Lost letter frees man, prompts civil rights march

The surprise court introduction of a letter Friday morning, July 14, 1967, resulted later that day in the acquittal of J. W. Copling, Jr., a man standing trial for the murder of Clarence Trigg one year earlier on July 30, 1966, a Saturday evening in Bogalusa.

The defendant had attorney Ossie Brown to thank for his freedom.

Copling’s three-day trial ended at five that evening when the jury returned a verdict after deliberating only one hour.

When the trial opened Wednesday, July 12, District Attorney W. W. “Squinch” Erwin had succeeded in having District Judge Wallace Edwards grant separate trials for Copling and Richard Homer “Kingfish” Seale, another man indicted in the death of Clarence Trigg.

The court selected Jurors that Wednesday, and testimony began the following Thursday morning.

The letter introduced by defense attorney Ossie Brown of Baton Rouge was written by Bernadette Crain and addressed to former Bogalusa Police Chief Claxton Knight.

In the letter, Crain wrote Knight, claiming she killed Trigg after he attempted to force her to ride to a motel and have sex with him. She dated the letter October 5, 1966, but Ossie Brown did not subpoena the envelope and contents from Knight until after the 1967 trial began.

Earlier in the trial, Crain testified that she was with Copling and Seale the night of the murder and saw Copling shoot Trigg. She also confirmed that Chief Knight arrested the men after he interviewed her about the shooting.

Judge Edwards allowed Brown to introduce the letter into the record and return Crain to the stand for cross-examination. On the stand, she denied the contents of the letter were true and stood by her original testimony.

However, she could not explain to the court why she had written the letter.

Knight followed her on the stand, testifying to having “had possession of the letter since last October.” When the judge asked why he had not offered it to either the prosecution or defense, the retired police officer said he did not think it could be relevant to the case. “As far as I was concerned,” he said, “The Bogalusa Police Department closed that case some time ago.”

Before Bernadette Crain left the stand, District Attorney Erwin asked, “Can you tell the court when you wrote the letter presented today and whether anyone paid you to produce it after the fact?”

After Crain refused to answer on the grounds that her testimony might incriminate her, Ossie Brown had her confirm for the court that, since writing the letter, she had resided in Jackson and Mandeville as a patient at two state-operated mental hospitals.

Following the trial and reputed Ku Klux Klansman J. W. Cowling, Jr.’s release for the murder of Clarence Trigg, a black man, the Bogalusa Civic and Voters League organized a Civil Rights march from the courthouse in Franklinton to the steps of the Louisiana State Capitol in Baton Rouge.

The 105-mile march, led by civil rights activist A. Z. Young, started on August 10, 1967, and ended on a Sunday, August 20, 1967, one day after someone murdered store owner in Albany.

On August 21, 1967, Livingston Parish Sheriff Taft Faust charged Frank Brent McCarroll, 30, and Dick Cogley, 27, with the August 19, 1967 slaying of Mike Erdey, 50, operator of the OK Bar and Grocery on the Albany-Springfield Road. Both men pleaded not guilty.

Later, Cogley testified against McCarroll, and Cogley walked free.

At the trial, McCarroll’s attorney, Barbee Ponder argued that Cogley testified against Frank Brent McCarroll “to save his own hide.” He intimated that Cogley’s attorney, Ossie Brown “city-slickered” the district attorney’s office into a deal. He said, “This case has got large political aspects. This is a football.”

Ossie Brown later served as Baton Rouge City Court judge before the people of East Baton Rouge Parish elected him to serve as their district attorney. He held that seat from 1972 through 1984.

While he served as district attorney, the Louisiana State District Attorney’s Association elected him president, and he served on the executive council of the Louisiana Commission on Law Enforcement. Before he left office, the National District Attorney’s Association elected him their president.

In her 1974 book, The Dixie Mafia, author Darlene Kern described him this way:

“Ossie Brown is one of the best criminal lawyers in America. He was Carl Towhead White’s lawyer as well as the lawyer for many other top so-called Dixie Mafia characters. Right now, Ossie has gotten himself elected district attorney at East Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana, and is making his move to be governor of Louisiana soon. Like most of the lawyers representing connected types, Ossie appears as honest as they come. He’s so darn good that police and district attorneys and federal people routinely bad rapped him.”

After leaving the East Baton Rouge Parish District Attorney’s Office in 1984, Ossie returned to private practice. He retired in 2000, six years before his death of natural causes at 80-years-old.