An ancient white oak on Burnt Ridge in Perry County, North Carolina, stands over the grave of Dillard Combmes, a man hanged by federal marshals in 1887 for a murder he did not commit. For 31 years, his widow, Norah, kept the names of the 22 marshals and deputies involved in his prosecution and execution. In January 1918, she gave that list to her 14-year-old grandson, Eli, trusting him to know what to do with it. Norah told Eli that his grandfather had been hanged for the killing of revenue agent Pratt, a crime committed by men tied to the Keller family, who had a long feud with Pratt and needed a name to attach to the killing other than their own.
She insisted Dillard was on his own property the day Pratt died, with her and their children. She said the Kellers had enough connections in the federal apparatus to make the false accusation hold. The list contained 22 names, each with dates, roles in the proceeding, and locations, updated over 30 years of her careful tracking. She told Eli his younger brother Harmon would be told when he turned 14, leaving it to Eli whether to share the information earlier.
Eli served in France during World War I, returning in the fall of 1919 to find that Harmon had been told and had already begun his own investigation. Harmon had cross-referenced their grandmother’s list with court records, newspaper files, and state archives, building a detailed account of the 1887 proceeding that went beyond Norah’s knowledge. Harmon discovered letters between a federal district attorney and a county board member, misfiled in the state archive, that hinted at managing the trial and ensuring the right name would hold. The letters were not explicit but were legible to someone with the right prior knowledge.
He also determined that of the 22 men, nine were still living. The brothers agreed they would not hurt anyone. Their goal was to find out precisely what happened and put the record before the institutions with authority to act. Harmon found a federal statute from 1871 providing a civil remedy for wrongful execution by federal officers acting outside their authority, and the brothers decided they needed a lawyer.
They hired Caldwell Mace, an Asheville attorney known for taking on institutional accountability cases. Mace told them the ordinary six-year statute of limitations had long expired, but a fraud-upon-the-court exception carried no time limit. If they could prove the proceeding was the product of a knowing conspiracy, the case could move forward. The following two years were spent building the factual foundation.
Eli traveled to interview the surviving men on the list, while Harmon worked the archives. Some men refused to speak; others spoke openly. One former deputy named Earl Bechum signed a statement describing his unease even in 1887 and his lasting memory of Combmes’s steady gaze during the execution. A former courthouse deputy named Samuel Prewit, tracked down in Cleveland, provided a sworn statement that he had witnessed Marshal Corvin receiving payment from a Keller associate days before the trial.
Mace called Prewit’s statement the most significant single document in the file. Harmon also found irregularities in the marshal’s office expense ledger and newspaper coverage that documented the environment in which the conspiracy operated. In March 1922, Mace filed a 64-page complaint in federal district court in Asheville, naming seven surviving defendants most specifically connected to the fraud. Judge Horatio Sterns declined to dismiss the case on sovereign immunity grounds, ruling that the fraud exception applied.
The government’s appeal to the circuit court was rejected, and the case returned to district court. Norah Combmes died in October 1923 at age 81 and was buried beside her husband. She told her grandsons she was glad the truth was in the record. During discovery, five of the seven defendants were deposed.
The son of the original marshal produced his father’s journal, which contained a direct confession that money had been taken from the Keller people to hang a man who had nothing to do with the crime. The bench trial was held in September 1924 and lasted four days. Mace presented the letters, the ledger entries, Prewit’s statement, the journal, and testimony corroborating Dillard’s whereabouts on the day of the killing. Judge Sterns issued his ruling 30 days later, finding that the 1887 prosecution had been the product of a conspiracy and that the execution was wrongful.
He granted a declaratory judgment, amended the official record, and awarded nominal damages of one dollar. The record was corrected. The men involved were named, and Dillard Combmes’s innocence was documented in the permanent files of the federal district court. Eli visited the grave in the October light, and the brothers stood together on the ridge.
Harmon planned to write the full human account of what they had found, and Eli agreed to help. The old white oak continued to stand over the two graves, the land holding everything it had always held, as the Combs brothers went home.