Saraland’s first mayor, Oscar Driver, was making a big move in his quest to clean up the rural town. He had contacted federal agents and was about to clean out the police and fire departments, both groups overrun with criminal behavior and Klan involvement.

A shotgun silenced him in his driveway one August night in 1959.

The employees at wife Manie Driver’s loan company also disappeared overnight, having supposedly left their families and skipped town with their boyfriends.

On Aug. 8, Doris Barnett and Billy Chattom stepped off a bus and into a mess. It was two days after they disappeared with Betty Richardson and Bud Chattom and both were hoping to gently slip back into the Port City.

However, the town was abuzz with the bloody end of her boss and the newspaper revealed their disappearance. The text of their note to the Drivers plus descriptions of each person and their auto were everywhere.

So was false information. Pat Patrick told reporters Oscar made over 30 calls the day before when researching the girls’ absence. Driver’s colleagues confirmed he had been on the phone only five times. But on that Friday, Doris and Billy left the downtown terminal and hailed a taxi.

When they left the cab at Barnett’s home on Bobolink Drive, a neighbor told them of the Driver murder, while another spied them and called law enforcement. After Barnett and Chattom climbed in her car and left, roadblocks began to organize in town.

Billy told Barnett to drop him at Five Points, where Ann Street met Springhill Avenue and St. Stephens Road. Barnett wondered en route whether she should call Manie Driver.

On her way back to Saraland, Barnett was spotted by Chickasaw policemen James Bowdoin and James Hobbie, detained and then questioned for four hours. She was unabashed with authorities, but they tightened their grip on her and booked her on vagrancy charges while the search for Chattom began. Billy Chattom heard of his “wanted” status and walked downtown to surrender for questioning, but not before trying in vain to phone Richardson and Bud Chattom in Houston.

Billy told the police everything, that the idea to leave town was Richardson’s, that they learned of the murder on their return, that they had been in New Orleans and Houston when it all took place. The construction worker also confessed that his desire to return home was fueled by a desire to look in on his pregnant wife.

Later statements to the sheriff by Betty Richardson clarified the picture.

The Chattoms were in and out of the loan office on Aug. 5. Hardly unusual as both were previous customers with small loans, less than $200.

Eventually, Bud and Betty, Billy and Doris met at Barnett’s home after work. Idle conversation stoked a departure from town.

Errands were run. Doris’ laundry was retrieved. Bud’s car was taken to his father’s house. Betty packed in her Midtown home. Sometime around midnight, they pulled onto Highway 90 and headed west with no plan.

As they reached Pascagoula, Bud suggested Houston as a destination.

The quartet slept in New Orleans and arrived in Texas the next night. First stop, a lounge owned by a friend of Bud’s. They gather themselves and ask about accommodations, possible rentals.

After finding an apartment, Doris and Billy decided to return to Mobile. Their Greyhound pulled out of Houston at 9:35 p.m. on Aug. 7.

Law enforcement quickly verified their story but they still had to deal with the exposure from local media. Betty Richardson and Bud Chattom finally returned to Mobile on Aug. 12. They went to Doris’ home first. Bud went to Eight Mile while Betty made a call.

“I remained there until my husband got off from work at Brookley Field and got home and then I called him by phone,” she told investigators.

Betty and Carl drove to Houston at the end of the month to fetch her clothes.

Councilman Henry Dukes was made mayor upon Oscar’s death. He recommended the town hire a new police officer to help Patrick with the increased load. The council found its own man, someone not of Patrick’s choosing.

The trail

Spouses are normally suspected early. Manie was known to exhibit jealousy and Oscar could be a ladies’ man. Rumors ran through the community that he was fooling around with town clerk Dorothy Sanders. State forensics expert Nelson Grubbs said Buddy told him he had seen Oscar slap Mrs. Richardson and Mrs. Barnett on the rump, fondle their breasts and go to the back room with Richardson.

Manie’s stories about what she did once she heard the shots, which room she visited and which lights were on, were inconsistent.

There was also Pat Patrick and his gang.

Patrick certainly had motivation for Oscar’s death. Henry Dukes admitted they wanted to get rid of him. The next council meeting was the night after Driver’s murder, Dukes wondered if the murderers thought something was bound to occur.

Members of the fire and police departments had been heard making cloaked threats about Driver dying in gunfire.

But Patrick also had a solid alibi.

However, two of his most common companions were conspicuously absent that night.

Dudley Mann told investigators he was at home the night Oscar was killed. Every other night, he could be found with Patrick. Mann said he first went to the club to find Patrick but then returned to the house around 7:30 or 8 p.m.

