Under Martial Law, the Alabama National Guard Used
Bonfires to Destroy Seized Evidence Linking
Out-of-State Gambling Equipment Manufacturers to Phenix City.

Meanwhile, gambling had already been legalized and taxed in Nevada and other areas of the USA since the early 1930's. But those legal and taxed companies in Nevada and elsewhere also still did business with illicit operators, such as those in Phenix City, Alabama. The gambling equipment used in Alabama was not manufactured in Alabama. But hiding those connections would protect the political establishment in Alabama if things went wrong, as they did in Phenix City, Alabama, in June 1954 when Albert Patterson was murdered.

Attorney Albert Patterson was running for elected office, for Attorney General of the State of Alabama, on a pledge to the voters to clean up Phenix City, when he was murdered. One of the things which (Albert) Patterson wanted to expose were those connections to out-of-state gambling corporations. But after the National Guard destroyed the evidence they could find using the bonfires, this fact is now almost lost to history.

Note that before June 1954, the Revenue Department of the State of Alabama was requiring that revenue stamps of the appropriate amount be affixed to all the gambling equipment in the state, even though it was all illegal. The state government was also making money from the vice.

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Cecil Padgett, the prosecution's chief eye-witness against Chief Deputy Sheriff Albert Fuller who was convicted and spent about 9 or 10 years behind bars for the murder of Albert Patterson, suddenly appeared again in Phenix City visiting and gossiping in a local attorney's office around late 1964 or early 1965, and perjured himself in relation to his testimony against Arch Ferrell and Albert Fuller both. (The trials were almost identical in terms of the witnesses called to testify from both defense and prosecution.)

I've been trying to find out this missing fact, but I still don't know who the attorney was who heard or read the original perjury from Cecil Padgett, but shortly thereafter the state parole board under Gov. George Wallace granted parole to Albert Fuller. Likewise, Attorney Arch Ferrell was reinstated before the state bar and again began to practice law in Phenix City. This was due to Padgett's gossiping and perjuring himself to a certain local attorney, now shared openly with all Phenix City attorneys even into the new century.

This perjury is still accepted as legal fact in the Alabama state courts today, and among most or all Phenix City attorneys in 2017.

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I found this old newspaper clipping in a box of really old things. I had never seen it before in my whole life. The article was not in any old scrapbooks of my mom's. I think I found it back around 1996 or 1997 before the books about the Phenix City scandal popped up in the late 1990's.

Someone by the name of Calvin Pruitt, in prison at the time in Virginia, confessed to the murder of Albert Patterson on Dec. 11, 1958 though it appears that Pruitt was not considered reliable. But here is a copy of a Columbus Ledger-Enquirer newspaper article about this confession:

• Page 1.

• Page 1-a

• Page 1-b

• Page 2

• Page 2-a

Note that this person in state prison in Virginia who seemed to have confessed, is not the same one mentioned below who was theoretically released from Federal prison just to commmit the murder, then returned to the prison.

My own opinion from talking to one of the accused quite often when he was alive, my own uncle, and from reading everything I can, and doing some logical inference, I came to the following conclusions:

• The same state and local grand jury, or juries, that refused repeatedly to indict any of the "Phenix City gangsters" for various alleged crimes, was willing to indict Circuit Solicitor Arch Ferrell, Chief Deputy Sheriff Albert Fuller, and Alabama Attorney General Sy Garrett for various crimes they likely didn't commit. That is what actually occurred. I heard my own mother repeat that sentence over and over again. She typed at least some of the indictments herself on a typewriter, for her own brother, and father, the Circuit Solicitors, aka, the "D.A.'s", here and there. This means that law enforcement in Russell County Alabama, before the cover ups of "Sin City", had their hands tied behind their backs, so to speak. This is the nature of things when organized crime is in control.

• Gov. Folsom, Gov. Persons, Arch Ferrell, Albert Fuller, and Sy Garrett were all part of the same general political group that are associated with re-legalizing alcohol in Alabama at the end of prohibition there. The bootleggers in the Phenix City/Columbus Georgia area were all put out of business when alcohol became legal in all respects by 1951.

  So despite what the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer after 1951 is always stating falsely about "Phenix City bootleggers", that was no longer a big problem there by 1954, when Patterson was shot. However, perhaps alcohol was smuggled out of there into dry counties???

