Three Rights Make a Left

The Real “Bad Bob”

(Part 3)

March 14, 1912, the day “Bad Bob” Barnett became “Backshooter Bob”

This is one in a series of stories about Robert P. Barnett, the man who in 1892 built the house that my wife Lori and I now live in. Much of the information is taken from an article written in True West Magazine by Sam L. Landingham but some comes from Greenville Newspaper articles and stories told by Lone Oak locals.

It was a cool day in March on the square in downtown Lone Oak, Texas, 12 miles south of Greenville. The town was much bigger and busier in the years before the Great Depression than it has been since. The lunchtime crowd included several people, including three high school kids who had come to town to grab a bite to eat.

The usual tranquility of the little town was interrupted by the sound of raised voices as the attention of bystanders was drawn to two men: Bob Barnet, a prominent landowner, and Price Thomas, a sharecropper who worked and lived on the Barnett farm. Thomas told Barnett that he was leaving and taking his pig with him. Barnett reportedly claimed that the pig was his and pulled a knife.

The unarmed Thomas turned to flee, and Barnett drew his pistol. According to witnesses, Barnett who was known to be a “crack shot” missed Thomas with the first shot but his second shot struck Thomas in the lower back.

Thomas stumbled forward a few steps but collapsed in front of A.B. Babb’s Grocery Store. The three high school boys who had seen the shooting, Grady VanLandingham (Sam L. VanLandingham’s father) and his two schoolmates, helped drag the wounded man across the square to “Uncle” Tommie Weatherly’s Drug Store. The druggist, Jim Nash, heard the shooting and came out to see what the commotion was about. He helped the boys get Thomas into the drugstore. Once inside, Thomas pointed to the bullet hole in his lower back and said: “That’s the one that got me.”

It was quickly decided that Thomas needed to be moved to offices of R.G Landers MD where he was examined by both Dr Landers as well as Dr. J.C. Hennen.

Barnett surrendered to Hunt County Deputy O.S. Moon, and he posted a $750 bond. The Greenville Herald Banner posted that after the disposition of a dying statement to A. Payne, Hunt County Justice of the Peace, Price Thomas died.

Barnet was re-arrested on the charge of murder and released on $4000 bond.

Late in 1912 the trial took place amid a lot of conflicting testimony. Some witnesses even testified that it was Thomas who initially pulled a knife on Barnett though that is not what witnesses closest to the event testified. Some got dates and times wrong. Several eyewitnesses, including the three schoolboys, were subpoenaed on two different dates but never called to testify. At one point Clyde Sweeton, the Hunt County District Attorney, told the jury: “If the defendant was charged with killing a white man instead of a negro under the facts of this case, it would take you but thirty minutes to find him guilty.”

Among locals it was said that most believed that Barnett would get away with the killing. As they suspected, on November 8, 1912, the jury came back with a verdict not only to murder but to manslaughter. “Backshooter Bob” Barnett became a “free” man…. until the next unarmed victim fell under his gun two years later.