Dudley said he watched a television show on embezzlement that started at 10 p.m. but couldn’t tell investigators about anything that followed it. He said he learned of Driver’s murder the following day. When questioned by law enforcement, Dudley said he didn’t have a shotgun. Patrolman Nance told Grubbs and some deputies Mann lied, that Dudley bragged about his shotgun to Nance during a hunting discussion just one month before the murder.

Eventually, Dudley admitted to having access to a shotgun, but it was at his father’s house. On Aug. 16, Nelson Grubbs received a 97 Model Winchester Pump, serial no. 1005357 from Dudley Mann. Grubbs said the shells found at the scene were fired from that gun, though he noted the pellets found in Oscar’s body seemed different than those found in the car.

Later analysis led Grubbs to determine the person who fired on Oscar was about 6 feet tall. Dudley was far too short. Mann’s soreness became his savior.

This also ruled out Manie Driver who stood two inches shorter than Mann.

At some point after Oscar’s murder, Dudley Mann was questioned by law enforcement then told to go straight home afterward. Instead, he stopped and talked to Patrick.

The police followed Mann and later asked about his activities. He lied about his meeting with Patrick. Mann didn’t assist in the Driver investigation as he did with other police matters.

Dudley Mann passed a polygraph test as did Henry Dukes, Manie and Buddy Driver and other councilmembers.

It was more than Chief Patrick could say, since he refused to submit to one.

On the afternoon of Aug. 11, the phone rang at city hall. Clerk Dorothy Sanders answered.

“He said, ‘Mrs. Sanders?’ I said, ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘Mrs. Sanders, you and Mr. Duke and the Marshall had better quit that crooked stuff if you want to live. I’ve already shown you what I can do.’ Then he hung up. He had a deep voice, sounded middle aged, Southern speech.

“ He called back the next day and said, ‘I meant what I said yesterday. You’re next on the list.’”

Patrick had ears everywhere. Bill Skidmore recalled how the city council arranged a clandestine meeting with federal agents to talk about Patrick. By the time they returned to town, everyone knew.

When Manie and a funeral director first discussed the problem of moving truckloads of flowers from the mortuary to the funeral in Aliceville, unexpected aid arrived promptly.

Patrick called and told Manie he planned to take the city police car to Aliceville to escort Oscar’s body and that he would send an old ambulance to take the flowers.

“How Mr. Patrick knew we were trying to get transportation for flowers to Aliceville is unknown to me,” Manie said.

Patrick wasn’t the only person to refuse a polygraph test. Percy Green did the same.

Reputed Klansman Green was also another Patrick cohort unusually absent on the night of the murder. He claimed the first he heard of the death was from a television bulletin.

Percy had a visitor that week. According to investigators, Percy Green’s brother Jesse W. Green “made his appearance on the scene the day Driver was killed and has not been seen since in Saraland.” Jesse moved through low-level jobs in Mississippi and was rumored to be in the moonshine business like Percy.

A labor foreman at Cortaulds, saw Percy Green on Aug. 6 and asked about his brother Jesse. Percy said Jesse was at Percy’s home in Saraland.

Later, the foreman called and talked to Jesse over the phone. He invited Jesse to his home, but Jesse declined saying he would be leaving town soon for Florida.

A wiretap was placed on Percy Green’s phone. Jesse was later picked up in New Orleans and interrogated. Upon release, he phoned Percy to inform him of the incident. Within 24 hours, Jesse showed up in Mobile to talk to Percy and Pat Patrick. In phone conversations with Patrick, the Greens were careful to avoid discussing the Driver murder.

Some time later in Laurel, Miss., African-American Joe Taylor accidentally ran over young, white John Lewis. The highway patrol ruled the death accidental. Taylor was later shot and killed July 29, 1960 in a similar manner as Driver.

The scene of Taylor’s death was near the boiler room where Jesse Green worked.

Another Saraland man who refused a polygraph was William Stewart, an appliance repairman seen with Patrick. His shop was a front for Klan activity as he claimed over 25 crosses were made there.

The city council had their fill of Patrick and in late September, he, Stewart and nine others were charged with Klan activity and arrested. The cases were eventually dismissed, but it hardly mattered.

Patrick was terminated by unanimous council decision.

A year after Driver was murdered, the investigation was crawling. Councilman Bill Skidmore told the sheriff’s office he and others felt Circuit Solicitor Carl Booth had hamstrung the investigation into Oscar’s death.

A request was made to the state for assistance.

A 1961 grand jury heard testimony relating to the Driver murder, but indictments were never issued.

