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Thonotosassa Cemetery While visiting a high school classmate in Washington, D.C., she asked me if I remembered anything about a manhunt in Pinellas County when I was a little girl, and then played a song about "Rastus" Russell from the CD Adrienne Young - Art of Virtue. Adrienne's grandfather, Willis Booth, was a young police officer who was involved in the arrest of Rastus after the murders near Palm Harbor. Since she was so interested, I did a search of the the St. Pete Time archives when I got home. The article below sums up the story of Rastus Russell prior to his "annihilation" in Thonotsassa. Betty Lou Douglas Massive
manhunt in '49 had residents in a panic Series: GUEST COLUMN Editor's note: Jerry Blizin was a Times reporter from 1948 to 1965. This is one in a series of columns about the biggest Pinellas County stories during that era. Pinellas County's biggest manhunt took place 45 years ago, when 1,000 volunteers combed the woods of Palm Harbor in August 1949, seeking a killer named John Calvin "Rastus" Russell. Russell was a muscular, handsome 25-year-old with a penchant for strangling kittens. He had been nicknamed Rastus ever since he had been placed in a mental facility at Gainesville at the age of 10. He was judged insane after an attempted robbery and sent to the state mental hospital in Chattahoochee but was subsequently released in 1941. On the morning of Aug. 7, 1949, Rastus Russell showed up at the Crystal Beach home of Norman Y. Browne, a 75-year-old retiree. Noticing a "for sale" sign out front, Russell asked Browne if he could look at the property. Browne and his wife, Annie, let Russell in. After a few minutes, Russell asked to use the bathroom and came back carrying two shotguns he had seen in Browne's home. He leveled one of the guns at Browne and demanded money. When he got none, Russell struck Browne on the head and forced the couple into the garage. Then he ransacked the house, searching fruitlessly for money. At gunpoint, Russell marched the Brownes back into the house. He tied Mrs. Browne to the bed. Browne tried to fight back. Russell picked up a kitchen knife and stabbed Browne fatally. As he turned to attack Mrs. Browne, Russell heard the crunch of auto wheels on the shell driveway. Up drove Miles Crum, owner of a Crystal Beach grocery, and his wife, Thelma, who was holding their 8-month-old baby, Judy. Just as the visiting Crum family got out of their car, Russell threw open the front door and fired a 12-gauge shotgun, critically wounding Miles Crum. Then he rushed down the steps and with a single blow from the shotgun butt, struck Mrs. Crum and the baby. The child was brain-damaged and died six years later. Russell jumped into the family car and drove off. Later his landlord saw two shotguns in Russell's rented room. The landlord, Sam Crain, an employee of the old Pasco Packing House in Palm Harbor, told his boss, who called Sheriff Todd Tucker's office. Tucker and Constable Walter Carey worked out a plan to capture Russell. They asked Crain to invite Russell to a family scalloping party on the Dunedin flats. The lawmen would signal the family to move away from Russell once he was in the water. When Russell was waist deep, hidden lawmen ordered him to surrender, opening fire when he began swimming away. The suspect was hauled aboard a borrowed boat after he became exhausted. He was handcuffed and taken to the hospital where Mrs. Browne and the Crums identified him. "Get him out of here," wept Mrs. Browne, "he still has that same sneer on his face." Russell was locked up in the old county jail behind the courthouse. But on the night of Aug. 27, 1949, he called to the new night jailer, saying he had a terrible headache and needed aspirin. When the jailer responded, Russell knocked him out with a metal bar wrapped in tape, then made his escape. The news that the brutal Russell was loose sent Pinellas residents into a panic. People were already glued to their radios because of a hurricane alert, but Russell's escape was far more frightening. Violent crime was a rarity in those days when people left their front doors open at night and slept on the screen porch in hot August weather. The next morning a posse of 1,000 men and boys assembled. The sheriff said it was the biggest force assembled since Pinellas became a county in 1912. The National Guard was also called out and a local pilot, Bobo Hayes, volunteered to do an aerial search. County officials also decided to get some bloodhounds from Plant City. Officer Harry Frazier and his dogs, Flip and Flop, came over. Despite Frazier's claim that the dogs worked a slow track, reporters (including myself) couldn't stay with them. On the third day of the manhunt, a Palm Harbor gas station/grocery owner reported that someone had broken into the store and taken all the pennies out of the cash drawer, as well as some loaves of bread, candy and soft drinks. An old car parked behind the store also was missing. On the fourth day, Frank Edwards, a grove worker at Lake Thonotosassa, called the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office to report a car stuck in the sand about a mile into the grove. Hillsborough Deputy Sheriff Bob Spooner and Plant City officer Frazier responded. As Frazier took his dogs into the grove, he said a man armed with a knife leaped out. Frazier fired three times with his service revolver, while Spooner fired a shotgun. The officers said Russell's last words were: "You fellows killed me and I'm glad you did." Beside the body, a small pocket knife was found. Jerry Blizin
is retired and lives in Tarpon Springs. Reporters Ralph Reed, Al
Hackett, John Gardner and Bob Preston also covered the Russell case.
