Beyond the Green Widow: Consequences of the Piney Woods Creek Murders of 1921

Prohibition began as a well-intentioned and earnest effort by politicians and temperance movement leaders to stem the tide of evils threatening Americans due to the use of alcohol. However, none could have envisioned how differently and disastrously the period would end. Former President Herbert Hoover referred to Prohibition as "the great social and economic experiment." The good intentions inspiring these thirteen years were juxtaposed with the rise of the very criminal acts that the Volstead Act sought to curtail.

The evils of the Prohibition period rocked the citizens of two sleepy little Mississippi towns, Leakesville and Richton, to their cores. U.S. Treasury Special Agent Jacob "Jake" Francis Green and Richton Town Marshal Lawrence Dunnam were gunned down on April Fool's Day of 1921 when attempting to shut down an illegal moonshine still and arrest its operators. Little did the officers know that four men were waiting to murder them. Someone had tipped off the moonshiners. From that day on, the trajectory of the lives of members of these two families took a markedly different path.

As Jake Green's youngest grandchild, author Juanita Green Hollinghead's quest for the truth led her on a journey of discovery that became her life's mission. The facts she has uncovered are astounding as she brings to life this riveting account of the true-crime event that shaped her family's history. Perhaps other survivors want to understand better the process of how and where to find clues to the truth of their families' tragic events.