Another grisly murder in DeKalb County, TN. It’s more the normal rather than the exception.
Another ghastly procedure unparalleled in the minds and the hearts or persons living in the unincorporated communities of Pea Ridge and the Short Mountain areas of DeKalb County.
Susan Bullard’s unsolved murder might make readers “vomitus” or more precisely “emesis,” which is the proper English grammatical adjective for “vomit.” She was the unmarried daughter of Henry and May Bullard of DeKalb County. Her only son, Samuel, was born “illegitimately” and “intellectually disabled.” The following article summation will verify Samuel’s long-standing handicap.
In the 1870 DeKalb County census, the introvert Susan was listed as age 18, and her brother, Henry Bullard, Jr. was listed as age 15; the following year, 1880, she was referred to as Suse or Susie and she had an illegitimate son, Samuel Bullard, age 7. He was born in 1873 in DeKalb County and died in 1922 at age 49. His birth father nor his cause of death are currently unknown.
There were three Bullard’s living together in the 1880 government census besides Susan and Samuel. It was her sister, Elizabeth, age 19. In addition, Susan was a large Tennessee landowner, Cripps said. “She was somewhat wealthy during this genealogical time.”
Continuing, Cripps remembered while recalling, “Momentarily, Susan stopped and told her only son, Samuel, ‘I have to go meet Bud Johnson on the hill about a legal matter…a discovery bond issue. ‘While I’m gone to the meeting,’ she told Samuel ‘I want you to churn the butter until I get back home.’ Susan does not return home, but Samuel continues churning the butter. (This indicates his lack of functional abilities as mentioned earlier.)
In the interim, neighbors and other friends of Susan form a search party as she continued to be missing. Joe McGee and other interested parties visited with a Gypsy fortune teller trying to locate Susan. The fortune teller told the gathering search party, “You will find her body near water. Keep on searching.”
And they did – successfully.
They searched until they encountered a large magnum of green flies and maggots moving back and forth under a large rock, which was located in the center of the flying insects.”
The Gypsy’s earlier prediction was correct. Susan’s body was found by the locals underneath a large rock, located within close proximity to the adjacent water falls within the farm area. Additionally, they were met by Bud Johnson as they exited the area. Bud was immediately identified as a threatened person who might have killed Susan because of their earlier boundary dispute issues. Later, Bud was arrested for her mutilated death; it went forth to a jury trial in the DeKalb County courthouse; and his guilty sentence enumerated to a jail sentence of life in prison. Bud was released from prison immediately following Bill Mitchell’s
“I killed Susan…” speech before he was hanged.
As the men loaded her unrestricted body on a gurney and started up the hill, Susan’s head, held only by a skin-thread, loosened from her body and fell onto the dirt and unattended, rolled continuously down the hill, disparagingly, and landed at the bottom of the hill. Her head was salvaged by several neighbors and employed workers and taken and placed with the remainder of Susan’s body, recalled Cripps.
“Her throat was cut from ear to ear and all her blood had leaked out of her body,” lamented Cripps, “and she absolutely felt pain; and was awake and terrified. In addition, she was, and had been, without oxygen for an extended period of time. Yes, she felt the slicing of her head intermingled with painful concussions and spewing and irregular masses of blood flowing from the incision. Personally, I have contemplated many times what were her final thoughts when she realized she was being murdered.”
Furthermore, “The reason her head was ejected was because there was just a thin layer of her skin holding her head onto her body.” She was also found to have a broken fibula (long bone in leg), a severed spinal cord and corroded arteries.”
In further universal deciphering, “The human head weighs more than 20 pounds; has more than 32 teeth; a large brain; several sensory organs; dozens of muscles; and numerous nerves, veins, and arteries,” wrote MD.com.
A beheading is “very, very bloody and too grim for human senses.” In 1587, it took six sharp Ax head blows to behead Mary, Queen of Scots. (It can take many Ax blows to cut off a head). The first known global decapitation was circa 1611.
A pending inquisition concerning the effects of Susan’s beheading is explained by History Enthusiast Cripps, an authority on DeKalb County history, “Yes, I believe Susan suffered a great deal as she was decapitated. The head is alive for several minutes after it is removed from the human body. Cutting off the neck’s arteries all at once causes a tremendous drop in blood pressure, followed by the body’s systemic fainting.”
