Next Stop, Eternity

Chapter 3

The Enigmatic Clarence Bagwell

After decades of wondering how and why the likable Clarence Bagwell could have gone so wrong, I decided to visit his hometown to search for answers. The Bagwells had, over a century and a half earlier, settled near the city of Brevard, North Carolina, a picturesque little town where the Main Street shops and restaurants and the quaint old courthouse seem to leap from the folios of early Americana.

Defining the city is Brevard College with its renowned school of music, which is widely recognized for its teaching program and the eclectic concerts that are featured on the campus. The upscale society stemming from the school transcends the condition of poverty that is common throughout much of Appalachia. Customs and traditions from an earlier time survive in the surrounding hills, and the area is known for its cool summers and blaze-colored autumns that draw tourists in droves.

Brevard is the seat of government for Transylvania County, an area where native Cherokee tribesmen fished the clear streams for brook trout and roamed the ridges and valleys in search of wild game, fruits, nuts and berries.

The Bagwells came when Scots and Irish settlers were pushing civilization ever westward across the continent and clearing land for farming. They were proud pioneers who were fiercely independent, and they tended to ignore unjust, or just inconvenient, laws. Many built stills and sampled freely from Mason jars filled with what they called “white lightning” or “moonshine.”

The Bagwell clan was established in the region before the Civil War, and their men went off to fight. Family legend has it that, while the men were away battling for the Confederacy, Union soldiers harassed many of the women and raped at least one.

In those hills, a man’s word was his bond, and business deals were sealed with a promise and a handshake.

Such were the conditions into which Clarence Bagwell was born in 1908 and nurtured.

In Search of the Real Clarence Bagwell

It is hard to fathom the enigma that was Clarence Bagwell. Webster’s dictionary defines one of the meanings of enigma as “something that is a riddle or inexplicable.” If ever such a definition applied to an individual man, it applied to Clarence, the hard drinking fellow who was well liked by nearly everyone who knew him. However, he was a self-willed young man who was ready and able to rumble on a moment’s notice. He was a chap who accepted pay to commit a murder, but he was neither a thief nor a robber. He was a big hearted individual with impulsive instincts and he repented of his crime and begged forgiveness from God and his victim’s family.

The story of Sue and George Logue has been fully explored and narrated during the seventy years since they and Bagwell were executed. However, no one has delved deeply into the background of Bagwell, the Logue’s hired gunman who shot Davis Timmerman. This narrative is to provide insight into the complexities that defined the man the locals called “Buster.”