Died in jail or a lockup
Lyman Purdue
On the night of May 2, 1892, about one hundred masked men took Lyman Purdue from the county jail at Elizabethtown, North Carolina, and hanged him from a tree limb. Two newspaper reports of the lynching are the only sources. One says Black residents believed he was guilty but were greatly upset by the killing and that trouble was feared. Neither report says how the men got into the jail or how jail staff responded, so whether the sheriff or jailer resisted, gave up the keys, or handed him over is not recorded.
Cause of death, as reported: Taken from custody and lynched
Reported by: newspaper report of the lynching.