And, did you know that a decapitated head still retains many facial movements following its bodily separation? A further proven historical occurrence was when Queen Ann Bolin of Great Britain and Henry VIII’s wife was beheaded because she was barren to birthing male children, which Henry was desperate to have. “Her severed head began smiling with her lips moving. The presiding physician also commented that the Queen’s eyes were staring at the guillotine. He further said, “A severed head could retain consciousness for 25-30 seconds following dismemberment, while focusing upon and indicating brain activity within the head. Other emotions followed,” the doctor continued, “such as glazing eyes aimed toward it’s separated body and other emotions, such as shock, terror, and grief as the victim’s mouth moved.” Following the head removal, the brain likely goes into a comatose state, even if death comes within a few minutes.
The “chicken with it’s head cut off” descriptive narrative phrase is comparable to the removal of a human’s decapitated head. “Unless you are eating them raw, there’s little to no danger of getting sick from eating a chicken head. The cooking process kills any bacteria that could have taken up residence in the bird’s feathers, as well as making the meat tender and juicy.” Ibid.
While inquiring about the following: “Why can a chicken run around with its head cut off?” My best friend, Bertha McBride, remembered that it was related to the chicken’s skeletal anatomy (muscles.) And, in probability, the chicken’s brain stem remained, said Dr. Wayne J. Kuenzel, poultry neurobiologist. Continuing, he remembered Mike, the Headless Chicken, circa 1946, who lived 18 months without a head. Why? A farmer failed to slaughter him by axing off his head and then missing the jugular vein, which did not kill Mike the headless chicken.
Returning to the local murder, the gypsy fortune teller’s earlier prediction was correct. Susan’s body was found by the locals underneath a large rock, located within close proximity to the adjacent water falls (water) in the land’s farming area. Additionally, they were met by Bud Johnson as they exited the area. Bud was immediately identified as a threatened person who might have killed Susan because of their continuous land boundary dispute. Later, Bud was arrested for Susan’s mutilated death; it went to a jury trial in the DeKalb County courthouse; and his guilty sentence was replaced by a court sentence of life in prison. Bud was released from prison immediately following Bill Mitchell’s “I killed Susan…” preliminary and final speech before he was disturbingly hanged. Cripps theorized that since Mitchell was going to die anyway, he would confess to Susan’s death and free Bud Johnson, who had escaped from his felony prison sentence. “Another man, Bill Mitchell, gave a ‘death bed confession,’” said attorney Cripps. He was the next criminal to be executed by hanging on March 25, 1909 (my Daddy’s birth year.) In Rutherford County (Murfreesboro), he killed a man and was sentenced to death by hanging. Before Mitchell’s incorrigible death, he falsely made this “before hanging” confession: “I am the man who killed Susan Bullard!” At that precise moment, Bud Johnson, the other victim of violence, was released from a Tennessee prison, 20 years earlier than his verdict was announced and prorated. Conclusively, Bud had no local family or friends and his birth line originated in Rutherford County (Murfreesboro), TN. Additionally, said Cripps, there were two other motives toward Susan’s murder:
1. NOTICE: Bud, again, had no family and he threatened to kill Susan earlier over the “boundary line” separating their adjacent land areas. For several years, the two persons continued to disagree on their land’s measurements and dimensions.
2. OPPORTUNITY: Bud Johnson was the last person to see Susan alive.
In retrospect, following his mother’s death in 1891, young Samuel, who also was fatherless, lived with other Bullard relatives. He never had another permanent home. Later, he did join his uncle, Henry Bullard, Jr., per the 1900 census. His last residence location was with his maternal aunt, Ethia Sullivan and her husband, which is documented in the 1920 census, which Cripps continued to elaborate.
“However,” said Cripps, “there is no mention of the Bullard family in local historic documentation, which further indicates, in all probability, they died somewhere between 1900 and 1920.” Ironically, Susan was murdered in 1891 in Smithville, TN.
On further elaboration, attorney Cripps said, “I believe Bud Johnson killed Susan Bullard. Bill Mitchell did not know Sarah, nor had any knowledge of her primary or secondary lineage.”
The Susan Bullard murder remains unsolved today. Her murder’s actions have been added to the cumulative totals of DeKalb County, TN murders. And, there are many.
And, many are unknown.
And, many are solved.
Yet, many are unsolved.
To: “Served: A History of Heads Lost and of Heads Found,” Frances Larson, Liveright Publishing, 2014.
A large majority of the above information can be attributed to lengthy interviews with my brilliant long-time friend and local attorney and historical enthusiast, Sarah Jane Cripps, who opened our insights into many DeKalb County murders. Please accept my sincerest appreciation and a huge thank-you. Tommy Webb would have been proud of you!
