TIME CAPSULES LARRY HALL

Courtroom murder, political plotting The March 29, 1913, Richmond Times-Dispatch called the executions of a father and son the final curtain on "one of the most remarkable dramas of modern times."

The chain of events that ended in Richmond had begun more than a year earlier in Carroll County with the arrest of Floyd Allen, a farmer and storekeeper known for his hot temper.

On March 13, 1912, Allen stood trial on a charge of assaulting a sheriff's deputy. The next day, more than 100 spectators inside the county courthouse at Hillsville heard the jury deliver a guilty verdict. The judge ordered Allen jailed.

"Gentlemen, I ain't a-goin'," Allen announced as he reached inside his jacket. In seconds, a dozen hidden pistols appeared, and gunfire exploded. County officials exchanged shots with the Allen clan as spectators dodged bullets.

By the time pistols stopped blazing, Allen and his family had escaped. Five people lay dead or dying in the courtroom, including the judge, the sheriff and the commonwealth's attorney. A posse ultimately returned Allen and others of his clan to face murder charges.

Allen and his 22-year-old son, Claude, were sentenced to die in the electric chair, while several other family members received prison sentences.

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After the Virginia Supreme Court twice refused to hear appeals of the capital-murder convictions, Gov. William H. Mann issued a statement calling the courtroom shootout "the greatest crime in the history of Virginia" and scheduling the executions March 28, 1913.

As the date drew near, the trials' outcomes grew unpopular. The numerous court hearings held in the cases had cast doubt on evidence of premeditation and proof of who shot whom in the courtroom mayhem. Despite receiving petitions calling for him to commute the death sentences, Mann, a staunch supporter of the death penalty, remained unmoved.

The widespread opposition gave birth to a bizarre, last-minute plot. "As though the play had not furnished action enough," said a Times-Dispatch account, "the last act was the most thrilling." Confident the murderers' fates were sealed, Mann left Richmond the afternoon of March 27 for a speaking engagement in New Jersey the next day.

Hours after Mann departed, State Corporation Commission member J. Richard Wingfield rang the doorbell at the Richmond home of Lt. Gov. J. Taylor Ellyson. Wingfield asked Ellyson to accompany him to the nearby home of bank president John P. Branch, where a group of politically prominent Allen supporters had gathered.

The Allen sympathizers pointed to a section of the state constitution specifying when the lieutenant governor could act as governor. One provision was the governor's "removal from the state" (a contingency deleted in a 1970s revision). The men tried to convince Ellyson he could commute the Allens' death sentences in Mann's absence.

Ellyson resisted but agreed to await an opinion from Attorney General Samuel W. Williams. The group contacted Williams at his home, and he notified prison officials to delay the morning's executions until the matter was resolved.

The attorney general delivered his opinion to Branch's home shortly after midnight. It was negative: The lieutenant governor could not assume the governor's powers during temporary absences. The Allen supporters asked Williams to reconsider and issue a formal opinion by noon the next day.

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The question was moot, however. Someone had alerted Mann to the plot, and the governor was returning early. He had wired the secretary of the commonwealth that he should be in Virginia by 8 a.m. and in Richmond by 11:30 a.m.

With Mann's premature return, the executions proceeded that afternoon. The bodies of Floyd and Claude Allen were taken to Bliley's Funeral Home, where thousands viewed them.

"The skill of the dramatist never conceived of such a plot," said the next day's Times-Dispatch.