The Tragedy of Charley Brown and Elma Cope
Written By Justin D. Lamb
Charley Brown
(Collection of the author)
As many in Marshall County picked up their newspaper on the morning of Monday, October 16, 1916, they were shocked as they scanned the headline which read: “Double Suicide Ends Chapter in Marshall County Sensation.” The thrilling case which involved two young lovers, Charley Brown and Elma Cope of the Glade community, had intrigued all of Western Kentucky over the past few months and had taken an unfortunate deadly turn. But as the facts began to roll in questions began being asked as to what lead these two young people to end their own lives in a ravine in a remote stretch of woods in southeastern Marshall County?
Everyone who knew Charles “Charley” Brown liked him as he was one of those fellows that was easy to like. Born on September 3, 1893 in the Fairdealing community to Finus and Melvinia (Henson) Brown, Charley Brown met Miss Lois Cope of the Glade community and they married in 1912. The young couple went to live with the bride’s family in the Glade community where Charley began working with his father-in-law, Monroe Cope, on his large farm. Monroe Cope was a well-respected member of the Glade community where he served as a leader in the Glade Church of Christ.
A few years after moving with his new bride, Charley, who was twenty-two years old, began to take an interest in his wife’s thirteen-year old sister, Elma Cope. What started as only harmless flirting quickly became more serious as Brown and his young sister-in-law soon began a romantic affair which lasted for almost two years. By September 1916, Charley and Elma decided they wanted to be together and knowing that their relationship would be condemned in Marshall County, Brown decided on Tuesday, September 6, 1916 to leave his wife and flee the county with his young sister-in-law. That morning, Elma went to school as usual, but shortly after arriving she told her teacher that she was sick and was going home. She left her lunch with another pupil and returned to her house where she left a note for her family before fleeing with Brown.
When Monroe Cope arrived at home, he found Elma’s school tablet on the kitchen table with a note which read, “Goodbye, Daddy! Charley don’t want me to leave home with him, but I am going anyway. I am the one to blame. Elma.” Furious at his son-in-law’s betrayal of one of his daughters and, in his mind, the apparent kidnapping of another, Monroe Cope began looking for Elma and Charley. With no luck, Monroe Cope made his way to the courthouse in Benton to inform Sheriff Joe Darnall of the disappearance of his daughter. Sheriff Darnall put out an all points bulletin to surrounding counties and a fifty dollar reward was offered for their capture.
A few days later, word came from Mayfield Police Chief Charles McNutt who learned from a Mr. Sutherland of the Kevil area that a couple fitting the description of Brown and Cope had passed through Mayfield on Tuesday evening. Mr. Sutherland told the police chief that he encountered the couple when their wagon had broken down and the two were very anxious to get to Arkansas where they said they had a relative who was seriously ill. Mr. Sutherland said he last saw them when he dropped them off at Columbus, Kentucky where they caught a boat south to Arkansas.
Above: Monroe Cope, father of Elma Cope
(Collection of the author)
With the new information, Sheriff Darnall sent word to authorities in Arkansas, and within a few hours, the couple was apprehended in Harrisburg, Arkansas. Sheriff Darnall immediately informed the family of the arrest, and on Saturday morning, September 9, he made the trip south to bring the couple home.
Once back in Marshall County, Elma Cope was taken home with her father while Brown was brought before County Judge John B. Wyatt and charged with kidnapping and having “carnal knowledge” with a girl under the age of sixteen which carried a punishment of twenty years in the penitentiary. Brown was lodged in the Marshall County jail until September 15 when friends and family paid his one thousand dollar bond. After his arrest, Brown’s wife, Lois, took their two children and filed for divorce and Brown went back to the Fairdealing to live with his parents.
Many believed the scandalous events were to be put to rest, but on Sunday, October 8, the saga took another turn as Charley and Elma were both reported missing again. Sheriff Darnall was contacted immediately and the search began once again for the runaway couple. As every lead began to take a cold trail, Brown’s brother-in-law, Gentry G. Lamb, offered a one hundred dollar reward for the whereabouts of the runaway couple. Members of both the Brown and Cope families believed that the couple may have gone to Arkansas once again, so the search headed south. As the days passed and the couple still had not been found, the story gained news coverage all of across the country as reporters came from all around to report on the “Romeo and Juliet chronicle of western Kentucky.”
A week later on the morning of October 15, 1916, the saga came to an end as a group of young boys were hickory nut hunting in the woods of the Clarks River bottoms about a mile from the Cope home place when they came across two lifeless and badly decomposed bodies. The bodies were quickly identified as that of Charley Brown and Elma Cope. A pistol was found nearby as was a quart can of paris green and a pail of water. Brown had one bullet hole in his chest, while Elma Cope had three in her body. Sheriff Darnall was notified , and after a short investigation, he determined that the couple had tried to kill themselves by ingesting the poisonous paris green, but after it was apparent that the poison was causing a slow and agonizing death, Brown then shot Elma Cope three times and then took his own life. The body of Elma Cope was buried in the family plot at Cope Cemetery in Glade. Brown was taken back to his family and buried in the Fairdealing Cemetery. Family oral history dictates that when Charley Brown’s sister, Julia Brown Lamb, was told of her brother’s fate, that she let out a “blood curdling scream which could be heard for miles around.”
The gully on Walnut Grove Road in the Glade community where the bodies of Charley Brown and Elma Cope were found in October, 15, 1916.
(Collection of the author)
As Sheriff Darnall continued his investigation into the deaths of the young couple, he learned that many in the Glade community had remembered hearing several gun shots a week prior to the discovery of the bodies, but thought nothing of it. “Several reported hearing five shots in quick succession, then a pause, and then three more quick shots were fired. Then there was a lapse of a few seconds which was followed by one final shot,” reported the Paducah Daily Sun. The Mayfield Messenger reported that Sheriff Darnall and his deputies concluded that the first five shots were fired so that Brown would know the pistol was in working order. The next three shots which followed were the ones that took Elma Cope’s life and the final shot heard was the one that took Brown’s life. The case was closed that afternoon with the official result being a murder-suicide.
But often times as they happen, cases of this nature leave more questions than answers invoking several in the community to not be satisfied with the results of Sheriff Darnall’s investigation. Many theories began to develop as to what really happened. Numerous people in the Glade community believed that Charley, knowing that he could not ever be with Elma, shot her and then took his own life. Some believed it was a mutual suicide. Others believed that Monroe Cope knew more than he was letting on and that he killed his daughter and son-in-law in a heat of passion for their sinful affair. Either way, it was a tragic ending to one of Marshall County’s most sensational chapters and perhaps no one will ever know the truth.