A Doubting Thomas

The Planet criticizes the take of fellow paper, the Richmond Dispatch, on the Lunenburg Case, by picking apart their article claim by claim.

The Richmond Dispatch, in its issue of July 5th, 1896, declares its position relative to the celebrated Lunenburg Case, and true to its past policy of being a "dyed in the wool moss-back Negro-hating journal" declares its disbelief in the following language: "Almost with his last breath, Solomon Marable repeated the white-man story, but we are still unconvinced." But see upon what flimsy evidence it would discredit the statement of a dying man being ushered into eternity:
"In the first place, aa we are informed, Mr. Thompson has unimpeachable evidence to establish an alibi. He is the express-agent at the place of residence, and we are told, among other things, that the express company records show that he receipted for parcels delivered there twenty minutes before the murder was committed, and this, mind you, at a place eight miles distant from the Pollard homestead and accessible thereto only by private conveyance."
It is amusing to a person acquainted with the facts to conjecture how Dispatch found out just when the murder was committed; as it is to ascertain its authority for the statement that it is eight miles from the Pollard homestead to Finneywood. Those best acquainted with neighborhood concede that it is only half that distance. Lawyer Justis has repeatedly asserted that the man who acts for Thompson in his absence at Finneywood admitted to him that he was on a spree on June 14, 1896.
The patch says: "In the second place, Marable, when arrested, told what would seem to be the true story. Death then had for him far more terror than it had afterwards. At that time, no doubt, he believed he was in danger of being lynched, and had he been put to death then and there we would never have heard of this 'white-man story."
Lucius M. Pettus, half-brother to David James Thompson was crouching before Marable in the court-room, with a revolver in his pocket, winked and whispered to the trembling witness to put the women in it, and were not to implicate his half-brother. That the following should have been the result is no surprise:
"Ignorant and conscienceless Marable was, he must have been able to read the angry faces of the men by whom he was surrounded and it is likely that then, if ever, the truth came from his lips; yet, in the account of the murder that he then gave there was no suggestion of the presence at the murder of a white man.”
There was a suggestion of the white man then, and that the Dispatch should deny it is beyond the realms of reason. Capt. Frank W. Cunningham, Major Derbyshire, the troops, the judge, the jury testify to the fact that Solomon Marable did make a statement at Lunenburg C. H. concerning "the presence at the murder of a white man." It says:
"At that crisis in his life Marable accused nobody but himself and the three women. And this account he repeated to the trial-judge and jury in Lunenburg."
This is already answered as well as the following:
"The 'white-man story' seems to have been an afterthought. We know of no reason for discrediting Marable's first story and accepting his last one.”
And again:
"Not a single circumstance with which the public is acquainted sustains the latter, while many sustain the former.
If the editor of the Dispatch will call on the counsel for the women and read the impartial report furnished by one of the best detectives in the employ of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, he will become convinced, whether he is willing to admit the truth of the conviction or not. The women are innocent. Marable, with his dying breath has so declared it and the evidence bear out his statements.
The following does not require a reply embracing as it does a reflection upon the authorities of Prince Edward County:
"Marable's last extended statement, made on the eve before his execution (and reiterated in brief on the scaffold,) was given in the presence of the trial-judge and other officers of the Prince Edward County Court; and, had they been impressed with its truth, we cannot but believe they would have telegraphed the Governor to delay the execution until further investigation could be made."
It seems to be oblivious of the fact that the people to do the arresting live in Lunenburg County, and not in Prince Edward where this case was sent for trial.
And again:
"That they did not do so, we may take as proof positive of their utter disbelief in the story implicating Mr. Thompson; and their conviction that Marable was not only guilty of a cold blooded murder, but of a cold-blooded purpose to fix the crime upon an innocent man."
Now here is a journal discrediting the statement of a dying man and failing to recommend even the arrest of the white man whom he accuses of the murder, and at the same time accepting as true the assertions of the same man, known to have been made under coercion, and urging the execution of innocent people whom he declared from the gallows to be innocent of the crime of which they had been convicted. Strange reasoning this!
Why is not Thompson arrested? Why is he not allowed to prove his alibi in a court of law? Echo answers, why?

“A Doubting Thomas,” Black Virginia: The Richmond Planet, 1894-1909, accessed March 15, 2026, https://blackvirginia.richmond.edu/items/show/1638.