TN - Phillip Meshew, 15, found hanged with signs of torture and SA, death declared an accident - September 29th, 1968

[BuriedInjustice]

This a repost of a write-up that I made on reddit last week. It's an obscure story that I came across while searching through newspaper archives. There's very limited info on it but it doesn't sit right with me.

It was a Sunday morning on September 29th, 1968. Usually, Jean Pierre Meshew would be getting ready for church, as he was a reverend at his local Episcopal church. This morning however, he will not be attending church. The previous night at around 7:30pm, his son, 15 year old Phillip Meshew, left home to presumably play in a large wooded area located around The Forest Hill Cemetery area, a favorite spot of his. Phillip didn't come home that night. Worried, his parents notified authorities of their missing son. At 5:30am, Hamilton County deployed rescue units to search the areas where Phillip’s parents thought he would possibly be. At around 9am, a county rescue worker made a disturbing discovery.

On a hill overlooking the southwest corner of the cemetery, off in a wooded area, the body of Phillip Meshew was found hanging by the neck at the base of a small tree. He was also nude except for his shoes and socks with his clothes folded neatly near his body. The noose was a thin cotton rope with a sweatshirt lining the noose, padding out the neck. The branch that the noose was tied around was broken, likely from the weight of Phillip. His body was noted to have been covered in small burns and some papers report Meshew as having been “sexually mutilated”. Dr. George Beckmann Jr., the Hamilton County medical examiner, said that the cause of death was asphyxiation from the rope. Beckmann also added that Meshew had been “brutally sexually assaulted and tortured with cigarettes”. He waited to make an official ruling for the cause of death until he received toxicology results from the State Lab of Toxicology in Nashville.

The Chattanooga Police Commissioner, James E. “Bookie” Turner arrived on scene and immediately block it from the public and the press. Turner took personal charge of the case as he had been friends with the Meshew family due to their sons attending the same school. About Phillip, Turner said, “He was a great kid”. He otherwise said very little to the press, not allowing them anywhere near the scene, but stated that the case was “an atrocious act of murder”. He reportedly put all available detectives that he could on the case.

Police interviewed the cemetery caretaker, William Thompson Jr. Thompson reported seeing Meshew and some other boys playing in the woods around 3 - 3:30pm on Saturday, with him stating that Phillip was a frequent visitor of the cemetery. He then saw Phillip return later that day on bicycles with a friend to walk around the cemetery near the office for a while before leaving. Meshew then returned to the area by himself. Thompson locked up the cemetery around 7pm, noting that the only two people he saw were “two old ladies picking up plastic flowers at a dump”. Before he left, he did his rounds around the cemetery, taking him by the area where Phillip was found and said he saw no one. Thompson then returned at 7am the next morning.

The investigation lead into Monday the 30th. The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation sent down agent Joe Hanhan to help with the probe into what happened to Meshew. Certain items at the scene were sent off to the TBI labs in Nashville, but there was no elaboration on what the items were. Authorities were still tight-lipped about the affair with Lt. Jack Robb telling the press that “the investigation is going on”, adding, “ but if anything gets out it could hinder us.” That same day at 11am, the funeral services for Phillip were held at the Thankful Memorial Episcopal Church where his dad was the rector. It would be officiated by Rt. Rev. John Vander Horst and William E. Sanders. His body would then be sent to Barlow, Kentucky to be buried.

Philip Meshew was born in Cairo, Illinois. He came to Chattanooga in 1966 with his 4 other siblings. Friends and neighbors all remarked that Philip “was a good kid” who was “well liked”. He was a sophomore at Chattanooga City High School in autumn of 1968. His father, Jean Pierre Meshew, was ordained into the Episcopal church in 1967. Before that he was a deacon for the Thankful Memorial Episcopal Church, which drew the family out to Chattanooga. Jean had met Phillip’s mother, Janet, in Cairo during her time in nursing school and the two got married, having Phillip in 1953. Janet had several interests aside from nursing including art and political activism, with her marching for civil rights in the 1960s and writing letters to politicians. She even quit nursing later on and become a taxi driver and cook on a shrimp boat.

