In 1934, Louisiana was the star of the newspapers. Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow’s reign of terror came to a sudden end near Gibsland, Louisiana but Louisiana had already been in the headlines all over the country for weeks before that due to a largely forgotten brutal murder that took place in Shreveport.
In 1934, an odd little vagrant was wandering the streets of Shreveport. Most folks considered him weird but harmless. DB Napier had come to town as a hobo on a freight train as did a lot of others. It was the Great Depression and a lot of folks did such as that. Napier had the curious habit of making little butterflies out of any scrap of material he could find and selling them to the citizens of Shreveport for a nickel apiece. This earned him the nickname of “The Butterfly Man.”
On April 12, 1934, Napier spoke to a Mrs. Peters who had a teenaged daughter named Mae Griffin. He told her that his wife was very ill and that he needed help around the house for the day. He asked specifically for “a white girl who needed some work.” Well as it turns out, Mae Griffin was looking to earn a little extra money. She was engaged to be married to a young man named Lee Looney of Board Camp, Arkansas. Mae was really wanting to save up enough money to get a new dress, shoes and stockings for her wedding day. Mrs. Peters mentioned that 16 year-old Mae was looking for work and asked her if she wanted to help. Mae had better instincts than most and told her mom she didn’t really like Napier but that she couldn’t pass up the opportunity to earn that $3. So she went with him.
Mae was led into the woods by Napier who then attacked her. He sexually assaulted her and stabbed her to death. The coroner would later testify that she had a lot of defensive wounds and that her hands were “cut to pieces.” Mae Griffin literally fought her attacker to her death. Once she was dead he dragged up some pieces of wood and attempted to burn her body. The dampness of the area caused the fire to go out.
A couple days later, two men found Mae’s body as they were walking through the area to go fishing. The police knew this was the girl who had been reported missing by her frantic mother. She was identified by family and her mother told police that she left the home in the company of Napier. Napier had left town.
Napier was captured near Monroe, Louisiana a few days after the murder. The people of Shreveport wanted blood and the National Guard had to be deployed to protect Napier from being lynched. And it was almost impossible because nearly 5,000 angry citizens showed up to drag him out of the jail. They had to be dispersed with tear gas.
The state of Louisiana wasted no time in getting the trial started. Only 8 days after Mae’s body had been found, the trial began. And in the swiftest justice that I have ever personally read, the trial lasted ONE day and the jury deliberated for FIVE minutes before delivering the guilty verdict. They actually wanted to hang Napier that Friday. At the time, thirty days legally had to elapse between sentencing and execution in Louisiana but the Governor waived that and Napier’s execution was scheduled for May 18, 1934.
Napier was emotionless during the trial and provided one last taunt to the family as he ascended the stairs to the gallows in the Caddo Courthouse: he turned and smiled at them and said, “I will see her in heaven.”
When the trap sprang, Napier kicked for about 10 minutes before he ceased to move. It was found that he had used at least one other name: Fred Lockhart. He had been involved in a lynching in Alabama shortly before arriving in Louisiana. Many suspect he was involved in other murders. To this day, nobody is sure what The Butterfly Man’s true identity is. He is buried in the potter’s field area of Greenwood Cemetery in Shreveport and he is not marked…purposefully. The town neither wanted him to become a gruesome tourist attraction nor did they want the enraged crowd to dig him back up!
Maggie Mae Griffin (spelled Giffin on her tombstone, not sure if that was an error or if that was her real name, her family members said Griffin was correct) is buried in Lower Big Fork Cemetery in Polk County, Arkansas where her family was from.
This was the biggest story in the nation for several weeks, until the end of Bonnie and Clyde in 1934. Napier was executed a mere 5 days before Bonnie and Clyde were shot to death in Gibsland making North Louisiana a macabre headline in the history books!
For The Love of History 