Guest columnists write their own views on subjects they choose,
which are not necessarily the opinions of this newspaper. May 27, 2006 Thanks, Betty Lou, I am the webmaster of Bryburcon.com. I haven't been updating the website much for the past year as most of the family information I wanted on it is there now, and some of the major contributors have become elderly and ailing. However, if it's OK with you I will add this fascinating piece to the Russell story. OK if I add your comments too? Virginia Bryant Virginia,
February
19, 2005 I just happened to come across your website by typing in the word Hodaz, and was surprised to find your stories about him. I wanted to tell you that I saw Hodaz's body on display in the barbershop in Plant City after he was killed. I was only six years old at the time (I'm 80 years old now) and I remember it like it was yesterday; it sure made an impression on me. I often wondered if anybody remembered what happened and had already done some research before I read your stories. I never saw the story that came out in the Courier a few years ago. I was born (in 1924) and raised in Plant City. I lived there until 1942, when I entered the U.S. Navy. My Dad, Ward Holloway, was constable for 3 or 4 terms, then Justice of the Peace. I remember hearing about the killing of Hodaz and actually knew the then-sheriff Tobe Robinson, who arrested Hodaz. I think you mentioned that he was arrested in Tampa - more specifically, the arrest occurred in Ybor City. I'm familiar with all of this general area, including Antioch. Also, I knew Bob Spooner very well (the man who killed John Calvin Russell). Would
love to hear from you with any other stories that you may get about
Hodaz, or any other interesting stories about the history of this
area. Sincerely,
Ken Holloway
"John
Calvin Russell, Known Gangster" When I was in elementary school there was a "bad guy" named John Calvin Russell on the run out in our area. I grew up rarely thinking about him, and his story gradually disappeared in my mind except for a few sketchy details. He had hidden somewhere out in the woods while we all lived in fear. Finally the Law found him and shot him dead. Recently, when I brought up the Thonotosassa website I discovered that he had been buried at the Thonotosassa Cemetery. I mentioned him to Sandra High McLin, the mother of my nieces Kim and Cherryl, who are also the daughters of my brother Bill Johns. Sandra proved to have more memories of our own local outlaws than I had retained. Virginia A CONVERSATION WITH LOIS SMITH MILLER I
remember when John Calvin Russell was killed. I think I was staying
out there with Mama at the time. When I saw his name on the website
I knew immediately who he was. I've forgotten a lot of the details,
but I think I remember that he was sitting outside eating an apple
or something. The men hunting him surrounded him and then just opened
fire and shot him dead. He didn't have a chance. I thought at the
time that they should have tried to capture him instead of just
shooting him like an animal. I realize he killed those people, but
weren't they supposed to give him a trial? 8-29-03 I have been to the web site again and found a few new tid bits of info on various family members. It is just so neat to hear something of every one. I have yet to find one so unique as yours. Oh, by the way, I had been to your area of the family site and read your memories of your earlier school years. It did bring back some memories of my grade school years at Broward. I am a member of class mates .com and I think I will try to write some of my memories into it. I'm no writer by any means but from your web site I'm taking a few lessons in writing and getting some ideas. Keep up the good work. I'm not kidding one bit about the web site. In doing my research I've gone to so many family web sites just to find myself disappointed. Yours has really spoiled me Sandra Your
e-mail was so enjoyable. I greatly appreciate the praise and interest
in the website. It is one of the more important things I've done
with my time. I hope that we can leave a record of it for the future
generations to enjoy. I have noticed that classmates.com does have
stories. Also, did you see the link I posted for Thonotosassa? I
was thinking I may send one or two of the stories I wrote about
the elementary school there to that site as they have stories posted
on it. I hadn't realized until I found that website that John Calvin
Russell was buried in the Thonotosassa Cemetery. Remember that escaped
convict that they hunted down & killed? I want to research his
