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Submitted: 6/30/09 • Approved: 7/8/18 • Last Updated: 7/11/18 • R209917-G0-S3
November 17, 1904 - July 20, 1936
*Obituary
Benton County Democrat
Thursday, July 23, 1936
Three Held Here On Murder County
Blame For Death of Edgar Nees Assumed By Boy But Two Other Are Held
As a result of the fatal shooting of Edgar Lindsey Nees, aged 31, early Monday night at the home of his brother-in-law and sister, Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence Wheeldon, in the Miller community, four miles northwest of Bentonville, a 15-year-old boy and two men are being held by Sheriff Earl Austin on first degree murder charges. The three are Lawrence Wheeldon, Arthur Nees, uncle of the victim and Sam Wheeldon, the youth, who is an adopted son of the Wheeldons. They were bound over to the grand jury Tuesday following a hearing before Justice of the Peace Horace D. Hobbs.
Deputy Sheriff W.D. Pumphrey was called to the Wheeldon home between 8:30 and 9 o’clock Monday night. Testimony placed the hour of the shooting at about 8 o’clock. Later Constable Raymond Davis and Coroner A.D. Callison arrived. Sheriff Austin and Depute Chas. Henderson had gone earlier in the evening to another part of the county.
Boy Said to Have Fired Shots
Developments Monday night indicated that there’re had been a family party in progress since early in the afternoon with considerable drinking; that trouble occurred between Edgar Ness and his brother-in-law, in which Mrs. Wheeldon became involved; that Sam Wheeldon, the boy, seeing his foster parents getting the worst of the scuffle, secured a .32 caliber pistol belonging to the elder Wheeldon and fired two shots into Nees’ left side. The wounded man lived only a short while after being shot.
The body was brought to the Callison-McKinney Funeral Home here where Coroner Callison had an autopsy made by Drs. Chas. E Hurley and Emmett A. Pickens. Their examination is understood to have revealed two shots entering the body on the left side. One entered a lung and caused death in a short time from loss of blood, it is understood, while the other shot struck a lower rib.
Funeral services for Edgar Nees were held at 3 o’clock Wednesday afternoon at the Miller church, near the Nees home, conducted by the Rev. Luther Smith, Baptist minister of Bentonville. Music was by the Jackson family quartet of Dug Hill, with Mrs. Sam Featherstor, as accompanist. The Callison-McKinney Funeral Home of Bentonville was in charge o funeral arrangements, and burial was in the Miller cemetery.
The tragedy victim is survived by his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Jim Nees, and by several brothers and sisters and a large number of other relatives. The Nees family is among the pioneers of this section, and Edgar L. Nees was born and reared within a short distance of the scene of his death.
Contributed on 6/30/09 by judyfrog
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Record #: 209917