The Daily Avalanche

The Daily Avalanche

Memphis, Tennessee

April 3, 1879

A Prisoner Shot While Trying to Escape from Jail.

Special Correspondence Memphis Avalanche.

AUSTIN, Miss., April 1, 1879

On Sunday afternoon last as the young man, Wm. Kennon, who has charge of our jail, was attending to his duties in the cage of the prisoners, three of the prisoners made a break toward him, expecting to knock him down and run over him, but Kennon was too quick for them and fired, hitting Silas Cox, convicted of manslaughter, in the face. The ball entered the side of his face and lodged against his jaw bone. Cox pleaded guilted to the charge of manslaughter at the last term of the Circuit Court, and was sentenced to 21 years imprisonment in the penitentiary. The two other men were Wm. Love and Tom Edwards, the former having been sentenced to be hung on the 18th of this month. Thomas Edward is in jail on the charge of horse-stealing. They are all desperate men, and great credit is due Mr. Kennon for his prompt and decisive action in preventing their escape.