story & write it up for the memories section of Bryburcon.com-Virginia PART TWO I do remember John Calvin Russell but I didn't know he was buried over at Thonotosassa. He killed a couple he did some work for because they wouldn't pay him. It was said to have been a gruesome kind of murder. He was related to the Gavin's that lived on Moore's Lake who owned a dairy over on Moore's Lake Rd. The Gavins' were friends of Mamma's, and they said he was also related to some Baker family in this area. Bob Spooner shot Russell, then later became the Chief of Police in Plant City. Mamma grew up with Bob Spooner and his wife, Anna Gainy. I thought perhaps Mamma could give me more detail, but that's all she remembers about it and that he was at large for some time and everybody was afraid. Russell also had relatives that lived right around Lake Thonotosassa at Kingsway Rd in a big old house and they believe he was right there just before he was killed in a grove near the Lake. There should be stories in the Tribune (Tampa Tribune) and I think that I remember that story making it to one of the True Detective magazines. It would be really neat to put in the website as some of your memories of Lake Thonotosassa. You
know both Plant City and Antioch here where we live have the memory
of Hodaz who was found hung down a dirt road near us, and he'd been
shot full of holes as well. I do believe that was when Mamma was
just a girl, but nobody ever forgot it, and the story was rerun
in our Plant City Courier just a few years ago. They believed he'd
set a bomb for someone, but the mother opened the door that set
it off, and it maimed her for life. Hodaz was a Hungarian, and they
blamed him without any real proof. Oh goodness the gruesome things
people can do to each other. Was it the end of the 40s' or even early 50s' when Russell was in the news? Sandra The
afternoon that we got word that Mr. Russell had been "annihilated",
I had been on a long bike ride in the countryside. I thought many
times as a young man about the possibilities of what could have
happened if I'd encountered that individual while I was by myself.
The word, "annihilate" was apparently the choice of some
Sheriff's office spokesperson. The word-of-mouth we heard is that
while the deputies were sneaking up on Mr. Russell, someone supposedly
stepped on a twig causing it to crack, thereby startling Mr. Russell.
The deputies, taking no chance with this individual, opened fire.
"Annihilate", "terminated", "shot down
like a rabid dog", all the same to the local populace. This
was reportedly more of a chance than Mr. Russell gave some elderly
couple whom he reportedly tortured and murdered. A faint 50+ year
old memory involved Mr. Russell having swam across a creek to where
he was hiding. How the deputies managed to locate him is lost to
memory, if I ever knew in the first place. Bill Johns PART THREE This Hodaz fellow was shot and hung when Mamma was about 12 years old I believe. The road was called Hodaz Road until the county named it in later years. It was big news for Plant City, Thonotosassa and even Tampa because someone spotted Hodaz on some rooming house porch downtown in Tampa and there again, it was some of Plant City's officers that rounded him up and were bringing him back to P C through an undisclosed route when a group of men (perhaps hooded) stopped them and took Hodaz. Our neighbor , now deceased, found his body hanging from a tree down the road and just off into the woods. His body, swathed with cloth or towel, was laid out in some disrespectful manner, and everybody, including my mother, went through to view him half naked, and you could see the marks of rope and bullet holes she says. Some do not believe this Hungarian man did the bomb thing but felt it was some of the upper crust that had something against the man who lived at the house where the bomb was set, but the man's mother opened the door that triggered it. Everybody has remained interested in that story, and at the Archives Center I hear them get started on it from time to time in their own recollections or stories handed down. Mamma says that for some reason there were several "suicides" of some of those well known men in Plant City soon after Hodaz's murder. It's all very mysterious. If I run across the Russell or Hodaz stories I'll send them to you. Sandra Mom,
you know, is all into genealogy and she has told me that your family
site is the best she has seen and she wishes others would do such
a job in getting all info together and in order and then having
the family member take part in adding to their own areas... Cherryl
(Nellie/Wm>Alta Ruth>Bill>Cherryl) (Editor's Note: If we discover any more information on these two bad guys {Hodaz and Russell} from our area where we grew up, we will tell more of their stories. With thanks to those who contributed to this article and also thanks for their praise.)
