Doughty-Stevens Burglary

(*Names have been changed. RHB)

Some disturbing content

Doughty-Stevens Burglary

Reporting to work one morning Doughty-Stevens called me and said they’d had a burglary in their hardware, and there had been several guns stolen … long guns, short guns, pistols. Everett Graham and I worked the crime scene. We didn’t come up with too much evidence at the scene, but at that time the bus station was across the street from Doughty-Stevens, so we checked the bus station and had them check with the drivers and see if they might have picked anybody up carrying boxes, or loaded boxes there. Sure enough they had. 

One young man had loaded several heavy boxes on to a bus, and he got off the bus and took the boxes off in Knoxville. So, Everett and I went to Knoxville, and we got there late afternoon, and found out the young man had checked into the Andrew Johnson Hotel in downtown Knoxville. 

So, we got with two detectives there in Knoxville and staked the room out. Spent several boring hours there and the man finally come in about 2:30 in the morning. He went into the room, and Everett and I and the two Knoxville detectives went back to the room. One of the detectives went out on the fire escape where he could see inside. So, knocked on the door, the Knoxville detective knocked on the door, and a voice from inside said, “Who is it?” and the Knoxville detective said, “Desk.” So, he opened the door and we rushed in. He said, “It’s a damn good thing you said desk, ‘cause I’d be shootin’ through the door.” 

He had pistols under the pillows, pistols in his pockets. And, we arrested him to bring him back to Greeneville. He was born a, born a *Samuels but he was befriended by an older man named *Holmes. I can’t remember his first name. Anyway, I rode in the backseat with him, we had a long conversation coming back from Knoxville to Greeneville.

He looked at me and grinned and said have you had any interesting fires in downtown Greeneville lately. I said, “yeah, did you set it?” He said, “no.” We’d had a Milbanks burn a great deal of the downtown stores. So, I checked, and he was in a institution, But, I checked with the institution, he’d been here in Greeneville on that weekend the fire had been set, visiting, on a leave. 

*Samuels, I think he was about 16 years old, he was a juvenile, and his foster parent brought him - he was going to court the next day - brought him a necktie. We went back to the cell and he was hanging with his feet on the floor, but he was - he was dead.

So, he told me enough that we more or less closed the books on the arson cases downtown. He told me that he had intended to set Doughty-Stevens on fire. The reason he didn’t was that it would have drawn attention to him too quick, or to the burglary too quick.