Wilkinson County, Georgia
Crime News

Shot from Ambush -- Assassination of a Prominent Irwinton Merchant -- The Sheriff Makes a Capture
From Mr. F. Chambers, who came in from Irwinton yesterday, and Mr. Emmett Baum, who came in last nightly the
particulars of a highway robbery and murder which occurred in that place Saturday nightly are obtained.

Mr. J. A. Sheffield is a well-known merchant of Irwinton and had a reputation for being peaceable, law-abiding and of such genial disposition that it was thought he had not an enemy in the world. On Saturday night about 8 o'clock he closed his store and with Messrs. Rutlands started for home. They accompanied him to where the road fork, and then bade him good nightly they taking the right-hand road and Mr. Sheffield the left. They had not separated long before they heard the report and saw the flash of a gun down the road in the direction of where Mr. Sheffield had gone. Hearing no outcry they thought no more about it. About 9 o'clock a Negro man and a white boy were going home on the left hand side and found the body of a man in the road. They supposed him to be drunk, but on investigating found it to be the body of Mr. Sheffield, with an ugly wound in the back of his head near the right ear.The boy at once reported the matter and the body was taken to the house.

Early yesterday morning all the male inhabitants of the town, headed by Sheriff P. J. Fountain, feeling outraged that such a cold-blooded murder should be committed in the community, determined to discover the criminal. It was evident to them that robbery prompted the deed, for the reason that the satchel usually carried by Mr. Sheffield when going home at night, and in which he generally carried the day's sales, was found about a hundred yards down the road out open and the money gone.
The hunting party found tracks in a fence corner near the scene of the murder, and followed the tracks across several fields and in a roundabout way until they ended at the house of a Negro woman named Collins. In this house they found her son Will, who in about 20 years of age, and his gun with one barrel discharged. There was blood on the gun, and this the party thought had gotten on it when the murderer went to the body for the purpose of taking off the satchel. Will was then arrested by the sheriff and lodged in jail.
To make assurance doubly sure, the undischarged load was drawn from the gun and the wadding compared with a piece of wadding found near the murdered man. Both pieces were torn from the Wrightsville Headlight.
Mr. Baum came in yesterday with the vest worn by the Negro and which has a small spot of what is supposed to be blood on it, for the purpose of having it examined by Dr. Clifton, the microscopist.
A Negro named Shade Coates was arrested on suspicion of being an accomplice of Collins. He is a shoemaker and has a shop in Mr., Sheffield's store. He was known to have gone to Collins' house on the night in question, and to have called him out. When arrested he had some ten dollars on his person. Collins had twenty dollars. It is supposed that this is about the amount the satchel contained.
Undertakers Wood & Bond sent a casket to Irwinton yesterday morning for the remains of Mr. Sheffield.

The following special in connection with the above was received last night:
Toombsboro. April 20—Mr. Jim Sheffield, of Irwin was shot and instantly killed and robbed while on his way home
last night by Will Collins, a Negro, who was tracked from the spot to his home, a short distance away, where he was captured. The inquest jury find that Mr. Sheffield came to his death by a gunshot wound at the hands of Will Collins, and that the killing was willful murder. The sheriff started immediately with Collins and hopes to teach Macon some time tonight. The people are worked up to the top notch, and no doubt would lynch him had he been kept here. [Macon Weekly Telegraph, 30 Apr 1888 - Submitted by a Friend of Free Genealogy]

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