Died in jail or a lockup
Lewis Ketchum
Lewis Ketchum was held in the jail at Bluntville, Alabama, in December 1870. According to a Memphis dispatch carried by the Worcester Daily Spy, on the night after his arrest a body of armed men in disguise, who had earlier placed the town's prominent citizens under guard, took him from the jail and shot him. A Springfield Weekly Republican report of the same event says the men hanged him instead. The two accounts differ on how he was killed.
Cause of death, as reported: Taken from custody and lynched. A Memphis dispatch reports that a body of armed men in disguise took Ketchum from the Bluntville jail and shot or hanged him, and the accounts do not say whether jail staff resisted.
Reported by: Memphis dispatch (reporters).