Rising MC senior Autumn Carroll earns a Ledford scholarship for work on the ‘Night Marauder’ project
July 6, 2022
Whenever rising senior Autumn Carroll ’23 went to her grandmother’s house as a young girl, the true crime tales on TV fascinated her.
Now, those tales of malice and intrigue are the subject of Carroll’s Senior Study as part of Maryville College history professor Dr. Nancy Locklin-Sofer’s ongoing research into the “Night Marauder” murders that plagued East Tennessee in the 1920s. What’s more, the psychology major’s exploration of memory as it pertains to witness testimony in the sensational trial of a lone suspect has earned her a place in the 2022 Ledford Scholars Program — an award bestowed by the Appalachian College Association providing financial and academic support that’s allowing Carroll to spend her summer diving into the century-old case that dominated headlines in 1926.
“I actually applied a week before the deadline! I knew it existed, but I had no idea that I might qualify,” Carroll said. “Dr. (Chad) Schrock (professor of psychology at MC) and I worked on it, talked to Dr. Locklin-Sofer and got it submitted in a week’s time, and then they let me know I got it, that I get to do this research and then present my findings and have them posted on the ACA’s website. I’m really grateful, and I’m very honored.”
“I’ve known about the Ledford Scholars Program for years, but I never thought I’d get to work with a Ledford student,” Locklin-Sofer said. “For most of my career, I’ve been working on French history, and since we don’t have a French major at Maryville College, I never saw it as something that even really concerned me, because most of the students getting Ledfords were doing scientific work in Oak Ridge labs and things like that.
“A lot of times, these scholarships fund students at a big research university, but it all depends on the value of the work, the project itself and the way it’s proposed. For a college like Maryville that doesn’t normally have the means to support undergraduate research to this extent, it’s a big deal to get this kind of funding.”
A century-old cold case
Locklin-Sofer’s discovery of the “Night Marauder” case was coincidental: After putting together a new class titled the History of Murder to explore various facets of homicide — including vigilante justice, victim erasure, hate crimes, political assassination and serial killers — she discovered a 1926 story in The Daily Times newspaper of Maryville about the murder of a 60-year-old woman by an individual the press had dubbed the “Night Marauder.”
With the assistance of Reference Librarian Brennan LeQuire, Maryville College Archivist Amy Lundell ’06, the Blount County Genealogical and Historical Society and relatives of those involved in the case, she began to piece together the story of the accused murderer, William Sheffey, who settled in Maryville after World War I and lived near the MC campus.
The incident that became the focus of Sheffey’s trial occurred on Dec. 10, 1923, when Luther and Ada Wells were attacked in their home in Maryville. Luther was shot three times; Ada twice, and the suspect disappeared into the night. In the hospital, Locklin-Sofer said, Wells was questioned almost immediately by law enforcement, who had targeted the “Night Marauder” as Public Enemy No. 1.
“The entire case hinged on whether Ada Wells really could identify him, so when they questioned her and asked her if she could identify their attacker, she said no,” Locklin-Sofer said. “The next day, she hallucinates in the hospital, telling everyone, ‘Oh my God, he’s at the foot of the bed!’ She said she now had a clear view of him in her mind, and when the investigator brings her photos, she picks Will out of a group. The state said that this was an authentic identification of Sheffey, and the defense turned around and said it was nonsense, that she had a daydream while she was recovering from trauma.
“Autumn’s research is looking into the state of the psychology field at the time as it pertains to memory, and whether, if this were to play out today, any of it would make sense.”
Sheffey would be tried three times for the murder of Luther Wells, who died less than a year later from his injuries: Two were declared mistrials and the third ended in acquittal, after which Sheffey left Tennessee for California. For the 1920s, it proved to be high drama that earned national newspaper coverage, Locklin-Sofer said.
“This trial, in little Maryville, Tennessee, was reported on in Miami, in Chicago and in newspapers all over the country,” she added.
The vagaries of memory
As a psychology major, Carroll answered Locklin-Sofer’s call for research assistants, remembering fondly her grandmother’s fascination with true crime and her own interest in the field. She originally planned to conduct her Senior Study — a requirement for each degree candidate that combines both academic knowledge and field work — on another subject entirely, she said, but the opportunity to study the various facets of memory as it pertained to the “Night Marauder” case changed her mind.
“For my thesis, I’m talking about what happened in the 1990s, a time where there was an increase in the number of adults reporting long-repressed memories of childhood sexual abuse that often included things like satanic rituals, torture and murder,” Carroll said. “That started a big debate in the psychology field — are these repressed memories real, or are all those innocent people being convicted by testimonies that weren’t really true?
“Even in the 1920, repressed memories were talked about because of the work of Sigmund Freud, so I’m researching what the beliefs of the time were about memory, looking at how that might apply to Ada Wells and whether her testimony holds up.”
On the surface, she pointed out, it seems suspicious: She has no recollection of the attacker’s appearance, but the next day claims to remember everything after having a hallucination. Sheffey was already a suspect, Locklin-Sofer pointed out, and Sheffey’s defense — which included Jasper Barnes, an MC professor of psychology at the time — accused law enforcement of coaching Wells’ selection of Sheffey from the photographs they presented.
“The defense claims they pushed her, that they influenced her with a newspaper that had Sheffey’s picture in it on the table, and I think they convinced the jury that the prosecution couldn’t be certain he was guilty,” Locklin-Sofer said. “They were very careful, because essentially they said, ‘This poor woman, look at everything she’s been through … but this is not the guy.’”
It’s impossible to say, almost a century later, whether the prosecution failed to prove Sheffey’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, or if he was truly a wrongfully accused individual who endured a scandalous trial and moved away to recover his reputation. More will be revealed, Locklin-Sofer said, especially as Carroll and her other student research assistants continue their work.
In the meantime, she’s teaching the History of Murder again in the fall, and Carroll is using the experience to plan out her own future, based on the courses she’s taken at Maryville College and the work she’s doing to paint a more complete picture of the “Night Marauder.”
“I want to get a master’s degree, and I’m considering criminology and studying the behaviors behind crime,” she said. “I would just love to continue research like this, and this has definitely given me more direction and some great experience.”