The Man
Without a Heart
by Robert
A. Waters
The
Blackwater River flows through the wilds of Alabama into Florida’s
Panhandle. Its ink-black water meanders
along, lapping sugar-white sand beaches while centuries-old cypress trees line
the banks.
On May 1,
1956, three young boys played along the water’s edge. They were David Earl Wilson, 7, his younger
brother Douglas Cecil, 4, and a friend, seven-year-old Michael McCauley. The Wilson family’s mobile house trailer sat
back on a hill, looking down over the shirtless boys as they yelled and romped.
The
playmates parted as their neighbor, thirty-three-year-old Dallas E. Withers,
approached a motorboat tethered to a nearby tree. While climbing in, the unemployed electrician
turned to the boys and asked, “You want to go for a short ride?”
The
excited youngsters hesitated briefly, then crowded into the boat. But McCauley, fearful that his father would
be angry, jumped out and waded back to shore.
A sudden
roar of the engine alerted Mary Alice Wilson, the brothers’ mother. She sprinted from the house down to the
river’s bank, screaming for her neighbor to return with her boys. Withers never looked back. The distraught woman watched in horror as the
boat motored into the fog and disappeared around a bend.
Since she
didn’t have a telephone, Mrs. Wilson rushed to a neighbor’s home and called the
Bay County Sheriff’s Department.
Sheriff
M. J. “Doc” Daffin and his lead investigator, Floyd D. Saxon, raced to the
residence at 414 Second Court in Millville.
The unincorporated community sat on a spit of land between Watson Bayou
and St. Andrews Bay in Panama City.
After Mrs. Wilson and Michael McCauley breathlessly described the events
of the afternoon, Daffin quickly organized teams of deputies to search the
shoreline.
News of
the abduction spread quickly. With a
population of around 50,000 residents, Bay County was home to several military installations,
including Tyndall Air Force Base. In
addition to law enforcement officials, local fishermen and servicemen soon
joined the hunt for the missing brothers.
*******
Three
hours after casting off with the youngsters, Withers docked his boat at Polecat
Bayou, fifteen miles from the Wilson home.
He was
alone.
Waiting
deputies arrested him on the spot.
Lawmen
transported Withers to an undisclosed jail for his own safety. Weather-hard, with dark eyes, the suspect
said little. When asked where the boys
were, he feigned surprise and denied taking them.
Darkness
fell, and the long night passed with no word from the missing brothers. The next morning, Mrs. Wilson, sobbing,
released a tape-recorded statement: “Please, Mr. Withers,” she said, “Tell me
where you left my sons. I want them back
dead or alive.” The Fort Pierce News
Tribune reported that “the boys’ father, Willard E. Wilson, was taken to a
veteran’s hospital in Birmingham for treatment of shock.”
The
Wilson family had lived in Panama City for only three weeks. Originally from Mississippi, Willard worked
as a civilian employee at Tyndall Air Force Base.
Shortly
after noon, searchers in a military helicopter spotted four-year-old
Douglas.
Floating face-down in the murky
waters, his remains were located about 300 yards from the mouth of Cook’s
Bayou. Lawmen grimly pulled Douglas from
the river and transported him to Smith Funeral Home in Panama City. Soon the coroner arrived. After conducting an autopsy, he announced the
cause of death was drowning.
Though
searchers combed the river all day, David was not found.
On the
second day, after hearing Mrs. Wilson’s taped appeal and learning that Douglas
had been found, Withers confessed to killing the boys. Sheriff Daffin told reporters that in his
first confession, Withers claimed that while making a sharp turn around a bend,
David fell out of the boat. Withers
stated that after David drowned, he panicked and tossed Douglas into the water.
The next
day Withers admitted his sordid reason for the abduction and murders. He informed investigators that he had
molested young boys for years, but had never been caught. When he saw the children playing on the bank
outside their home, he immediately felt drawn to the older Wilson boy.
Withers
stated that after finding an isolated spot, he forced David to commit “indecent
acts.” He described how he flung the
child into the dark water and watched him flounder until he slowly sank out of
sight. The boy had cried out just before
disappearing. Detectives noted that
Withers was matter-of-fact when describing what happened. In order to cover his crime, the killer said
he also tossed four-year-old Douglas into the river. Like David, the youngster quickly drowned.
