On this evening in 1901, a mob of white people storms the jail in Rome, Tennessee, and abducts William Crutchfield, a Black man accused of stealing a white man’s wallet that somebody else had found on the street and given him.

Crutchfield escapes the mob and hides. The mob, unable to find him, goes to the home of his sister, Ballie Crutchfield, seizes and binds her, takes her to a nearby bridge, shoots her in the head, and dumps her body in the creek.

The next morning, the coroner’s jury attributes her death to “parties unknown.” Ms. Crutchfield is one of at least 235 Black people lynched in Tennessee between 1877 and 1950.