The lynching of Paul Reed and Will Cato occurred in Statesboro, Georgia on August 16, 1904. Five members of a white farm family, the Hodges, had been murdered and their house burned to hide the crime. Paul Reed and Will Cato, who were African-American, were tried and convicted for the murders. Despite militia having been brought in from Savannah to protect them, the two men were taken by a mob from the courthouse immediately after their trials, chained to a tree stump, and burned. In the immediate aftermath, four more African-Americans were shot, three of them dying, and others were flogged.
Murder of Hodges family
Henry Hodges was a farmer in Bulloch County, Georgia, living about from Statesboro, the county seat. His farm house burned down on the night of Thursday, July 28, 1904. The next day, the bodies of Hodges, his wife Claudia, their nine-year-old daughter Kitty Corrine, two-year-old son Harmon, and six-month-old son Talmadge were found in the burned house. The remains of the five victims were buried in a single coffin the next day.
Even while the house was still burning, neighbors who arrived during the night discovered Henry Hodges' hat, signs of a struggle, and puddles of blood a short distance from the house. In the morning, footprints of four men, one of whom was barefoot, were found around the house. Dogs were brought, but were unable to track the men very far. Two shoes were found nearby, a brogan and a dress shoe, which a neighbor identified as belonging to pairs of shoes he had bought for an African-American tenant on his farm, Paul Reed. A knife, also identified as belonging to Reed, was found nearby. Several strands of hair, believed to be from Claudia Hodges, were stuck in tar on the heel of one shoe.
The next day, a group of men from the area searched Reed's house. The unofficial posse found shoes matching the ones found near the Hodges' house, one in Reed's house, and the other under the house. The shoes found near the Hodges' house had shoe laces cut from a calico material, and a bolt of matching material was found in Reed's house. A pair of pants found at Reed's house had what appeared to be blood in a pocket. While Reed acknowledged that the shoes were his, he claimed that the blood in his pocket was from a dead partridge he had placed there, and he denied any involvement in the murder of the Hodges family. The sheriff subsequently arrested Paul Reed and his wife, Harriett.
Harriett Reed's account
While in custody, Harriett Reed gave a statement to the sheriff that contained contradictions and unverified claims, but which implicated her husband and a neighbor, Will Cato, in the murders of the Hodges. By Harriett's account, her husband and Cato believed that Hodges had buried money behind his chicken coop. The two men had gone to the Hodges' farm on the preceding Saturday night to dig up the money, but had been discovered. They were able to convince Hodges that they were just passing by on the way to a store when a snake had grazed Cato, and had been seeking turpentine to put on the wound.
Harriett Reed further said that her husband and Cato had returned to the Hodges' farm on Thursday night to again search for the buried money, but had once again been discovered by Hodges. He struggled with the would-be robbers, and his wife, Claudia, came to his aid. Both Henry and Claudia Hodges were killed by Reed and Cato. The men then moved the bodies into the house and fled. Later that night Reed and Cato returned to the farm intending to search the house for money, and then to burn it, in order to destroy evidence of the murders. They discovered the nine-year-old Kitty Corinne hiding in the house and killed her. Harriett Reed's statement included the detail that Kitty Corinne had offered to give a nickle to Reed and Cato if they would spare her life. After killing the girl, the two men spread kerosene around the house and set it on fire, leaving the two young boys to burn alive in the fire.