HERMAN YOUTH SHOT AND KILLED BY CRAZED MAN

Lloyd Davis, 21, One of Four Killed in Los Angeles

OSCAR DAVIS’ SON

Lloyd Davis, 21, formerly of the Herman vicinity, and the son of Mr, and Mrs. Oscar Davis who still live there, was one of four men slain by an apparently demented man at Los Angeles on Monday according to press dispatches and a telegram to H. Lyle Guyer, head of the local relief agency, asking that he communicate with the youth’s parents.

Young Davis, whom friends here say went to California about a year ago, had been employed on WPA projects, and all four victims of the madman were working together. The slayer, Charles N. Layman, 45, told police “I shot them because they had been abusing and browbeating me.”

Without warning, press accounts say, the slayer leveled his rifle at his four victims and started shooting. In addition to the four men he killed, two of the three others he wounded were in a serious condition.

Layman recently had been transferred from time to time on the project, and he is said to have resented his demotion to the position of a waterboy.

A threatening group of four hundred WPA laborers surrounded Layman and the police officers as they put him in a patrol car. The crowd shouted for vengeance, but there was no violence.

The dead, in addition to the Washington county youth, are Harry Sell, 56; Lloyd Holden, Pete Coil. The wounded are Harold Johnston, 26, shot in the head, Francis Secrest, shot in the stomach and James Haley, wounded in the arm. Another man’s ankle was fractured as he jumped into a ditch to escape Layman’s fire.

On his round with a water bucket, Layman approached a group of several score workers. Suddenly he dropped the bucket, scrambled to the top of a dirt heap, seized a rifle and started firing. Most of the victims were shot down as they and companions were closing in on Layman in a frantic effort to disarm him.

Police said Layman also was armed with a pistol and more than 50 cartridges.

Member of a well known family in the northern part of the county, young Davis had a wide acquaintance in the Herman region, and was likewise well know in Blair where he visited frequently before he went to the coast.

#2-2 Jan., 1936 - The Enterprise

LLOYD DAVIS IS BURIED AT HERMAN

Lloyd Davis, son of Mr. and Mrs. Oscar Davis of Herman, was brought to Herman from Los Angeles for interment which took place on Tuesday, December 24.

Davis was working on a WPA project in Los Angeles when attacked by a fellow workman who was said to be in a demented condition and, with five others, was killed.

Lloyd was born near Blair March 18, 1912. His early life was spent at Emerson, Nebr. He, with his parents, came to Herman in 1922 where the family still resides.

He is survived by his parents and three brothers. Rev. A. J. Gumm of Herman conducted the funeral

#3-2 Jan., 1936 - The Enterprise

Funeral services for Lloyd Davis were held at the Baptist church Tuesday, December 24, conducted by Rev. A. J. Gumm. Interment was made in the Herman cemetery. Lloyd Lee Davis, age 23, son of Mr. and Mrs. Oscar Davis, was one of six W.P.A. workers slain December 16 by a crazed workman in Los Angeles. He left here last May for Los Angeles to join a brother, Vern, and two uncles, Ed and Sam Belville. He had worked for the WPA only a few months. Lloyd was born near Blair March 18, 1912. He spent most of his life in Emerson. He came, with the family, to Herman in 1922. He is survived by his parents, three brothers, Clifford of Thurston, Vern and Dale of Los Angeles and other relatives and friends. Dale accompanied the body to Herman.

~~~Obituaries courtesy of the Nebraska Washington County Genealogical Society. Newspaper clippings on file in the Blair, Nebraska Public Library~~~

FindaGrave # 58725366