Investigators
believed Withers had stopped at a sand-bank to molest David, though for some
reason he never admitted it. Tracks on
one of the sandbars in the river contained footprints of a man and two young
children. After the assault, Withers
likely forced the brothers back into the boat and tossed them out.
For the
next three days, hundreds of searchers scoured the river and its banks for the older
boy. During this time, women of the
community grouped together in local churches to make sandwiches and iced tea
for the men. Finally, four days after
having been snatched from the shoreline in broad daylight, two local fishermen
radioed that they had located the remains of a young boy.
David’s
body had floated up only a few feet from where his brother had been found.
**********
Dallas
Withers had spent time in a reform school before joining the U. S. Army in
1943.
Trained
as a machine gunner, Withers was assigned to Company D, 304th
Infantry Regiment, 76th Infantry Division. As he spoke to investigators, the suspect
made a shocking claim. He stated that in
1945, during a night bombardment near Oberinheim, Germany, while supporting a
squad of riflemen from the rear, he lowered his machine gun and turned it on
his fellow GIs.
He
informed detectives that he and another soldier were having “sexual relations,”
and he was afraid of being found out.
Withers said casualties from the enemy bombardment were so horrific that
no one realized some soldiers had been shot from behind.
Sheriff
Daffin reported that Withers passed a lie detector test about the episode. However, Detective Saxon told reporters that
he didn’t believe the suspect’s claims.
(The army never fully investigated the incident, evidently writing the
“confession” off as an attention-seeking ploy—or perhaps they were unwilling to
open up a can of worms that could destroy many lives.)
Sheriff
Daffin told reporters that Withers “showed absolutely no remorse or emotion in
answering my questions. He is a man
without a heart.”
At ten
o’clock on the morning of May 7, hundreds of mourners attended funeral services
for Douglas and David Wilson. A local
newspaper reported that after the services in Panama City, “the two were taken
to Louisville, Miss., by a [Smith Funeral Home] hearse for services at the
Middleton Methodist Church there.”
***********
The trial
of Dallas E. Withers, scheduled for January 7, 1959, promised to be a sensation. It did not disappoint.
The
Panama City courtroom was packed to capacity with 250 spectators. Willard and Mary Alice Wilson sat behind
prosecutors while Withers’ aged mother took a seat behind her son and the
defense team. (His wife and seven
children were nowhere to be seen.)
Thomas
Beasley, a former state representative from DeFuniak Springs, represented
Withers. (He was known for having tried
30 death penalty cases in which not one of his defendants was sent to the
chair.) But in this case, the attorney
had little to work with. Withers had
confessed twice. In addition, witnesses
had seen him leave with the children.
Finally, physical evidence found in his boat proved the brothers had
been there.
At first,
Beasley made a half-hearted attempt to show that Withers was insane. But the defendant’s obvious planning and
confessions shot down that argument.
Beasley
then claimed that Withers had been “drunk and unaccountable” for his
actions. But while he had been
drinking, witnesses testified that he was not drunk. (An appeals court later wrote that “there was
ample competent substantial evidence to support the jury’s conclusion that
Withers was not so intoxicated at the time of the commission of the crime as to
be incapable of premeditation.”)
Finally,
in desperation, the defense argued that Withers had suffered a work-related
accident that may have damaged his brain and made him impulsive. This could have caused him to “snap” and
perform an act he couldn’t control.
Prosecutor
J. Frank Adams told jurors that the crime Withers committed was the worst ever
recorded in Bay County. He stated that
it was obvious from his confession that Withers knew right from wrong.
Four
hours after receiving instructions, jurors returned with their verdict.
Guilty.
Circuit
Judge E. Clay Lewis, Jr. immediately sentenced Dallas E. Withers to death in
the electric chair.
Mary
Alice Wilson agreed with the verdict.
“He had a trial,” she said. “My
boys did not.”
On
February 2, 1959, nearly three years after the heinous murders of two innocent
boys, Withers walked solemnly to Florida’s Old Sparky. Reporters said he remained calm to the very
end.
