There
has been but one legal execution in Monroe county. As a
community the people are as law abiding as the people of any
other county in the State. Yet there have been crimes
committed within her borders, a full and complete history of
which would occupy too much space in our book for record. We
have, therefore, recorded only a few of the most prominent
of these, believing that a perusal of the same will be of
interest to the reader. Thomas Blue, colored, alias Dick
Dooley, was tried at the May term of the circuit court,
1867, and found guilty of murder in the first degree for
killing, William Vandeventer, a white man, and was hanged
June 21, 1867, just north of Paris. The following men
composed the jury:
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