Brick Smith
Brick Smith was held in the Centralia city jail in Washington during the violence that followed the Armistice Day parade in November 1919. Before dawn, a mob took him from the jail and hanged him from a bridge, and one account says his body was also riddled with bullets. Police were reported to have stopped an earlier attempt to lynch him behind the jail. Later reports said the rope may have been cut and his body dropped into the Chehalis River, a claim that was not confirmed. A report also says undertakers refused to take his body.
Cause of death, as reported: Taken from custody and lynched (disputed). A mob took Smith from the Centralia jail and hanged him from a bridge over the Chehalis River, with his body reportedly riddled with bullets; later reports say the rope may have been cut and the body dropped into the river, but this was unconfirmed.
Reported by: news reports.