Newspaper Writing: Tom Robinson's Foiled Attempt to Escape

The Maycomb Tribune

August 28, 1933 YOUR DAILY NEWSPAPER Since 1866

SUNDAY: Famous nigger Thomas Robinson dies after a violent case of shooting. He was shot by a total of 17 times during exercise period serving his time in jail. Tom Robinson, charged for raping Mayella Ewell, is left dead after a bullet hit him following the shots in the air while trying to escape.

One of the guards described what happened. He said that Tom “just broke into a blind raving charge at the fence and started…

Sentenced to jail for raping Mayella Ewell, Tom

Robinson tried to break out of jail when he was shot.

…climbing over, right in front of us.” It was said that 17 shots were necessary as fewer shots could not ensure death.

Witnesses say that there had been efforts to warn and stop Tom from trying to escape. A guard, Alex Carter, 31, said, “If he had two good arms he’d have made it, he was moving so fast.” The body has been taken to the black church already.

This has been the first time in 44 years that someone (excluding Tim Johnson) has been shot and killed. This will change Maycomb’s history that there has been a shooting in 1933.