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THE MURDER OF MARSHALL DARSEY |
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Saturday night, 8:15 PM May 12th, 1933. Just before closing his fish market located on Old Dixie Highway about one hundred feet south of Hammondville Road in Pompano, Robert Marshall Darsey and his daughter Myrtle counted the receipts of the day's business. This amounted to ninety six dollars and a few cents. For this small amount of money, Marshall was going to forfeit his life. Myrtle Darsey was a graduate and Valdictorian of the first class of Pompano High School numbering eight students in the year 1928. S.C. Fox was Principal,and Marion Walton was Salutorian, the remaining class members were : Edger Shiver, Bernard Cheshire, Walter Kahlo, Thomas Chapman, Jr. Gretchen Raines, and Irma Courson. About 8:30 PM, Myrtle decided to leave a little early as she wanted to stop and visit with the Maddox family. She left their house to go home, which was located about the seven hundred block of old Dixie Highway North. She arrived there sometime after 9:00 PM and not finding her Father home decided he must have stayed a little late at the market. Marshall Darsey left the fish market somewhere in the time frame of 9:00 PM and started walking toward his home. He was seen at the intersection of Dixie and Hammondville by J.E. Garner and his wife (My Mother and Dad) who lived just across the railroad tracks from Marshall. They remarked that he probably wanted to walk home as he usually did and they continued on. Standing behind the north wall of Mulkeys garage which was about one block north of the Hammondville road intersection, in the dark shadows, four men with wooden clubs waited for fifty seven year old Marshall Darsey to appear. When he did, they beat him repeatedly about the head and face and knocked him to the ground, grabbed the handmade money satchel that held the days receipts of ninety six dollars and ran leaving Marshall lying on the ground. Sometime during the night after Myrtle had gone home and retired, she heard a noise like someone falling over on the porch. When she went outside she saw her father slumped over the porch rail and groaning, She thought he was sick and put her arm around him, and it was then she saw and felt the blood he was covered with. She started screaming. There was a nurse staying next door at Ord Greens house and she came over and did what she could until Dr. Mc Clellan arrived. Marshall Darsey died Sunday May 13th from the severe beating he had received. The bloody trail he left on the sidewalk gave testimony to the determination and will to live he had. It went from Mulkeys garage north to Ord Greens porch, which he evidently thought was his house, back out on the sidewalk and up the street to his porch. He could not even knock on the door for help. The beating he received was too much for him, and he died without ever speaking another word. A massive manhunt for the murderers began, and as it progressed a report was made to the police about a black man who was seen carrying a bloody shirt. After he was apprehended, he confessed and dug-up the homemade money satchel and the clubs used in the beating. He implicated three other men and they were arrested, tried and convicted of the murder of Marshall Darsey. The conviction and sentencing were overturned, and a new trial was set. It was held in West Palm Beach , and the men were released. It is ironic that the trial judge in West Palm Beach that released them was Judge Chillingsworth. In later years he and his wife were murdered after being abducted from their beach front home. They were taken out to sea tied up with chains and dropped overboard from a boat. Their bodies were never recovered, but their murderers were caught and served time in prison. The murder of Marshall was probably responsible for the careers in law enforcement of three members of the Darsey family. John Darsey, his son, was Chief of Police in Pompano, his grandson, Robert Mitchell served as a patrolman in Pompano and as a Deputy Sheriff in Broward County, and Morgan Ritter, who married Myrtle Darsey served on the Pompano Police Force. This murder caused many hard feelings in Pompano. Marshall Darsey never made much money at his fish market, the reason being he never refused credit to anyone that asked him for it. And he died for the paltry amount of ninety six dollars. |