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Halloween Haunts:
Thursday, October 15
The Legend of
y e k c a L n o t w e N Albert By Miranda Koerner For October, we’re taking a break from featuring everyday heroes in our community to instead feature the creepy, spooky and otherworldly parts of the Hill Country. Instead of dealing with the daily terror of the coronavirus, let’s instead focus on ghosts, goblins, and a stretch of road in the Texas Hill Country inhabited by a hitchhiker you DON’T want to roll down the window to: the Lackey Ghost. If you’re driving down 281 through beautiful hills between Blanco and Johnson City at night, chances are you’ll see a tall, shaggy man wearing a stained shirt on the side of the road. Don’t look too closely, or you’ll see the foot-long knife clutched in his hand. The scariest part? This violent fellow isn’t just a mirage or too much whiskey. It’s Al Lackey, the Blanco County farmer who went on a killing spree in 1885 and died claiming he had six more people to kill he hadn’t gotten to. As there wasn’t social media back then, the account of Lackey’s cruelty varies. Some say that he killed his niece first, “who was sitting near the front door of her little home, rocking and singing to her little baby,”
to the Blanco News. “And when the body was found lying on the floor the baby was asleep against the body covered with its mother’s blood. His brother ran in endeavoring to escape but tripped and fell, and as he begged for his life Lackey stuck the gun behind his ear and pulled the trigger. Mr. and Mrs. Stokes, and aged couple fell before the fire of his rifle, and then his own daughter and another relative were slain, and then to Lackey’s chagrin he found he had no cartridges.” Brown said Lackey then turned to kill his wife and infant child with his infamous knife, but she took the baby and ran after seeing him kill their daughter. He chased her and then gave up, slicing his own throat in a fit of rage. She managed to reach the police, but by that time, Lackey met his neighbor on the road. His neighbor thought he had a red bandana on his neck, and agreed to ride to Johnson City with him. Halfway there, Lackey stabbed him in the back and took his faster horse. Too bad his neighbor lived to report him. By the point of Lackey’s arrest, the community was mad. Really mad. “A posse formed,” Brown said in the 1936 account. “Phil
P. Cage, knowing several of the leaders, advised them that a very sick woman was in a home near the jail and asked that no commotion be made; some of the party thought he was trying to stop the lynching party, but the leader knew Mr. Cage well and told his followers to keep quiet,” Brown recounted. “He then led the way to the cell
Posse that caught up to Al Lackey.
in which Lackey was confined, told him that they had come for him to pay the price for his crimes and opened the door to his cell. Lackey grabbed a large iron bucket which was in the cell and would have brained the leader had the bucket not hit the top of the cell; he was overpowered and taken from the jail yard. It had been the
intention of the party to get to Blanco in the afternoon and make a public hanging on the square, to a live oak tree which still stands at the southwest corner of the old courthouse building, but..the mob rode north out of town and so quietly that very few knew that a new crime was about to be perpetuated in their midst; the only kind of its nature to darken the history of Blanco County.” But Lackey wasn’t going down without a fight. Even with the cut on his neck, his neck failed to break when the mob strung him up and tossed him off the wagon. Lackey struggled and vowed vengeance before eventually dying, where his body remained for a while as a reminder of the evil he’d caused. However, there are some differences. While there are several articles in newspapers ranging from The New York Times to The Saturday Herald in Decatur Illinois, each one is different on the details, while maintaining a few constants: Lackey killed his daughter, believed to be in a rage for being accused of having inappropriate relations with his teenage daughter and step daughter. He killed his brother, sister-in-law, neighbor couple the Stokes and their daughter. The size of the mob that hunted
down Lackey varies from a dozen men to fifty or sixty. Some say they overpowered the sheriff and deputy; while others say the sheriff turned a blind eye due to the evil of his crime. The dates vary as well, though most agree on the date he was hung: August 26, 1885. In another account that came from a San Marcus telegraph wire, “Lockie,” as the wire called him: “was then asked… ”Did you kill everyone whom you felt disposed to kill?” “No,” replied Lockie, bitterly “I did not. Six are still living whom I intended to kill.” “Do you wish to pray?” “I have been praying” said the wretched man: then turning to an old man in the crowd he said: “You pray for me.” The old man declined, saying: “The Bible does not teach me to pray for those such as you.” But why Highway 281, you ask? Why does Lackey not haunt the farm where he lived, or the jail? Well, because the tree he was hung from is off of Highway 281, of course. So if you’re driving down Highway 281 Halloween night towards Johnson City, and you see a tall guy with a red bandana around his neck, light blue shirt and tan slacks; don’t stop the car. You won’t live to tell about it.