  Not sure who the newspaper were referring to in terms of "bootleggers" after 1951 when the last vestiges of prohibition were repealed and mixed-drink alcoholic beverages became legal again.

  The next step there would've been legalizing and taxing gambling, but I don't think that was politically posssible in Alabama and Phenix City in 1950, so the outcome would always have been some shut down of the vices in Phenix City eventually.

• Garrett, Fuller and Ferrell were innocent of the crime of murdering Patterson, had nothing to do with it. I think that Ferrell, Garrett, and Fuller were framed and punished for allowing the enemies of gambling and other vices to succeed in getting all of that shut down in Alabama, etc., after Patterson's murder, so they were punished for losing the accounts and mutually profitable business for both in and out of state gambling interests by becoming the fall guys for the actual murderer; at least Fuller took the fall for an assassin sent from out-of-state.

  Albert Patterson succeeded in his attempt to try and bring the whole thing down in Phenix City, but some of the losers would be out of state corporations now increasingly involved in legal gambling around the USA, and who were being kicked out anyway after the National Guard set bonfires to burn up the evidence manufactured out of state (roulette tables, slot machines, other gambling paraphanelia), martial law, and so forth.

  These are some of the same powerful gambling industry interests who were involved in both legal and illegal gambling around the USA at that time, and who were routinely paying off everyone to keep their own names out of any such scandals as what occurred in Phenix City, and to have large bonfires set to destroy all the physical evidence against them. The political powers in Alabama, closely associated with the Phenix City political powers, were fully aware of the problems created by all the illegality, but would rather tax and control it rather than shut it down.

  Remember that the books written about the scandal leave out most any facts related to these out-of-state gambling equipment manufacturers, pretending that everything in Phenix City was manufactured in Alabama!

• Arch Ferrell told me he had learned a theory the assassin was released from a Federal peneteniary to commit the murder, then returned to that prison where he resided. (This is not the one from the state prision in Virginia as shown above!!!) Arch also stated that he didn't know who committed the murder.

• There were no movie theatres in Columbus, Georgia at that time; all the movie theatres and night entertainment for Columbus and Phenix City were all in Phenix City at that time as this was also considered "sinful". I'm sure the ultra-puritans in Columbus also considered legal alcohol to be worse than bootleg. Phenix City was where everyone in the area went to have fun; Columbus was the working city.

  The loosely organized political group that ran Phenix City including Arch Ferrell, Albert Patterson, and Albert Fuller were already doing everything openly and publicly. They were routinely and openly fining and otherwise regulating many aspects of the "vice" businesses. There were no "secrets" or hidden things in Phenix City, so the expose's are somewhat boring. There was a lot of "semi-legal" gambling and other vices remaining in 1954. But everything was pretty much on main street, fully visible, and always had been.

• The position of Cicruit Solicitor was rotated among Phenix City lawyers. Eventually, it would be Patterson's turn to be the "D.A." Patterson became the only "rogue" lawyer in the Phenix City scandals.

• RE: photos of National Guard destroying evidence.

  There was no attempt to indict out-of-state gambling interests in the Phenix City scandals, though this was a major part of it.

• Arch Ferrell was an alcoholic at the time of the murder, but was luckily not drunk or impaired the day and night of the murder. So he was able to give strong testimony which was believed by the jury. He was actually on the phone with Attorney General Sy Garrett at the moment the murder took place. Bell Telephone Company operators were called to testify during the murder trial of Arch Ferrell concerning these operator handled long-distance phone calls. And law enforcement from Federal, Georgia, and Alabama at both state and local levels all testified that Albert Fuller was at the county jail at the moment of the murder.

• Despite numerous out-of-state connections, the entire scandal was pretty much kept within the borders of Alabama. This was very carefully controlled indictment process for only those involved in the State of Alabama.

• At the time of the murder, Arch Ferrell was Commander of the American Legion for the State of Alabama. Albert Fuller also held that position either before or after Ferrell. Arch Ferrell served in U.S. Army during WWII, under General George Patton at one time, starting out as a private, winding up a captain, and Fuller was also a veteran of WWII as was Albert Patterson.
  
