Murder on Midland The 1937 hunt for Juney Carraway’s killers By Bill Case
I
t was not uncommon for 48-year-old tourist camp operator Juney Carraway to vanish for days without informing wife Leoma, or anyone else, of his whereabouts. On one occasion the wandering Juney had flown the coop for months before reappearing. Thus, it did not particularly alarm Leoma when her husband and two male lodgers did not make it back to Connecticut Camp by nightfall on Friday, Aug. 6, 1937. The men had left the camp at 6:30 that morning in Carraway’s Chevrolet coupe. Carraway typically carried hundreds of dollars in his bulging billfold — a habit he did not hide. As Sunday dawned and there was still no trace of her husband, Leoma became fearful Juney had become a tempting target for desperate men harboring bad intentions. The men who left Connecticut Camp with Carraway definitely checked the desperation box. Unkempt, with straggly hair and dirty overalls, they had hitchhiked into the camp the previous Wednesday, arriving from parts unknown. An odd couple, the older of the two was in his late 20s, short, stocky, dark-haired and of swarthy complexion. He spoke with a distinct accent. The younger man, around 20, was a lanky blond string bean. Connecticut Camp, located on U.S. 1 between the rural hamlets of Pinebluff and Hoffman, was rather lax when it came to the niceties of registration. Though the drifters seemed friendly enough to Leoma, she didn’t even know their names. Friday wasn’t the first time Carraway had given his two guests a lift. The day before he’d taken them in search of local employment — just the sort of thing that better-off folks did for the downtrodden during the hard times of the Great Depression. 90
PineStraw
The Art & Soul of the Sandhills
