Outlaw was crazy like a fox, Thomas Jefferson "Red" Golemon. (original) (raw)

Instead, he showed up in Hull in Liberty County, where he and a man named Francis Smith robbed the Hull State Bank. The masked robbers locked two terrified employees in the vault, fled with $12,000 and then parted company.

Lawmen from Liberty and Hardin counties - aware that Golemon had friends and family ties in the area - went driving all over Southeast Texas warning people that it was a crime to harbor criminals.

Sure enough, he was hiding at the home of Houston relatives. One of his blood kin - perhaps heeding to the warning about harboring criminals -- called the cops.

After the Houston police delivered Goleman to officers in the Liberty County sheriff's department, he posted bail. Again he failed to appear for trial, choosing instead to disappear into the Big Thicket.

In December 1939 Golemon was identified as the man who robbed and shot a Beaumont taxi driver before stealing his cab.

In March 1940 he took a hostage but freed him - with strings attached. He let him go, providing that the man would help him rob a bank in Dayton.

OK. Sure. Anything he could do to help.

In advance of the robbery, Golemon planned to meet the man at a spot just west of Dayton.

However, it didn't go as planned. The would-be accomplice called the cops and went with them to the designated meeting place to wait for Golemon. They waited for quite a while.

Of course, he was a no-show. A fox knows when a trap is being set.

On April 11, 1940, Golemon finally was discovered hiding in a shed near his parents' home in Hardin County.

His story had a kind of Bonnie and Clyde ending, as he died in a barrage of gunfire. When he opened fire on the lawmen, they responded with a rain of bullets. His body was recovered inside the shed, riddled with bullet holes. He was 31 years old.

Curiosity seekers came from far and near, hoping to view the corpse. A carnival atmosphere took hold as "customers" paid 10 cents each to look at the shed where he was shot. They called it "the death house."

An estimated 4,000 people attended his funeral with vehicles lining up bumper-to-bumper.

Golemon is buried at the Old Hardin Cemetery.

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Wanda Orton Baytown Sun Columnist
"Wandering" July 15, 2015 columns