On November 2, 1930, 15-year-old Bertha Hood left her family’s home in Wise County, Virginia, to walk two miles to an evening prayer meeting at the Freewill Baptist Church. She never arrived. Her body was found hours later in a ditch near the railroad tracks, shot once through the heart. The killing shattered her community and set off a chain of events that would send an innocent boy to prison and keep the truth hidden for three years.
Bertha was the only daughter of William Hood, a respected farmer and storekeeper known across the county for extending credit to struggling families without interest. She attended East Stone Gap High School, sang in the church choir, and was widely described as kind, bright, and devoted to her studies. Her father was protective, and by the autumn of 1930, two local boys had begun competing for her attention. The boys were Roy Rawlins, a 15-year-old with a known temper, and Shorty Hopkins, also 15, who came from a more prosperous family.
Their rivalry over Bertha had already turned violent. Days before her murder, the two had fought in the dirt beside the railroad tracks after school. Bertha had begged them to leave her alone and told her father, who spoke to both boys’ fathers. For a short time, the matter seemed settled.
On the evening of November 1, 1930, Bertha was seen near the railroad tracks with both boys, apparently arguing. The following night she left for church with a lantern and told her mother she would be home by nine. Witnesses later testified that an argument took place near the tracks that evening, and a woman who lived nearby reported hearing a single gunshot. When Bertha failed to arrive at the church, a search party was organized.
Her body was found just before midnight, lying in a ditch about a quarter mile from the railroad crossing. She was still in her navy blue dress, with a single gunshot wound above her heart. The county coroner estimated her death had occurred between 6:30 and 7:30 that evening. Sheriff Amos Bentley immediately questioned both Roy Rawlins and Shorty Hopkins.
Each claimed to have been at home with family, though the sheriff noted that family alibis carried little weight in a community where loyalty ran deep. Investigators learned that Roy owned a . 32 caliber pistol, which he said had gone missing days before the murder. No murder weapon was ever recovered.
Three days after Bertha’s death, William Hood took matters into his own hands. He drove to the Rawlins farm, fetched Roy at gunpoint, and marched him three miles to the sheriff’s office. The boy broke down under questioning and admitted he had seen Bertha that evening and argued with her, but insisted he had not hurt her. He also claimed that Shorty Hopkins had been hiding in the woods and had been following her.
Both boys were arrested but released on bail. Shorty’s family hired experienced attorneys, while Roy’s father scraped together enough money for a young lawyer from Bristol named Marcus Webb. Meanwhile, Bertha was buried on November 6, 1930, at the Freewill Baptist Church, with a crowd too large for the building to hold. The case stalled for months until a 16-year-old named Billy Thompson walked into the sheriff’s office in January 1931.
Thompson said he had been hunting rabbits near the railroad tracks on the night of the murder and had witnessed the killing. He claimed Roy had shot Bertha after she told him to leave her alone, and that Shorty had been present but had fled. Thompson’s testimony led to Roy being charged with first-degree murder and Shorty as an accessory after the fact. A group of armed vigilantes intent on hanging both boys was intercepted by Sheriff Bentley before it could reach them.
The trial began on April 16, 1931, at the Wise County Courthouse, drawing one of the largest crowds the county had ever seen. The prosecution built its case on Thompson’s eyewitness account, Roy’s obsession with Bertha, and the missing . 32 caliber pistol. The defense attacked Thompson’s credibility, noting that he had waited more than two months to come forward and that he had once been rejected by Bertha himself.
Roy testified in his own defense, insisting he had left Bertha alive. The jury found Roy guilty of second-degree murder. He was sentenced to 25 years in the Virginia State Penitentiary. He was 15 years old.
The verdict brought some relief to the Hood family, but William Hood reportedly showed no satisfaction, only exhaustion. Three years later, in November 1933, Billy Thompson walked into the sheriff’s office again. He was visibly drunk and trembling. He told Sheriff Bentley he had lied at trial.
Roy had not killed Bertha. The confession unraveled the case completely. Thompson said he had been drinking stolen moonshine on the night of the murder. After watching Roy and Shorty argue with Bertha and leave, he followed her himself.
He had asked her to a church social weeks earlier and she had refused. When she tried to walk away, he grabbed her arm. She pulled free sharply, the movement swung his rifle around, and the gun fired by accident. The bullet struck her in the heart.
He panicked and dragged her body off the tracks. When detectives focused on Roy and Shorty, Thompson saw an opportunity. By presenting himself as a cooperative eyewitness and pointing blame at Roy, he redirected the investigation and recast himself as a concerned bystander. Ballistics testing confirmed that the bullet that killed Bertha had come from Thompson’s .
22 rifle, not a . 32 caliber pistol as assumed at trial. The original examination had never compared the bullet to Thompson’s weapon because he was a witness, not a suspect. On January 15, 1934, the court vacated Roy Rawlins’ conviction.
He was released from prison on February 3, 1934, after serving nearly three years for a crime he did not commit. He was 18 years old. His father had died the previous year and never lived to see him cleared. Billy Thompson pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and perjury.
He was sentenced to 30 years in prison. As he was led away, he apologized to William Hood, saying Bertha’s death had been an accident and that he was sorry for what he had done. Roy Rawlins spent the rest of his life trying to leave the conviction behind. He moved to Tennessee and later to Oklahoma, where he worked in the oil fields under an assumed name.
He died in 1962 at the age of 47. Shorty Hopkins also left the county, settled in North Carolina, and married. William Hood died in 1953 at 71, and his wife Martha, who had been broken by her daughter’s death, died less than two years after the trial from pneumonia, though those who knew her said she had never really recovered. Bertha Hood’s grave still stands behind the Freewill Baptist Church.
Every November, on the anniversary of her death, someone leaves fresh wildflowers on it. No one has ever claimed responsibility for the tradition, which has continued for decades, long after everyone directly involved in the case was gone.