating warfare. His writing is balanced, thoughtful, and deeply researched.
Outside work, Rory visits forgotten battlefields (now quiet farmland), photographs war memorials nobody tends anymore, and interviews veterans' families.