The Sorsby Saga

By City Historian Dr. Walter Howell Will Sorsby received a pardon from Governor Henry Whitfield on Christmas Day, 1925. His murder conviction was set aside, and he was a free man, though Sorsby still faced possible embezzlement charges for the money he stole from the Clinton post office. Though he had replaced the money in…

By City Historian Dr. Walter Howell Will Sorsby was twenty-four years of age when the state supreme court denied his appeal. Facing life in prison, his only hope was a pardon from the governor or escape. The nature of his heinous crime, shooting a postal inspector without warning, should have eliminated any chance of a…

By City Historian Dr. Walter Howell  It was no surprise to the public when Will Sorsby was convicted by a Hinds County jury of murdering Charles Fitzgerald in 1910. Sorsby’s lawyers tried and failed to convince the jury that their cli-ent was insane. The Jackson Daily News reported: “It was largely due to sympathy felt…

By City Historian Dr. Walter Howell  Margaret Ellen Cabaniss and Will Sorsby, the young couple whose marriage was put asunder when the husband killed a postal inspector, came from distinguished Clinton families. Edwin W. Cabaniss, Margaret’s father, was a native of Rankin County, editor of the Brandon Re-publican, and a lawyer. He inherited a plantation…

By City Historian Dr. Walter Howell Craig Travis of San Jose, California, visited Clinton this past December to learn more about his grandmother, a native of Clinton who lived at “Violet Banks” on Jefferson Street. Margaret Morehead died in 1974, and, when Travis and other grandchildren sifted through her papers, they learned that she had…

By City Historian Walter Howell  When the verdict in the Sorsby murder trial was announced on April 13, 1909, the courtroom was nearly deserted. Crowds had filled the courtroom ev-ery day of the trial, and few expected the jury to reach a decision within an hour of deliberations. The verdict: “We, the jury, find the…

By City Historian Dr. Walter Howell The “Voices of Clinton” cast will perform a dramatic reading on “The Sorsby Murder Trial, Clinton’s ‘Crime of the Century,’” at the City courtroom on Thursday, April 11, at 7 p.m. The reading is the sixth in a series dating back to 2013 that recounts events and people who…

By City Historian Dr. Walter Howell It was happenstance, not design, when James Anderson, director of the “Voices of Clinton” reading cast, selected the date of April 11, 2019, for the reenactment of “The Sorsby Murder Trial.”  The presentation begins at 7 p. m. in the courtroom of the Clinton Justice Building on the corner…

By City Historian Dr. Walter Howell Mississippi’s newspapers supported the conviction of William Sorsby for the murder of Charles Fitzgerald. The Clarion said he should have been hanged for his crime, adding the trial was a “credit to Mississippi where the plea of insanity, always resorted to as a dire resort – was not successfully…

By City Historian Dr. Walter G. Howell There were witnesses to William Sorsby’s shooting of Charles Fitzgerald on September 29, 1908. John Fox, the railroad agent, and John Johnson, Mississippi College professor, came to the assistance of Fitzgerald, smothering the flames on his coat. While they were trying to comfort the dying man, Alexander Sorsby…