July 16, 1961, Saraland City Councilman Calvin C. Davenport was found dead beside Tanner-Williams Road near Big Creek spillway. The 37-year-old father of three and building contractor was shot in the back before being dumped near the reservoir. He had no identification, just a pair of cigarettes and some change in his pockets.

Davenport had recent financial problems and made a round of taverns that day. He was also seen with some of the Patrick gang, including William Stewart.

Stewart left town and wound up in a Texas hospital in 1962 with a nervous breakdown. On Dec. 22 of that year, Stewart was killed by a shotgun blast to the chest, stripped of identification and dumped in Hog Bayou near Saraland, his body discovered by a trio of target-shooting teenagers.

The man prosecuted for that murder, Prichard construction worker Pete Cornelison, spun wild yarns to authorities. He told of Patrick, Bernard and Percy Green’s moonshine ventures.

Cornelison said Green tried to coerce him to kill Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. when the civil rights leader was at the Battle House.

He said Green bragged of protection from Circuit Solicitor Carl Booth and claimed to have seen Green use that weight to intimidate car dealer Joe Treadwell.

Cornelison alleged that a place called the Eagles Club was a spot to score pills, that Assistant State Solicitor Don Brutkiewicz hung out there and took payoffs from Carl Booth.

He also said William Stewart killed Oscar Driver to protect the moonshine and narcotics business. None of the allegations were proven.

Booth’s name emerged often in the investigation.

Chief Buford Cryer said he nabbed over 500 gallons of whiskey while in Saraland and was told by Sheriff Bridges that Carl Booth would do little to nothing about it.

Mobile Police Chief James Robinson and Sheriff Bridges thought Booth was protecting Patrick and others. Robinson had to break up near fisticuffs between Booth and Bridges in the courthouse one day.

Robinson also claimed Booth hampered grand jury testimony in the Cornelison case.

ABC Agent and Prichard resident Richard Nixon stated he believed Booth to have ties to leaders of the drug and whiskey rings.

Of course, Nixon also told investigators there was prostitution operating out of the many downtown hotels including the La Clede and the Battle House, tapped West Mobile’s Marvin Broadus as the county’s bootlegging kingpin and claimed state solicitor Don Brutkiewicz told him Sheriff’s Chief Investigator Dudley McFadden’s wife was running a brothel on Royal Street.

Lula Mae McCurly and Mary Ann Brunner filed a report with the governor’s office that Green and others were threatening them following statements the women made about the Driver murder.

McCurly talked to state agents with attorney Bubba Marsa, present. She said Booth was protecting Green, that Sheriff Ray Bridges wanted to go to a grand jury and Booth stymied him.

Bridges and law enforcement on all levels long felt the Driver, Davenport and Stewart slayings to be related, they just never found the key.

Pat Patrick delved into the car battery business and ended up with an ambulance service in Mobile County. Retired state investigator Ed Odom said Percy Green died in Mobile County Jail in the late 1960s.

Pete Cornelison was convicted and paroled in 1975. He is now deceased.

Manie Driver managed just fine financially but never recovered emotionally from the murder. Family stories tell of her spending thousands of dollars on private investigators over the years with no real results.

Buddy lives outside Birmingham now with only relics and memories of Saraland summers.

In 1999, new information came to then-Saraland Police Chief Trey Oliver. An older man sat at the station and gave hours of testimony on possible leads. None of it panned out.

“There was a lot of reluctance from the locals at first,” Oliver said. “They didn’t want to bring all of that up again.”

The new chief found the case intriguing and when Ed Odom filled him in with more information, his curiosity grew.

“How many other little towns can say that their first mayor was killed like that?” Oliver asked. His foray into the case was slowed when the sheriff’s department couldn’t find their files on that case or any before 1972. Hurricanes and relocations had taken their toll.

Oliver is now Chief Deputy of Support Services for the Mobile County Sheriff and hasn’t forgotten those files.

“I think we might be close to finding them,” he smiled.

Of all the survivors, the City of Saraland recovered best.

“Well, of course they started calling us ‘Little Phenix City,’ Took Skidmore said in reference to a reputed cauldron of vice near the Georgia border. “It was pretty scary there for a while until we started to realize it was an isolated incident. But Bill got elected mayor after that. We got rid of some those that was causing the trouble and got it cleaned up.”

The small town grew and became the kind of place some of those pioneers wanted. “We added the rest of it about 8 – 10 years later,” Took Skidmore said. “Now Saraland’s about the nicest little town where you could ever want to live.”

“I think the Driver murder was the nail in the coffin in Saraland,” Ed Odom said. “They seemed to clean it up pretty well after that.”

In true Southern fashion, they found their redemption in blood spilled.