Kate’s notes: There are two articles here relating to the same subject. The second article concerns the pardon given to Charles Gilliland six years after he was convicted of killing his son-in-law. There is a discrepancy between the two articles concerning the age of the child who was the center of this incident; in the original account he was 10 years of age when victimized but according to the article published in the Atlanta Constitution he was 4 years of age.

Americus Times Recorder
Americus, Georgia
5 June, 1897

Stabbed His Son-In Law

BIRMINGHAM, Ala., June 4. – Near Rockford, Coosa county, Harris Patton whipped the 10-year-old son of Charles Gilliland, his father-in-law, for some trivial offense and the boy ran home crying and told his parents. Gilliland became greatly enraged and went in search of his son-in-law, whom he found in the field superintending farm work. After a brief quarrel Gilliland drew a knife and stabbed Patton to the heart, causing death. Gilliland escaped, but officers are after him. Both men were prominent farmers.

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The Atlanta Constitution
Atlanta, Georgia
16 August, 1903

Governor Jelks Remarks on
Granting Pardon.
_______________

Gilliland Killed Son in Law, Who
Had Slapped His Motherless
Child – Another Old Man
Paroled Out of the
Penitentiary.
________________

   Montgomery, Ala., August 15 – (Special) Governor Jelks today issued a pardon to Charles Gilliland, a white man of Coosa county, convicted at the fall term, 1897, of the circuit court of that county, on the charge of murder and sentenced to the penitentiary for life.
   The crime of which Gilliland was convicted was the murder of his son in law who had slapped his little 4-year-old, motherless child. He stabbed his son in law to death. In ordering pardon to be issued, the governor said:
   “This man is personally known to me. He has little strength of character, and is, indeed, little more than a child. The deceased slapped the prisoner’s little orphan child, to which he was devotedly attached, the more so, perhaps, because of its tender years and orphaned condition. The trial judge, now president of the convict board, recommends a pardon, as do very many good citizens of Coosa county. He has already served the state six years, and is getting along in life.”

-transcriptions by Kate Maynard, 2012