1935 - The Murder of Hobart Meade
On a cold Sunday evening, December 15, 1935, the body of Hobart Meade was found in his car at the Barnetts Creek bridge on what was then known as the Garrett Highway. Meade had been shot in the head. He had dropped his wife and children off at First Methodist Church in Paintsville after explaining that he had to meet a man about a business matter and would be back to pick them up when church was over. He didn't make it.
Hobart Meade was married to Edna Mae Spears Meade. The young Meade family included four children, all less than 12 years old. Meade had been employed by Paintsville National Bank (then First National Bank) for 12 years as auditor, bookkeeper and teller. Mrs. Meade was a popular young woman who was active in community and religious affairs of Paintsville and Johnson County.
Just three years before, during the trial of accused bank robber Wilson Jennings, Hobart Meade had been the only witness to identify Jennings and place him at the scene of the crime.
Within days a massive manhunt was underway for Meade's killer or killers. A nationally known private detective, Ora Slater, was brought in from Cincinnati as more details of the crime scene did emerged.
When Meade's body was found by his wife, the Reverend Otis Polley and Mrs. Polley, the lights of Meade's vehicle were still on and the engine was running. There were three bullet holes in the windows of the car but only one had struck Meade. He had been shot in the head behind his right ear with the bullet emerging just back of his left temple. Finger prints were taken and bloodhounds were led over the ground in an effort to obtain some clue as to the murderer's identity. However, no suspects were immediately found.
18 months later, however, a Johnson County Grand Jury indicted Wilson Jennings, one of the two men convicted of the Paintsville bank robbery, and his former wife, Nellie Jennings, for the murder of Hobart Meade. The Jennings couple had been implicated by the testimony of Mollie Hall, a woman employed by Nellie's parents in their Naugatuck, West Virginia, home.
It appears that Nellie Jennings, dubbed the "Cleopatra of the Tug" by West Virginia newspapers, had led a colorful and romantic life from the age of 16 at which time she married the Mayor of Matewan, C. C. Testerman. When Testerman was killed in the Matewan union wars, Nellie married Matewan Police Chief Sid Hatfield who met a similar fate. Two marriages and several years later, Nellie Jennings languished in jail, unable to post bond for her murder indictment.
The trial of Wilson Jennings was eventually held and, upon a ruling by Judge J. F. Bailey that Mollie Hall's testimony was incompetent, the jury returned a not guilty verdict in a matter of minutes. Both Wilson and Nellie Jennings were free. Although rumors and stories abounded concerning the murder of Hobart Meade, no one was ever convicted of the crime.
There were those who saw a connection between the killing and the bank robbery; between Meade's identification of Jennings and his death; between the still missing bank money and a winter's night meeting at the Barnetts Creek bridge.