MAY DAY! MAY DAY! Every May our elementary school conducted a May Festival in the evening. Preparations began weeks beforehand when the Sixth Grade class elected that year's May Queen and May King. Each of the other five classes elected its own girl and boy court member. The evening carnival featured booths which offered pastries, hotdogs, hamburgers, peanut brittle, games of chance such as Go Fish and Knock Over the Bottle. One of the classes performed a Maypole Dance. The high point in the evening was the crowning of the Queen and King with gold bejeweled crowns fashioned out of cardboard, gold colored foil, lots of glue and glitter and glass "jewels". The ruling monarchs paraded through the crowd trailing heavy long purple satin capes and then up several steps to their throne where they presided over the evening's festivities. Cleo and I were fourth or fifth graders, and the Sixth Grade royalty had been crowned. I think it had. I don't remember the ceremony because I was to become that year's starring act. The last clear memory I have of the festival has me behind the schoolhouse. What follows is a jumble of dreamlike images, disjointed still after fifty years. I know that I was lying on the ground looking up at people, and someone said they had called for an ambulance. I should lie still, they said. Then I was on a stretcher, and a male attendant would reach over me to hold me steady when the ambulance flew around curves. I could see red flashes and hear a siren. When I breathed through my mouth my teeth hurt terribly. Then there is a gap, and the next memory I have is of lying on a gurney in a corridor, and Mama was standing silently beside me. What I saw on her face I now recognize as masked horror. "Do you hurt?" she asked with seeming casualness. My back hurt, I told her, and she said to someone I couldn't see, "Her back has to be X-rayed." My foot was hanging off of the gurney, and I wanted to put it back up, but I couldn't. Mama tenderly lifted it and put it up beside the other one. The next memory I have is of my being in bed on a children's ward, and a little blonde boy in the bed beside me had a strange tube poking out of his hospital pants, a tube down which a golden colored bubble would occasionally float into a bottle. A pretty young woman in a butterscotch colored uniform told me she was a "Buttercup", and it was her job to help the nurses as a volunteer. Mama was there, and she told me Mart had come roaring home in the family car to tell her Virginia had been hit by a car and was at Tampa General Hospital on Davis Island. The Buttercup asked if I wanted something to drink, and when I tried to drink juice from the glass she offered, my teeth hurt so terribly that I cried. The Buttercup showed me how to drink through a straw that I would put far back in my mouth and then close my lips over it since the very air hurt my broken front teeth. A time or two during my stay on the children's ward she picked sandspur thorns out of my feet with a needle, something that I still remember as soothing and reassuring. I had abrasions all over my face, and I still have faint scars on my forehead and under my chin where my face hit pavement. I
was hospitalized about a week following the accident at the May
Day Festival. The driver who hit me (in front of the school house;
I will forever have a memory gap between that and when I was behind
the school.) came with his wife to visit me. They had thirteen children,
I would learn in later years. He was inarticulate and sad looking,
and he tucked a dollar bill under my pillow as he left. The next
accident I would have that caused a memory gap would be when I came
off of a horse in 1985 in Washington and got hauled off to the hospital
in an ambulance. X-rays then showed old spinal injuries. By the
time I fell off of the horse I had long ago had my front teeth capped.
