Van E Epps
Cincinnati Enquirer, 23 November 1914, page 10
NEWPORT
Charge is Now Murder
Van E Epps, colored, who was shot Saturday at Silver Grove by W W
Hatfield, a section foreman in the employ of the C & O died yesterday at Speers
Hospital A post mortem conducted by Coroner James Digby and Dr. W A Young
developed that the ball that killed Epps struck him in the throat and ranged
backward, lodging in the spinal column. The charge of murder was placed
against Hatfield, who is held without bail subject to the orders of the Coroner
and the result of the coronial investigation.
The e-- is a difference in the stories as to how Epps was killed. Other colored section hands say that Hatfield cursed the negro, and when he remonstrated shot him. Another report is that Hatfield and two or three colored section hands became involved in an argument and when two of them came toward him in a threatening matter, eh shot the foremost one, who happed to be Epps.