CRIME: Lulu Belle’s Beau

If you are a 22-year-old girl built like a young Percheron (175 lbs.), so strong that your father, the county jailer, calls you his “handyman” and says you can handle the women prisoners “like sacks of potatoes,” you are not likely to have many beaus. Such was the case of Lulu Belle Kimel of Lexington, N. C. Though she was bursting with health and warm-hearted to a degree, the boys did not consider her the village belle. James Godwin, 19, a tough and knowing High Point boy whom they brought to the jail two months ago for beating up and robbing his grandfather, seemed to feel differently about Lulu Belle.

When she brought him his meals and mail, Jim told her she was “sweet” and “beautiful, & had mighty nice clothes and a pretty voice; Lulu Belle was glad. He said he guessed he’d die in the State’s gas chamber; Lulu Belle was heartstricken. He said if only she would help him escape he’d go to church, be a good boy, come back for her in time. Lulu Belle believed him.

When her father left one day to visit his tobacco farm, Lulu Belle slipped Jim the keys. He let out his pal, Bill (“Bad Eye”) Wilson. They grabbed Jailer Kimel’s gun from his office, commandeered a taxi, bound and gagged the driver, Wilkes Swing, and drove to Godwin’s home in High Point for clothes and another gun.

Then they held up Donald Moss, a young textile worker, for his car. When Moss was slow giving it up, Godwin shot him dead. Then they drove into the night, hid in a barn near Hickory.

When Jailer Thomas C. Kimel got home and wormed the truth out of weeping Lulu Belle, he locked her up, resigned in shame.

While she was being sentenced to 60 days, word came that a posse had got Jim Godwin. Hefty, heartbroken Lulu Belle wept again. That report was false, but after Bill Wilson lost his nerve, sneaked away and squealed, they did get Godwin, subdued him with a load of bird shot in the face. He still swore he had planned to come back for Lulu Belle and go straight —after he had robbed enough gas stations. Lulu Belle, out on $200 bail and hiding her fat red face at home, didn’t believe him this time. She had found out he had a wife & child.