In the days when I was hit by the car people didn't generally sue
others for having accidents, even though nobody had insurance to
pay hospital costs. Injuring a child, even as an accident, was punishment
enough The story of your first date was delightful, eliciting fond memories of Thonotosassa school and of "puppy love". I had a teacher in the fifth or sixth grade at Thonotosassa who lived in Tampa and would carry notes between her younger brother and me. Reatha 7-11-03 MY FIRST DATE We were in elementary school, somewhere in that vast expanse of stretched-out time. His name was Charles, and he was one of several boys in his family. I think there may have been some recombining of families that went on because Charles and a younger toddler brother resembled each other while the older brother looked nothing like them. At any rate, Charles was a handsome boy with the manners of a prince and a rare dignity. He did alright academically although he was not one of the class stars. What set him apart from the rest of the class was his artistic talent. Charles could draw anything he saw, seemingly without effort. Another claim to local fame for him and his brothers was the fact that his father was said to have shot off his own toe in a successful bid to avoid the military draft. The family got around in a mule-drawn wagon, an arrangement that inspired envy in the hearts of the rest of us who had only cars and trucks to ride in. During those elementary school years the class census remained somewhat constant in our rural school. We moved as a group from grade to grade, and during those years we conducted social experiments that would become more physical as we moved into junior high school and that horrific time of puberty. We swapped partners more often than a counter-culture couples club, but all in innocence and completely sexless. Charles was my "boyfriend" several times; I think that almost every boy in the class bore that honor at least once. Our elementary school enjoyed the benefit of an active PTA that provided class parties, carnivals, Christmas and May Day programs and summer games. In addition to those there were evening chicken and yellow rice or spaghetti suppers that were fund raisers. Proceeds from the fund raisers went for playground equipment or free lunches for families who were down on their luck. Charles and I were probably upper class members, sixth grade or nearly so, because we had gotten the idea that sweethearts sometimes paired off for "dates". The first opportunity we saw to "go on a date" after that idea struck us was when the PTA announced a spaghetti supper. The tickets cost twenty-five cents each for children. Charles offered to buy my ticket if I would "go with him" to the supper. It was enough to make a person tremble. I was elevated to some state that seemed very adult, and I felt the rush of being on my way to enjoying all of the rights and privileges of grownups. I still remember the tingly feelings I had as I dressed at home before getting into our car or truck (I don't remember which one we had at that time) and going with whoever it was who drove (I would have had siblings by then who could drive) to the school. I also clearly recall that I did not tell ANYONE else that I was meeting my boyfriend for a date. No, no indeed. My siblings, male and female, would have landed on that like ugly-on-ape, like stink-on-manure, and I would have been doomed to a life of unrelenting torment. We arrived at the school, and the driver parked our vehicle. Then we scattered as rural school children could still do in complete safety. I wandered around for awhile, looking for Charles. What to do next? If I didn't find him, I supposed I could find a girlfriend and then sit with her as we ate. Ate what? I had no money and no ticket. Then I began to feel a chill. I envisioned myself sitting with a BOY at the spaghetti supper, and at least a hundred or more people staring at us and laughing. Parents would tighten their jaws and then go tell my mother. I was being BAD. A DATE? What had I done? I saw him standing under one of the giant oak trees that shaded our school grounds. He shyly approached, and without a word he held out a ticket to me. I just as shyly took it, and then each one of us slowly turned around and walked off in different directions. I don't recall that the abject terror we obviously felt caused us to reject each other as girlfriend and boyfriend. That was a comfortable, okay situation in which to be. We had practiced it for years. But being obviously paired off - girl and boy - at the PTA spaghetti supper was an entirely different matter. I never knew who Charles sat with at the supper, but I sat with Cleo, as far away from him as I could get. I don't remember that he and I ever discussed our "date" afterward. One day, here in Washington, I received a phone call from my friend from elementary school years, Cleo. Charles, in his fifties, had died of a heart attack. He had married and had a couple of children who had some grandchildren for him. He and his family had adored each other. They have absolutely no idea that the boy he had been is still a sweet, precious memory for an old lady in Washington State. Her First Date. THE END
REUNION 2002 Have spoken with Bill Johns as well as by speaker phone with a group (gang, hoard) of relatives gathered at Philip & Ingrid DuBose's house on Monday afternoon. So far no photos from the reunion, but I hear that Marilyn Smith Mobley's (Nellie/Wm>Isabelle>Marilyn) daughter won both of Gerry Johns Fay's crocheted afghans. (Theresa?) gave one of the afghans to her mother, Marilyn. Bill said he has the pansy doily. One of Jim's knives went to Barb Slaughterbeck and I'm unsure of who ended up with the others. Lois smith Miller's newly discovered granddaughter, Angie, attended along with her family. They expressed amazement at meeting such a huge family. Gerald James Burdett, another recently discovered family member, attended along with his wife, Dot. Jerry Burdett, Gerald's dad, marked his second reunion with his late father's family. I
hope to have photos soon of the reunion.
