Killed In The Dark.
Cherokee Farmer Shot Down in the Road Near His Home.
No Clue As to Murderers.
H. C. Lowry Way Laid and Shot While on His Way Home at Night.
Thought to be Moonshiners.

The Atlanta Constitution of Tuesday has the following account of a murder in Cherokee county:

A murder involving one of the most mysterious assassinations in the history of the state was committed in Cherokee county Sunday night just at dark.  H. C. Lowry an informer on illicit distillers and a prominent farmer in that district was killed while riding from his brother’s home to his own.  Two loads of buckshot entered the left side and came out on the right.  As soon as he was shot he dismounted from his horse and fell dead in a moment on the highway.  One of the mysterious features of the crime was the appearance of an unknown woman on the scene.

It was she who, it is supposed, stopped Lowry in the road and held him in conversation until the shot was fired.  She then hastened to the nearest house, that of Farmer Fields, about 200 yards away, and said that somebody had been killed “down there in the road.”

Farmer Fields and other members of his family hastened to the man who had been shot.  They found him dead.  The woman disappeared and no trace of her has been found.

The keynote to the assassination and only clew to the murder which can be worked, say the officers, is through the mysterious woman.  She disappeared as completely as if she had never existed, and not being known to anyone, a description cannot be obtained.

The crime was committed far out in the country.  Canton, the county seat of Cherokee county, is eight or ten miles away.  Lowry was a young man about twenty-five years of age.  He lived with his father and family on a farm and was well thought of by all the neighbors except those who occasionally engaged in illicit distilling.  He was unmarried.

Sunday afternoon he went to the home of his brother, a few miles from his own.  As night approached he saddled his horse and began the homeward journey.  After traveling half of the distance, he reached a dense part of the woods.

He was accosted by the strange woman at this point, who said:

“Can you tell me where I can get a place to stay tonight?”

The remainder of the conversation is not known, as no dying statement was obtained from the man, and those were the only words of the conversation obtained by Fields from the woman.

As soon as the members of the Fields family were notified by the woman they did not stop to question her, thinking she had no part in the affair, but hastened to the aid of Lowry.

During the excitement of the few minutes which followed the woman disappeared, and with her all traces of her hiding place and her identity.

The body of Lowry was taken to Field’s home and the family notified of the assassination.