On Tuesday, September 25, 1945, these men, most looking west on the Valley Road (West Virginia Route 34), were not assembled on this knoll to admire the pleasant rural scenery. They were there to dig up the body of Pearl Martin Amos, who had been killed by his wife on September 6, 1945. Mrs. Amos had shot her husband in the head and cut off his legs to make the body fit in a grave in a hog lot.
The burial hole can be seen in the direct left center of this photograph. A fence had been built by someone to keep the hogs away from the grave. A party composed of Putnam County Sheriff C.A. Vaughn; Deputy Sheriff H.E. Stricklin; State Trooper, D.J. Gilbert; Elton E. Allen, Mortician; Dr. R.W. Bailey, Albert Davis, Malcolm Wood and Fred Sowards exhumed the body with a great many on-lookers in attendance. The Amos home was located some 3 miles east of Hurricane on Route 34 on a site just below the present-day Mount Vernon Meadows subdivision. The home (long since torn down) can be seen in the background.
The hog lot was on a rise above the house. A hearse from the Allen Funeral Home can be seen in the right foreground. The photographer was standing at the approximate location of the entrance to the present-day Mount Vernon Meadows subdivision. (Ralph Williams photo)

Introduction by Ron Allen

Irene and Dave Ambler were living in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1945. Dave had been employed by Fisher Body Company, building airplanes for World War II. Shortly before their return to Hurricane, Irene called home. She asked, “Is anything going on?”

Her brother Norman Forth answered, “Oh, no, nothing much. Jimmy Handley was killed in an automobile wreck on the overhead bridge; Charles Herbie Burton was killed by Garland Weddington; and Mrs. Amos blew off her husband’s head, cut off his legs and buried him in a hog lot. Just the usual stuff around here.”

There was nothing usual about an automobile wreck death in Hurricane in 1945, much less a murder and more particularly, one involving a hog lot burial.

Norman had been one of the on-lookers when the body of Pearl Martin Amos was dug up on Tuesday, September 25, 1945, after it had been buried three weeks earlier on September 6, 1945. He reported that the stench at the scene was over-powering.

Norman was among the first to learn of the Amos murder as a brother of Mrs. Amos approached R.F. Forth, Norman’s father and publisher of The Hurricane Breeze, and asked him what his sister should do. He advised the brother to tell her to confess the murder to the authorities, which she later did.

The Breeze family relives memories of the “Hog Lot Murder” on every drive-by of the site where the Pearl Martin Amos house once stood on Teays Valley Road. Today (2025), there is a brick structure on the exact site. The hog lot was located on the bank to the rear of O’Reilly Auto Parts.

The Pearl Martin Amos Murder story was re-told in the September 3, 2015 issue of the Breeze. Many people have heard of the murder, but few possess memories of it. Following the 2015 publication, Daisy Thornton of Buffalo (now deceased) told the Breeze that she and several Buffalo Academy classmates attended the trial on a civics class field trip.

Gruesome Story Told by Widow of Murdered Mate
September 28, 1945

Mrs. Elizabeth Amos, of Hurricane, who was brought to Winfield Tuesday (September 25, 1945) by Sheriff C.A. Vaughn, who served a murder warrant on her in the Cabell County Jail, after she had given herself up to the State Police at Barboursville, for the murder of her husband, Pearl Martin Amos, 42, told a gruesome story of the slaying of her husband and burial of him on September 6, at their home 3 miles east of Hurricane on Route 34.

The Amos’ lived on a four acre farm, east of Hurricane, where Sheriff C.A. Vaughn, Elton E. Allen, local Mortician, and a party of diggers exhumed the body from a crude grave only 2 feet deep, Tuesday afternoon (September 25, 1945).

The 41-year-old mine section boss had been struck in the back of the head by a shotgun charge, and in the grave beside him were the severed legs, which had been sawed off to make the body fit the grave. The body was fully clothed, and the feet had a pair of dress oxfords on.

After the body had been exhumed, 11-year-old Pearl Martin Amos, Jr., was brought to the farm from the home of a neighbor. The Sheriff said the boy took officers to the home and produced the saw used to saw off the legs. “The boy told that his mother had used the hacksaw to cut off the man’s legs so the body would fit in the grave,” Sheriff Vaughn retorted. “The legs apparently had been cut off after the body had been taken to the grave.”

Before the body was exhumed Mrs. Amos told Vaughn, “You will not find much head on him,” but she did not tell of the sawing off of the legs, until later, when she was under question. Sheriff Vaughn said that she showed no emotions or excitement whatever, until they asked her why she sawed the legs off. Then she broke down and cried, and asked him “not to mention it again.”

