A MURDERER ARRESTED (Anson)
Fayetteville Observer, Wednesday, October 11, 1837
Myrtle Bridges November 20, 2009
Some six months ago, an individual came to this place and settled in an untenanted house in the outskirts of the city,
whose general appearance and habits were such as to excite suspicion of his real character. He seemed a perfect stranger,
having no acquaintances, nor any regular business or occupation; and although regarded as a person, whom it was proper to
watch, yet nothing transpired to implicate him in any criminal transaction. Last week, however, being the term of our
Superior Court, several gentlemen from Anson County were here in attendance, as witnesses, and, in passing along the
street, they came across this individual, whom they immediately recognized as THOMAS C. ELLERBE, formerly of Anson County,
and a fugitive from justice. The fact being made known, he was immediately arrested by Constable Murray, and carried for
examination before Thomas Cobbs and John J. Christophers, Esquires, when the following facts were elicited:
The prisoner was fully identified as the individual who, about the year 1824, committed a murder on the body of a wagoner
near Cheraw, S.C. and immediately absconded before process could be served on him. Since then, nothing certain has been
known of him, until sometime during the past year, when a paragraph appeared in the newspapers giving an account of the
murder of WILLIAM ELLERBE, by his father Thomas Ellerbe, in West Florida. From the fact that the prisoner was supposed to
have gone towards Florida, and from the further fact, that he had, when he went off, a son named William, the inference
seemed clear to the witnesses that the murderer was the identical Thomas C. Ellerbe, now in custody.-and so thought the
court, for it ordered him to prison, to await further developments. Raleigh Register
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