Twice-told Tale
BY Dean Campbell

On the early evening of June 19, 1938, three Greenville County deputies—H.C. Harrison, Tom Charles and Frank Reid—were on Dill Road in the Glassy Mountain area, attempting to find a man wanted for a whiskey violation.

They heard gunshots a little farther up the road and thought, perhaps, someone was warning the man they were seeking that they were in the neighborhood. Then, screams were heard, dispelling that notion.

They hurried in the direction of the gunshots. In approaching a driveway, they met Hattie Center, with blood on her dress, and her five-year-old daughter. She told them that her husband, Will Center, and his nephew, Harrison Fricks, had been shot, and that her husband was already dead.

The body of Center and Fricks, who died a few minutes later, were found at a corn crib some 50 yards from the house that was occupied by the two men and their wives and two children. A shotgun that the two had scuffled over lay beside Frick. Neither had been shot by the shotgun, however.

Fricks had been shot in the center of his chest just below his neck by a .32 Smith and Wesson pistol, which lay near Center’s hand. Center appeared to have been shot in his right side by a rifle bullet that moved straight across his body.

Hattie Center told deputies that her husband was killed by a .22 calibre rifle bullet fired by 16-year-old Carlos Plumley, who fled the scene. Irene Fricks, wife of Harrison Fricks and mother of their nine-month-old son, was too distraught to give deputies any meaningful details of the shootings. Bodies of both men were removed from the scene.

Later that evening, young Plumley was arrested at his home by deputies and taken to the Greenville jail. They stopped by John Lindsey’s house to pick up Plumley’s rifle, which he had left with Lindsey after fleeing the murder scene.

Plumley told them he fired only one bullet toward Center in an effort to keep from being shot himself and to protect his friend, Fricks. He didn’t even know if he had hit the older man.

He became frightened after firing the one shot and left immediately, he said. Earlier in the day, when he and Fricks had been shooting at rats and some marks, they came by the Center’s house and Hattie Center had slapped him in the face with her fist so hard that it made him cry. Will Center warned Plumley that if he touched Hattie, he (Center) would kill him.

Both Center and Fricks were buried the next day at Ebenezer-Welcome Baptist Church. The following day, Coroner George W. McCoy held an inquest into the deaths at the Gowensville School House.

The inquest determined that Fricks was killed by Center with a .32 Smith and Wesson bullet and that Center died from a single bullet from a.22 calibre rifle, fired by young Plumley.

A trial was scheduled on Sept. 5, 1939, with now-17-year-old Plumley accused of murder. Judge L.D. Lide presided. Plumley took the stand in his own defense, and admitted that he shot and fatally wounded Center for the reason he had previously told deputies and included in a signed statement for Coroner McCoy.

Plumley said he had the rifle with him all day shooting at rats and marks and that when they decided to feed the hogs at Center’s place, Fricks got his shotgun. They walked toward the corn crib. Center came around the crib and asked what they were going to do with the guns. Fricks said, “nothing.”

Then Center reached in his shirt and pulled a pistol. They moved toward each other. Fricks cocked the shotgun. Center grabbed the barrel and held it up, then began shooting his pistol into Fricks’ chest. “That’s when I fired my rifle one time, and turned and ran,” Plumley said.

Other testimony established the fact that Center, who was the uncle of Fricks, had raised three of the Fricks boys after their parents died several years before. The dead nephew had been living at the Center home at the time of the shooting.

On numerous occasions, it was revealed, the two men had arguments for various reasons, some of which were said to be instigated by Hattie Center.

Young Plumley was found guilty of manslaughter and served three years in a reformatory.