VASCO PRINE, MY BROTHER FEB 17/1921 - MAY 14/2002 He was Cleo's and my brother, twenty-one years older than we were. He drove trucks and helped on the farm. In the evenings he would sit in the living room, exhausted from a day's work. We would remove his shoes and wash his feet for a dime per foot. He usually had a camera, and since he was the photographer he rarely appeared in any of the photographs he shot. He took photographs of Cleo and me in our Easter dresses. One time he took us to the circus where a llama spit on us. Vasco dearly loved his mother and grew inarticulate with anger when he would try to talk about any treatment she received that he considered less than kind and helpful. He married late in life and was blessed with a long and loving marriage that produced his only child, Lisa. From then on Lisa (and later her baby girl) were the two beloved girls Cleo and I had been who grew up and didn't include him much in our lives. I always knew he was there and that I could go see him when I visited Florida. I suppose I assumed he always would be there. Vasco
spent the last several months hospitalized following an aneurysm
of the aorta. Cleo visited him and rubbed his feet, telling him
she would wash them for fifty cents per foot. Although he could
not speak she noticed his shaking slightly with laughter. Yesterday
he wrote a note to Lisa, "One more day." This morning
he died at the age of eighty-one. He was one of the loving spirits
who graced my childhood.
LtoR back: Denver Prine, Marvin Roder (Cleo's husband) Vasco Prine (hugging Virginia at left & Cleo at right), Jack & Naomi Tucker (Cleo's sister & brother-in-law), front Lloyd Baxter
PAYING RESPECTS Cleo and I were in the same grade at Thonotosassa Elementary School. I began classes there in the second grade after we moved from Darby, Florida, where we had lived on Grandma Nellie Burdett's farm. Cleo and her family, the Prines, lived next to the school in Thonotosassa. Many times during those elementary school days I would get Mama's permission and then simply go home with Cleo after school to spend the night. Mrs. Prine worked away from the home; Mr. Prine was a farmer; and Cleo and I wandered the village entertaining ourselves. We cleaned up the graves in the cemetery, climbed trees and listened to the radio. One time after dark we happened upon a group of boys camping out on the school grounds, and we watched as they gathered around the campfire and watered it down for the night. The Prines became my second family, and today Cleo and I are nearly sixty years old, but we still talk by phone at least once per month and go out for banana splits and hours of laughter when I visit Florida. The Prines treated me as one of the family. My name always goes on the tag for the family flowers when there is a death. One of the Prine family deaths was brother Denver who was hit and killed by a drunk driver. I visited in November following his death, and Cleo and I drove to the cemetery so that I could pay my respects. I always do that for deceased family members when I go there. Mama, Grandma, the aunts, uncles, cousins, a brother. The second family members too, the Prines. We drove to a cemetery situated on Highway 301 in the Thonotosassa area near Fowler Avenue. This is close to where our family land was when I was ages seven through fourteen. We walked and walked, but we (that time) could not find Denver's grave, which was at the time unmarked. Finally we stood in the middle of the cemetery and admitted defeat. We would have to wait until the grave was either marked or until someone could tell us its location. Then I glanced down, and there lay a grave marker bearing the name, Isabelle P. Smith. Nearby are Dolphus Smith and Isabelle's and Dolphus' son, Wesley (an untimely death from heart attack in his late 30's). My aunt, uncle and cousin. I had paid my respects after all. I have made many visits to Mama's (Alta Ruth Burdett Johns) grave since she left us when I was fourteen. She is buried in Garden of Memories Cemetery, Tampa, 4207 East Lake Avenue. During my November, 2001, visit to the area my niece, Cheryl Albury P., and I visited Garden of Memories. The cemetery has grown to enormous size during the years. I had always been able to go right to Mama's grave in the past. Close by are Grandma Nellie Bryant/Burdett, Uncle Edgar Mercer (Reatha Burdett Mercer D'Arpa's first husband) and Everett Johns. In other sections of Garden of Memories are the graves of Aunt Viola and Uncle Charlie Higgins, Aunt Reatha Mercer and perhaps others. Cheryl and I could not find the plot, and as Cleo and I had done, we wandered. I said sadly, "I think I'm going to cry. I can't find my Mama." With renewed purpose Cheryl struck out, and she found the graves for us. The
Garden of Memories office can supply information concerning the
location of any of the graves there
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