(Thanks to Meaghan Good of the Charley Project for the guest post. -ed.)
On September 10, 1943, multiple murderer Phillip “Slim” Coleman Jr. was hanged in Missoula, Montana.
The African-American Coleman would be the last man judicially noosed in that state, and Montana didn’t execute anyone else at all for more than fifty years. (Duncan P. McKenzie died by lethal injection in 1995 to end the drought.)
Coleman started his crime spree when he battered to death eighty-year-old Andrew J. Walton on July 3. The octogenarian was still alive when his sister found him the next morning, but he died in the hospital the next day without ever regaining consciousness.
With no witnesses or leads, the case quickly went cold.
On July 24, Coleman another man, Lewis Brown, were hired to work on the Northern Pacific Railroad thirty miles from Missoula. They had arrived at the train stop separately and it’s unclear whether they knew each other before, but on the same day they were chummy enough to start plotting to rob and kill their boss, Carl W. Pearson.
Late that night, Coleman went to Pearson’s home, woke him up and said Brown was ill and he had to come. Pearson grabbed a bottle of aspirin and headed out. There in the yard, Brown struck him on the head behind and left his body in the yard. Coleman went back inside, found Pearson’s wife Roslyn, and stabbed her to death in her bed.
The men spared the couple’s child, seven-year-old Richard; it was he who found the bodies the next day.
The murderers collected their loot, divided it between them and went their separate ways. Brown and Coleman were almost immediately identified as the prime suspects in the murder and picked up: Brown the day after the killings, and Coleman the day after Brown. Coleman was charged with Roslyn’s murder and Brown was charged in Carl’s death. Both were convicted, but Brown got only a life sentence and Coleman got the death penalty.
The condemned Coleman converted to Catholicism after his conviction, then, attempting to cleanse his soul, he summoned the sheriff and confessed to Andrew Walton’s murder. He had been a suspect since his arrest in the Pearson case, since the crimes were so similar, but had previously denied any knowledge of Walton’s death. Coleman got all of twelve cents, he said, from robbing Walton.
Amateur historian R. Michael Wilson, writing of the case, said, “He asked the sheriff to keep his confession secret in case the governor had a last minute change of heart and decided to grant a reprieve or communtation.”
Coleman’s hanging went off without a hitch.
On this day..
- 1664: Sawny Douglas, Chevy Chaser
- 1731: Catherine Bevan, burned alive in Delaware
- 1941: Viggo Hasteen and Rolf Wickstrom, for the Milk Strike
- 1622: Charles Spinola, martyr in Japan
- 1893: Two women lynched in Quincy, Mississippi
- 1990: Charles Coleman, the first lethal injection in Oklahoma
- 1573: Hans von Erschausen, Seeräuber
- 1801: Jason Fairbanks, lackadaisical escapee
- 1951: Eliseo Mares, "silently and horribly"
- 1661: Kaj Lykke, in effigy
- Themed Set: Executions in Effigy
- 1852: John and Jane Williams, slaves
- 1977: Hamida Djandoubi, Madame Guillotine's last kiss
My great uncle was Carl W. Pearson. I only learned of this faamily history following the death of my father: Henry Dwight Seymour in 2019. My father was astranged from his family. Seeking more understanding of my family history.
Thank you,
Nathan Seymour
My grandmother was related to Carl W. Pearson or maybe his wife. I think it was him though. They lived in Livingston at the time. I believe they were on a picnic somewhere, when they got the news. I don’t know much about it, mainly only what I have read, very little from family. She was married to Robert Watson, her name w3aw Helen, (maiden name was Helen Boerke. Just thought I would share this with you, if you see it.
Fred Burbee, and Herman Lunceford were also witness of hanging of Coleman in 1943 like to know for sure.
My mother was born in 1929 and said she witnessed the hanging
I don’t know anything about the specific arrangements here, but it ought not have been public. Rainey Bethea’s hanging in Kentucky in 1936 is the consensus last public execution in the U.S.
Do you know if Coleman’s execution was public? My husband’s uncle witnessed it as a spectator when he was young. It scarred him emotionally for life. Just wondered if he sneaked in, or if it was public.
My dad and mom lived next door when the murder happened. The Pearson’s son was spending the night. He went home that morning and found his dad in the garden. Mom went over and found the wife there was also a baby in the house that wasn’t harmed.
Wow. I had heard nothing of this.
Slim left a little mystery after his death. The day before his scheduled hanging, Coleman told of 23 other murders he had committed since he was 14 years old, growing up in St. Louis, Illinois. In a dictated confession the night before he died, he only gave details of eight of those murders. The confession is said to still be in Missoula but inquiries have not found it. It is also believed that none of Coleman’s confession was ever used to solve unsolved murder mysteries.