11 days after the discovery of Phillip Meshew’s body, Dr. George Beckmann Jr. ruled his cause of death to be “asphyxiation due to an accident”. Despite the police saying that “it was an atrocious act of murder” initially, they agreed with Dr. Beckmann’s findings. Nothing else was given out as explanation for how the "accident” happened. Same went for any updates on the nature of the reported injuries and mutilation. After October 11th, 1968, there hasn’t been any new information relating to this case as far as online archives go.

SOURCES

"Minister's Son Found Tortured"

“St. Elmo Rector’s Son Found Dead” Chattanooga Times Free Press September 30th, 1968

“Minister’s Son Found Tortured and Hanged” Winston-Salem Journal September 30th, 1968

“Minister’s Son Found Hanged” The Tennessean September 30th, 1968

“Hanged Boy Buried; Probe Continues” The Tennessean October 1st, 1968

“Death Ruled Accidental” Danville Register and Bee October 10th, 1968

Janet Meshew's Obituary

 

[BuriedInjustice]

Commercial Appeal
October 1st, 1968​

 

[BuriedInjustice]

Chattanooga Times Free Press
September 30th, 1968​

 

[BuriedInjustice]

Chattanooga Times Free Press
September 30th, 1968​

 

[Jade]

Oh my, I was just there this week. In the north west corner. I’ve been to a burial in the south west corner with the hill to the back. Gorgeous and peaceful in its glory of spring bloom.
I had no idea of Phillip Meshew.

My first thought went to a drifter lurking from the near by extremely active rail lines bustling with the both passenger and freight then that to this day has freight trains with drifters and travelers.

Im super interested in reading all the replies to your other post.

Most odd I wonder why Bookie Turner had no (known?) further public comments about the case being ruled accidental when he was so sure it was otherwise.

Bookie Turner was co founder of Turner Funeral Home and was the youngest appointed county coroner in the US, he claimed. In light of that his assessment holds weight, imo, that in addition to being Chattanooga’s Police Commissioner in whose jurisdiction the crime took place and saying he was personally affected by the death.

Although under indictment for bootlegging and, imo, considered corrupt he won his election and was popular. Why didn’t this powerful man solve this crime? Or make a public proclamation of status?

I can’t get it to link on my device but this information is from The Chattanoogan.com article by local attorney and historian Jerry Summers titled: How Bookie Turner Got Acquitted

Has Jerry Summers ever commented or been asked about this case?

Welcome to Websleuths.

 

[BuriedInjustice]

Good question, I wasn't even aware of Jerry Summers.

Yeah Bookie Turner seemed to have be involved in some pretty deep corruption. He was involved in a Cash-for-Pardon scheme near the end of his tenure that eventually led to Tennessee governor Ray Blanton being forced out of office. Interestingly, the primary witness in both pardon scandal and his 1967 federal whiskey racket conspiracy trial was a man named William Thompson who was a bootlegger, club owner, and democratic party powerbroker. As far as I can tell, Thompson is not related to the gravedigger that had last seen Meshew alive. A William Thompson Jr. was not listed as being one of his children in his wife's obituary from 1973 (a very questionable death as well). It's an interesting note none the less. That whole corruption saga is a rabbit hole in itself.

This doesn't mean that Bookie Turner ruled in bad faith per say, as he did seem to put a lot of resources into the Meshew investigation. I do find the ruling to be very jarring at face value though. My best guess, if I'm to interpret the official ruling as being above board, is that Phillip engaged in auto-erotic asphyxiation, leading to an accidental death. That still doesn't explain the reported injuries though. That is unless they were misidentified as wounds made by a scavenging animal and that authorities had jumped to conclusions when faced with the scene of Phillip's death. It could also explain the vague ruling as an attempt to retain the dignity of the decedent and his family as a death of that nature would probably be thought of as embarrassing for locals to know about. It's hard to say without any specifics.