Mrs. Amos told her story to officers on Tuesday (September 25, 1945). Sheriff Vaughn continued, relating that her husband had pointed out the freshly dug grave to her and said it was to be her burial place. Then, the Sheriff quoted her, Amos reached for a blackjack behind a sofa at their home and said, “Now you time has come; I’ll beat you up right.”

They scuffled for a few minutes. The sheriff said, Mrs. Amos related and she grabbed a shotgun standing nearby and fired.

Earlier in the day, the Sheriff related, Amos had told his son before he left for school to tell his mother goodbye because he was not “going to see her again.”

Buried at Midnight

Amos’ body was dragged on a small scooter sled, about 700 feet from the house at midnight, the sheriff said he was informed, quoting the boy as relating that his mother pulled the sled and he pushed it. Amos was described as six feet two inches tall and weighing 210 pounds. Mrs. Amos weighs only 115.

The route to the grave led up a slope, past a poultry pen, and over a hog fence to the pit, in a hog lot. The hogs had been fenced off from the end of the pit where the grave was.

Sheriff Vaughn, in a statement to this paper Thursday afternoon, (September 27, 1945) said that he had found no clues to show that Mrs. Amos had had help in the slaying and burial of her husband other than their 11-year-old son, Pearl, Jr., who had helped with the crude burial. He had been investigating the possibility that there could have been a third party or parties connected in the case, but as yet had been unable to uncover any evidence to show this to have been the case. Sheriff Vaughn had been instructed by C.E. Copen, Prosecuting Attorney, to investigate this angle of the case, who had held the preliminary hearing over from Wednesday afternoon (September 26, 1945) until this afternoon (Friday) in order that a more thorough investigation could be made.

In the party which exhumed the body were: Sheriff C.A. Vaughn, Deputy Sheriff H.E. Stricklin, State Trooper D.J. Gilbert, Elton E. Allen, Mortician, Dr. R.W. Bailey, Albert Davis, Malcolm Wood and Fred Sowards.

Mr. T.W. Peyton of Barboursville, an attorney, disclosed that Mrs. Amos, becoming conscience stricken, after concealing the slaying for 3 weeks, told her story to him Monday night (September 24, 1945) after going to his home with a brother, Earl Hagerman of Bartley, McDowell County, and an official of a coal company. Then she surrendered to a State Trooper at Barboursville, and was placed in the Cabell County Jail, where Sheriff C.A. Vaughn served the murder warrant on her Tuesday morning (September 25, 1945).

Sheriff Vaughn said that neighbors told him that Amos frequently abused his wife, beating her about the head and body with a blackjack. The boy related that his father had abused him and literally kicked him out of the house on occasions and had burned his feet with lighted cigarette butts.

The Amoses had been married for 14 years, Mr. Hagerman said, and had lived at Page, Atwell, Marianna, Cabin Creek and Hurricane, before moving to the small farm about 18 months ago.

Amos’ body was buried in the Mount Vernon cemetery Thursday by the Allen Funeral Home.

Judge Pronounces Sentence in Amos Case
Excerpts from November 9, 1945 issue of the Breeze

The Putnam County Circuit Court jury returned a verdict of involuntary manslaughter late yesterday (Thursday) against Mrs. Elizabeth Amos, 34, of Hurricane, in the shotgun slaying of her coal mine foreman husband, Pearl Martin Amos.

Circuit Judge John W. Hereford pronounced a sentence of twelve months in the County Jail and a fine of $100.00 on Mrs. Amos. The defendant took the sentence calmly, as she did the whole court proceedings.

Judge Hereford in pronouncing the sentence told the defendant that she had done wrong to take the law into her own hands. He declared that she had lived in five different counties in the state and had never called on the law for protection. He stated further that instead of asking help from the law, she took the law into her own hands, which is wrong. Judge Hereford told Mrs. Amos in his remarks that the Jury had been very lenient in pronouncing the verdict.

This verdict and sentence climaxed what was probably the most sensational trial ever held in the Circuit Court of Putnam County. During the three days of the trial, the court room was jammed to overflowing, and the number of persons attending the trial probably doubled the population of the town of Winfield, in which it was held. The restaurant facilities in Winfield were inadequate for such an unusual number, and the members of the Methodist Church made a Canteen on the Court House lawn to feed the crowd.

Mrs. Amos was on trial for her life for shooting her 41-year-old husband, Pearl Martin Amos, on September 6th at their four-room home about three miles east of Hurricane, on Route 34.

