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Early the next morning, Woods left to catch the train to Weatherford. In route to the station, he encountered an old friend, Alfred Little. Woods and Little both worked in the Thurber brick plant. The men lived near one another with their families until the death of Woods\u2019s wife, when he became a boarder in the Little household. Some might say this is where the trouble began. Alfred Little did not have reminiscing old times in mind when he met John Woods that fateful morning. No, Little was there to confront him about something else, something much more meaningful. Little felt Woods had done what no man should. He had violated the ancient \u201cCode of Honor.\u201d
On the morning of May 19, 1911, Alfred Little unloaded both barrels of a double-barreled shotgun into Woods\u2019s unsuspecting body. The first shot entered his upper torso and stretched all the way down to his intestines. The second shot was even more brutal, tearing away part of Woods\u2019s head. Needless to say, Alfred Little wanted to make sure he accomplished his task. After hearing the shots, Mrs. Little ran to the scene, throwing herself across the prostrate body of Woods, and weeping profusely. Her husband, Alfred, looked on and said nothing.
As time passed and news of the killing spread, a crowd converged on the area where Alfred Little watched over the dead body of John Woods. He stated that he had no regrets in killing Woods and was only sorry that he had not done so sooner. Little stood there approximately two hours, warning the spectators to keep their distance. To be sure that they would heed his command, Little kept both barrels of his shotgun loaded. He refused to surrender to any officer, except the Parker County Sheriff, fearing that if he handed himself over to anyone else he would be lynched by the gathering mob. When Sheriff Gilbert arrived at the crime scene, Little handed over his gun and was taken to the county jail in Weatherford. What appeared to be an open and shut murder case was about to become a very complicated ordeal all because of the \u201cunwritten law.\u201d
Up until 1973, according to Article 1220 of the Texas Penal Code, \u201cA homicide is justifiable when committed by the husband upon the husband of anyone taken in adultery with the wife; provided the killing takes place before the parties to the act of adultery have separated.\u201d However, in murder cases provoked by a spouse\u2019s infidelity a \u201cCode of Honor\u201d or the \u201cunwritten law\u201d was often presented as a defense argument. Simply stated, the \u201cunwritten law\u201d is a hypothetical rule that a man who takes the life of his wife\u2019s paramour or daughter\u2019s seducer is not guilty of any criminal transgression.
<\/p>\n\n\n
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The trial, in which Little\u2019s attorneys would invoke the unwritten law as a line of defense, was sensational to say the least. Lasting over a week, the district court case summoned 185 witnesses with witness fees amounting to $617.73. Sixty-five of those subpoenaed were residents of Thurber and the number included Little\u2019s and Woods\u2019s co-workers, neighbors, boarders, and other acquaintances. In addition, the state called on Little\u2019s mother-in-law, Alice Beatty, as a prosecuting witness. The witness, jury, and other miscellaneous fees ran the cost of the trial to almost $1,000. Almost one year after the incident, May 4, 1912, the jury in the Alfred Little-John Woods murder case reached its verdict. \u201cWe the jury find the defendant, Alf Little not guilty.\u201d
Pearl and Alfred Little divorced after the Wood\u2019s affair. Alfred lived in Thurber through the 1920s. With the closing of the Thurber Brick Company he moved to Schiller Park, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago where he found work at another brick yard. Pearl Little remarried Mr. Will Baxter and resided in Parker County before relocating to an assisted living facility in Fort Worth, where she lived until age 91.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By David Buster On the night of May 18, 1911, John Woods of Thurber stayed the night with one Mrs. Alice Beatty of Millsap. Woods was there visiting Mrs. Beatty\u2019s daughter and his paramour, Pearl Little. Pearl had been staying with her mother as she had recently separated from her husband. Early the next morning, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4133,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"author_meta":{"display_name":"brian","author_link":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/the-industrious-historian\/author\/brian-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-3\/"},"featured_img":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/the-industrious-historian\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/308\/2022\/11\/brick-kiln-and-stack-copy-300x215.jpg","coauthors":[],"tax_additional":{"categories":{"linked":["Uncategorized<\/a>"],"unlinked":["Uncategorized<\/span>"]}},"comment_count":0,"relative_dates":{"created":"Posted 16 years ago","modified":"Updated 3 years ago"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Posted on November 24, 2009","modified":"Updated on November 30, 2022"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Posted on November 24, 2009 9:23 pm","modified":"Updated on November 30, 2022 6:50 pm"},"featured_img_caption":"Old stone building with a tall chimney and a person standing nearby.","series_order":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/the-industrious-historian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/the-industrious-historian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/the-industrious-historian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/the-industrious-historian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/the-industrious-historian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3792"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/the-industrious-historian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3792\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/the-industrious-historian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/the-industrious-historian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/the-industrious-historian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/the-industrious-historian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}