the rest of the story on the drowning victim.....

seems eight local 18-25 year olds locals, all black, decided to go kill a deer on said island. So they crossed to the island in an 16' jon boat. They killed a deer(no permit to hunt said island) loaded deer in boat and headed to the boat ramp. Waythehell overloaded boat took on water to overflowing. One of them nicknamed Gangster decided to swim for shore....

Go back a few months and as I drive thru Akron I see a couple of blacks hunting on the railroad, on and off the tracks as the rabbit dogs strike. I slip/crawl/run down the tracks to get closer to them. One of them spots me and takes off across a soybean field. He makes 400 yards to my 100 yards!!!!! and I quit chasing. Couple days later on of the locals tells me it was Gangster, high school wide receiver. He laughing at my running and I tell him I will get him later.

Back to the boat....Gangster "swims" about ten feet and sinks like a rock. Gone. Somebody finally sees the others holding onto the boat and rescues them. ALL the first responders in Hale Co show up and start dragging. I arrive and see folks dragging from 100 yards UPSTREAM to 100 yards downstream of where he went down. WTH? Drowning victims in fairly still water go straight down, rarely downstream, and never upstream. I leave to go to work. I drive by maybe six hours later and no Gangster. I ask one of the boys who was in the boat to throw a rock to where Gangster went down. Jimmy and I get his boat and launch it. First drag where he was supposed to of gone down and I hook something. I pull the rope up and see a boot...I have Gangster by the pants leg. I call the High Sheriff Chester Colvin over and hand him the rope. I tell him to let us get out and started down the road before he tells anyone else we have him. There are prolly 150 wailing blacks on the boat ramp and I do not want to be there when they bring him out.

The fella that told me it was gangster asked me the next day if it was me that found him? I told him if you remember I said I would get him eventually.....