Stabs Are Fatal To Chas. C. Peavy

Macon Telegraph (Georgia)
30 July 1911, Pg. 10
(Viewed online at GenealogyBank.)

STABS ARE FATAL TO CHAS. C. PEAVY

Eva Goodwin, Young Woman Who Wielded Knife, Is Held Blameless.

ACTED IN SELF-DEFENSE

Intoxicated, Peavy Went to Goodwin Woman's Abode, Starting Trouble.

Threatened with death at the hands of Charles C. Peavy, a bartender, Eva Goodwin, a young woman not over 20 years, wrested a knife from Peavy's hand at o'clock Saturday morning and inflicted two ugly wounds on his body, one in the chest and the other in the head, Peavy's death resulting just five minutes after his arrival at the hospital. The fight occurred in a disorderly house at 154 Plum street, conducted by Georgia Raymond.

The Goodwin woman was arrested by Policemen Kirby and Griffin, but at the coroner's inquest Saturday morning she was released from custody, the evidence establishing the fact that she acted in self-defense and did not cut Peavy until after he had beaten her and struck her in the face with a water pitcher, followed by the drawing of a knife with the evident intention of inflicting further harm upon the woman.

Fights between Peavy and the Goodwin woman are said to have been of frequent occurrence. Saturday morning Peavy came to the house in an intoxicated condition. He had heard that the Goodwin woman was going to leave Macon Saturday afternoon to go to her home in Tampa, and the face evidently riled him. He is said to have declared that she should not leave Macon alive. A quarrel followed and after a while Peavy is said to have struck the woman a blow in the face and followed that up with the water pitcher.

The first the other inmates of the house knew of Peavy's injuries was when the girl ran screaming from the house, being stopped at Fourth street by Policemen Kirby and Griffin, who accompanied her back to the house. They found the body of Peavy on the floor where he had fallen when stabbed. An ambulance was quickly summoned and the wounded man was taken to the hospital, where his death came before he could be placed on the operating table.

Dr. Howard, who examined Peavy's body shortly after he died, stated that the wounds inflicted were not in themselves sufficient to cause death and that death probably resulted from an overdose of alcohol or some other poison and several hemorrhages, probably caused from a clouting of blood on the brain.

According to the statement of Eva Goodwin, Peavy went to the house, which he had frequented on previous occasions, about 2 o'clock yesterday morning in an intoxicated condition. She claimed that she told him she had received a letter from her sister informing her that her father, who lives in Tampa, was going blind and that she was going home the following afternoon, and that Peavy threatened to cut her throat and commenced to beat her in the face with his fist. She also claimed that he drew a knife from his pocket, which she wrested from his hand and that when he attempted to take it away from her she stabbed him.

Gertrude Harris, a negro maid, and the only eye-witness to the fight, swore at the coroner's inquest yesterday that when she rushed into the room where the fight was in progress, she saw him throw a pitcher at the Goodwin woman, striking her in the face, and that then Miss Goodwin stabbed and cut him.

The body of Peavy was prepared for burial at Hart's undertaking establishment and was sent to Cordele, the former home of the deceased, accompanied by his father, yesterday afternoon at 4:30 o'clock. The funeral and interment will be held in Cordele today.

Peavy was 28 years old and moved to Macon about two years ago from Cordele, where he was born and raised. He was a bartenedr [sic] at the Office saloon on Cotton avenue.

The coroner's jury which freed the woman was composed of August Meyers, John A. Davis, J. T. Avent, M. C. Dorsett, E. L. Berkerstaff and A. C. Godfrey.