  
  
  
  

  
  Arch Ferrell While Drunk in
  1943 While Attending OCS at Fort Benning.

  
  
  
  

  (The author of this website saved that image on his own computer many years ago before it disappeared from the internet. I recall that someone at either the University of Florida, or at Florida State University had posted it.)

• There is a photo of Arch Ferrell while drunk published on the internet. This is a photo of Ferrell being arrested and taken away by M.P.'s while somewhat drunk. This photo was actually taken in 1943 when Arch was in the U.S. Army attending OCS, Officers' Candidate School at Fort Benning, Georiga during World War II. He graduated from OCS and attained the rank of Captain, so the use of this photo to represent his arrest and indictment in the Phenix City scandals, is malicious and misrepresents the facts.

• Incidentally, Arch quit using alcohol, with the help of AA - Alcoholics Anonymous, for the rest of his life beginning in May 1962, and lived a long and happy life among friends, family, and clients in Phenix City, and never carried a gun.

• While Arch Ferrell continued to live in Phenix City for the rest of his life, John Patterson left the city and never returned except to visit.

• Some of the witness's depictions of Arch's personality and other traits in both of his trials, where he was acquitted of all charges in both trials, was so false and distorted that I think this destroyed the credibility of the prosecution's entire case for both indictments.

  I read the books that have parts of the transcripts of the Fuller and Ferrell trials both, and almost the precise same witnesses and stories were presented to both of the juries, where Fuller was found guilty, and Ferrell not.

• I think Garrett, Fuller and Ferrell were all totally innocent of the murder of Albert Patterson and should not have been indicted, and Fuller should not have gone to prison. But they were part of the old group running the city.

• Fuller had just killed a bootlegger in the line of duty not long before the murder of Patterson took place, so there could've been some revengeful attitudes working against him and Ferrell both, though it was Arch Sr. as Circuit Solicitor (D.A.) that was present at the shooting in the line of duty of the unfortunate bootlegger, along with a large group of other law enforcement people who all backed up Fuller's story that he shot tbe bootlegger in self-defense.

  The local law enforcement was pretty lax in terms of all of this, and were heavily criticized for that. But when they strictly enfoced the law by indicting and attempting to arrest this bootlegger who was ultimately killed while being arrested, a backlash occurred. So they couldn't win either way.

• The two surviving Ferrell attorneys in Phenix City met with John Patterson at a public function related to legal matters a few years before the Ferrells passed away, and exchanged pleasantries. Pelham told me that John Patterson was very polite and genuinely kind to him and Arch. This was a major "break-through" in historical relations between the two families after the murder and scandal, and so forth.

  Note that neither the Ferrells, nor the Pattersons, nor I, actually know who killed Albert Patterson as far as I know. Joe Mathews who died in 2009, the nephew of the impeached Sheriff from during the scandal, told me a few years ago that he might be able to find out who did it. But I told him I didn't want to know who did it, as I was not even born yet at the time of the murder.

If we look at photos of Albert Fuller taken before and after the murder, scandal, martial law, and total cleanup, he looks like a crook before Albert Patterson died. I mean Albert Fuller looks wicked in all the photos taken of him prior to the death of Albert Patterson.

But if we look at photos of Albert Fuller taken after Patterson's death, he looks saintly in all of them, as if he had a halo over his head. I'm referring to the convicted murderer of Albert Patterson who was granted parole after Padgett's perjury. But looks can be deceiving.

See for yourself.

NOTE: Around 1971 or so, the first legal gambling facility in Alabama was coming into existence. As evidence of what I'm saying above is true, the attorney hired to handle some or all of the paperwork for this legal greyhound dog track near Mobile, Alabama, was Pelham Ferrell of Phenix City, Alabama. The two Ferrell attorneys and their wives, my mother and other relatives and friends were all invited to the grand opening of this brand new legal and taxed gambling facility as V.I.P. guests. Note that neither of the Ferrell attorneys advertised or did business anywhere near Mobile, so this was a very unusual event, and seems to be some sort of "payback" for what happened to Arch Ferrell's career 1954-1965.

The general public has been fed some bullshit regarding the Phenix City scandals of 1954-1959, or so. Someone is paying people to write books with a few lies, that's for sure.