Tells Story of Shooting and Burial

In telling her story to the Court, Mrs. Amos related that her husband had come home on the evening of September 5th, drunk and had three pints of whiskey. Immediately, she related, her husband began quarreling with her because his supper was not ready, although he knew that she was not expecting him home. During the night, she continued, he frequently arose to drink more of the whiskey and on these occasions would beat her and Pearl, Jr., with a blackjack which he kept under his pillow.

“I’m gonna kill me a damn woman,” she quoted her husband. “I must have finally dosed off,” she said, “Because when I got up about 7:10 a.m. he started quarreling at me for oversleeping.” She continued that she went to the kitchen and started breakfast and Amos came into the kitchen and struck her on the arm and shoulder with a chair, and hit her with his fists. Her head, she said, struck a nail in the wall, cutting a two-inch gash in her scalp.

After breakfast Amos told his son to tell his mother good-bye. “He started crying,” said his mother “but I told him not to cry, if I left I’d take him with me.”

The widow said that after the boy went to school her husband took a nap on the couch in the living room and placed a blackjack under the end of the couch. Then, she said, her husband woke up and reached for his blackjack. “I knew he was going to kill me,” she sobbed at this point.

“As he raised up, I reached for the shotgun and must have shot him, for when I came to myself, I was sitting on the floor by him crying.” She said that she did not remember pulling the trigger, and had not previously fired a gun.

Continuing her story, Mrs. Amos stated that she vaguely remembered walking to Teays for groceries, although she did not know what she had purchased. Returning home about 1 p.m., she said she dragged the body into the bedroom and began removing the blood stains from the floor and wall of the living room. She stated that her son returned from school about 5 o’clock.

After dark, the frail, dark-haired woman continued, a small child’s sled was brought into the house and the then stiff body tied onto it. Together she and her 11-year-old son pulled the loaded sled over the dew-wet grass to the grave. She said that she returned to the house twice, once for pliers and once for the hack saw. She went for pliers to cut the wire around the hog lot.

The grave was dug in one corner of the hog lot near the house. Mrs. Amos testified that her husband had told her that it was to be her last resting place. A state’s witness testified that Amos had told him that he was making the excavation to build a hog house. The hole was reputedly dug sometime in the late spring or early summer.

Mrs. Amos continued her story of how she and her son got the stiff body to the grave the y saw that the body was too big for the hole and she severed his legs near the knees to “make him fit” and covered him with two feet of dirt after which time they both went back to the house.

On September 19, she wrote her brother, Earl Hagerman of Bartley asking him to come to her home. He arrived on September 21 and took her to the home of their mother in Bartley, WV.

Mrs. Amos related that while Mr. Amos was courting her he was always kind and considerate toward her. Mrs. Amos stated that their first quarrel came only a few months after their marriage and continued throughout their 13 years of marriage. She revealed a tragic story of blackjack beatings, fistcuffs, and beatings with chairs, etc. She stated that he had repeatedly threatened to kill her, her son and her mother if Mrs. Amos should leave him. She added that I was the fear that he would kill her mother and family that made her stay with him for the thirteen years of their marriage.

The testimony for the state and the defense was completed on Thursday morning about 10 o’clock at which time Mr. T.W. Peyton attorney for the defense stated “Don’t pay any attention to the testimony about the legs being sawed off. That isn’t the indictment charge.” Mr. Peyton continued, “The soul of man rebels at continued persecution and Mrs. Amos was incapable of judging right from wrong in her act of self-defense.”

Prosecuting Attorney C.E. Copen stated that “We know nothing about this man (Amos) except what the woman who killed him said.” He urged the jurors to disregard character witnesses who described the murdered man as a “mean, vicious, and dangerous man.” Mr. Copen also stated in his address to the jury: “the State takes the position that she is guilty of murder in the first degree.” The Prosecutor declared “that without benefit of clergy, song or prayer, the 42-year-old miner was buried like a beast in a hog lot.”

The jury deliberated approximately four and one-half hours before giving the decision of involuntary manslaughter.

Jurors Serving

The jurors, consisting of six farmers, five plant workers, and one store owner were:

Vinton Null, Robertsburg; A.I. Winkler, foreman, Hurricane; A.D. Craigo, Poca; Calvin Ball, Winfield; W.W.Watson, Winfield; C.S. Tribble, Red House; Leonard Anderson, Winfield; Enock Stover, Nitro; C.A. McCallister, Byrnside; S.T. Canterbury, Winfield; Stanley Young, Hamlin; Bart Schuler, Winfield.