Drawing by Bill BulUld
The Slrange Case
of R. S. McCoin
Twenty-five years ago he drove
away from Henderson never to
be seen again: did **a boy in t rou¬
ble" tell the truth?
Seaboard, dusk was falling and the
lights of passing cars crossed their
beams on frosted pavement and shone
out over a country, white with snow
and glistening with its crackling coating
of ice.
In the Pythian Home in Clayton.
North Carolina, children were atip-toc
with excitement, for Santa Claus was
coming and with him some one al¬
most as beloved; some one who was
an annual Santa Claus to the insti¬
tution and its little homeless people.
In a comfortable home in Hen¬
derson, a slender, sweet-faced woman
awaited the arrival of her husband
from Richmond; waited in readiness
to accompany him to the orphanage
where they were accustomed to spend
Christmas. Having no children of their
own, their hearts were large enough
to enfold a houseful of others.
After two days of private search,
the clipped tones of radio announcers
in Raleigh and Richmond broadcast
the information that former State Sena¬
tor Rufus Sidney McCoin of Hender¬
son, 62 years old. was mysteriously
missing.
Twice Slate Senator, once a Mem¬
ber of the House of Representatives,
for some eleven years a member of
the State Advisory Budget Commis¬
sion, Past Grand Master of the Pythian
Lodge in this state, and for years the
state’s representative to the National
Convention of the lodge, active in law.
political, civic and church circles and
generous in proportion to his means,
his disappearance created a sensation.
On December 22. 1932, McCoin had
left Henderson to go by car to Rich¬
mond, on business. Passing by his
1, 500-acre farm at Dewitt, Virginia,
he left there a young man named
Farris, whose relatives lived there.
An employee in a filling station, as
you enter Richmond, reported that late
in the afternoon of December 22, a
man answering the description of Mc¬
Coin stopped at his station, bought gas
using a Gulf courtesy card, used the
telephone and inquired whither a
branch road led. He did not notice
what road was taken.
It was found later that the tele¬
phone call by McCoin was to Arthur F.
Sitton. nephew of Mrs. McCoin, stating
a doubt as to his being able to make a
visit but that he would leave certain
Christmas presents at a certain store,
where they were duly found. And that
telephone call was the last trace ever
found of the missing man.
A letter bearing a Chicago post mark
date of December 25, and directed to
"The Chief Justice of the Supreme
Court of North Carolina" was received
by Chief Justice Stacey and promptly
forwarded to Henderson. It was writ¬
ten as if by one of little education
and under stress of great excitement.
It said that McCoin had been mur¬
dered and that his car would be found
in a garage in Columbus, Ohio. The
letter was signed. "A BOY IN DIS¬
TRESS."
This article by Mrs. Mary Meadows
Sellars appears in " Zeb's Black Baby,"
by S. T. Peace, a history of Vance
County.
Prior to receiving the letter, all the
hospitals and hotels in Petersburg and
Richmond had been contacted and the
large farm at Dewitt had been well
searched. But upon receipt of the
letter the search centered in and near
Columbus, Ohio. Hagerstown. Mary¬
land. and Uniontown. Ohio, with
particular attention paid to areas along
the routes between these three cities.
One thousand dollars in rewards
were offered, five hundred by the
family and a like amount by the
Pythian Lodge of North Carolina.
In Columbus, McCoin's car was
found stored in a garage just as the
letter predicted, and in it were his
gloves, his billfold and spectacles.
Blood, also partially substantiating
15
THE STATE.
ОССЕМВСЯ
14, 1957
