Dang, Billy Sunday Birt has died

[William Thornton]

Mass murderer in whom Fox has some interest died Thursday.

Although he had been in prison for decades, he lived in my town. I can show you where. He used to frequent a restaurant operated by some church members, one of whom remembers him paying for a meal with a $100 bill, a rare sight in those days.

Never did a mother name a child with higher aspirations only to be bitterly disappointed. Birt was a murderer, reputed to be a mass murderer, but in the words of his son, "the best father a son ever had."

[Stephen Fox]

Was the first time I was online since his death April 7. I submitted a comment to the obit site. It was under moderation but not posted.

You know, William, he was taken from death row to Winder and baptized by a son in the mid 90s. The obit said all four sons first name was Billy, one Billy Stonewall Birt or Stoney. I think another was Montana. I think it was Montana who baptized him, an ordained Church of God preacher.

One of us should link the obit soon.

It is my understanding he was quite a legend, an authentic one at that, with his testimony in prison ministry.

[Rvaughn]

Looks like this is his obituary:

[Stephen Fox]

A 2014 blog

http://foxofbama.blogspot.com/2014/07/b ... ology.html

[Stephen Fox]

May 29 print issue of New Yorker, profile of Winder's Sallie Yates, has couple paragraphs on the Mother or widow of Mr Chancey, "moonshiner" who was with Birt in the Dixie Mafia before Birt found salvation.

Chancey used some legal shenanigans to get some property of a black woman. Yates took the case and justice was done. You can't make this stuff up

[William Thornton]

[Stephen Fox]

Birt woulda been about 18 when the Moore's Ford Lynching occurred. They were talking about it yet againt today on NPR. July 25, 1946. Thornton has read the definitive book to date, Fire in the Cane Brake but a new chapter is about to be added it appears with a court hearing in Walton County, Monroe in October.

[KeithE]