Only a few blocks off the route Jeanine Plumer follows in her tour of the 1885 murder sites stands an old building in which the ghost of a murdered black undertaker is said to still be laughing. He's apparently impressed with the irony that he became his own client (see "Shades of the Past," page 44), or perhaps he laughs at his own audacity -- at the affront his wealth must have posed to white Austin -- and at the scandal he was causing through his rumored affair with a white woman. Though a young black man was sent to the electric chair for the 1932 kidnap and murder of Nathan W. Rhambo, it's safe to say the deeper truth behind that slaying -- possibly in retaliation for his interracial love affair -- has never seen the light of day. Nathan Rhambo was an extraordinarily handsome man, known also for his impeccable manners and good taste. Perhaps that's why as a young man he was singled out to be the protégé of William M. Tears, one of the most successful black undertakers in the entire South. While others who carried the name Rhambo at the turn of the century were typically porters, coachmen, and yardmen, Nathan Rhambo went by the much finer title of embalmer, a profession in those days esteemed nearly as highly as law and medicine. Though Rhambo still suffered the ignominy of the lowercase "c" (for "colored") following his name in the city directory, he didn't let that get in the way of making money. Austin's race relations, like those of any other Southern city, were stunted under Jim Crow, but the city was relatively free of lynch mobs, like the one in Missouri that dragged a black man accused of assaulting a white girl from a county jail and burned him in the town square in 1932. When Rhambo went to work for Tears, in 1901, black businesses were thriving in the east end of downtown, and Rhambo soon took his place as one of the foremost funeral directors in the black community. He cultivated a genteel interest in hunting, an interest that in those days could only have been indulged by a few black men, in whose hands the sight of a gun wouldn't bring policemen down like crows. He married, was a member of Third (now Ebenezer) Baptist Church, and had a reputation as "perfectly sober -- never smokes, drinks, or chews." On the other hand, Rhambo wasn't shy about flaunting his wealth. After his murder, the Statesman reported that he was reputed to carry around large sums of money. Rhambo left Tears' establishment and opened his own funeral home sometime between 1915 and 1920. The business thrived, and by 1929 Rhambo's funeral home was one of the few listed in bold type in the city directory, advertising "Superior Ambulance Service" and "Courteous Attendants." The 19th-century building that housed the Rhambo Funeral Home in the 1920s, now used as a photography studio The 19th-century building that housed the Rhambo Funeral Home in the 1920s, now used as a photography studio Photo By John Anderson But on the night of June 21, 1932, Rhambo saw his last customer. A young man dressed in a gray suit and Panama hat called upon him and asked the 55-year-old funeral director to escort him north of town to fetch a recently deceased relative. The two left in Rhambo's black Buick sedan, and that was the last time Rhambo was seen alive. He was found early the next morning in his car by the side of the road near Dawson, about 130 miles from Austin, shot through the head and severely beaten. Within 24 hours, state Rangers had a suspect in custody: Carl Stewart, identified by employees at the Rhambo funeral home as the man who called on Rhambo the night of his death. Police also arrested two of Rhambo's employees, saying the three men conspired to rob the wealthy man -- though a detail that slipped into the newspaper was that Rhambo was still wearing a diamond ring on his finger when he was found. Since Rhambo was a prominent black businessman, the circumstances of his death were reported in the papers, but he received no obituary in the paper, not even a funeral announcement. Stewart was held eight days in police custody without seeing a lawyer. He eventually signed a confession, drafted by a state Ranger, but at his trial Stewart claimed he signed the statement after being tortured for days in a Waco jail. Stewart claimed he was given almost nothing to eat, wasn't allowed to sleep, and was strung up by a pair of handcuffs until he fainted from the pain. Surprisingly, the trial that commenced in October was not to be the usual sham trial for an allegedly murderous Negro. Somehow, Stewart managed to retain the services of not one, not two, but three prominent white Austin lawyers. And what those lawyers did in Stewart's defense is historic: They questioned the veracity of the white Rangers who claimed Stewart's confession was given voluntarily, and accused the Rangers of abusive coercion. They questioned the Travis County district court's jurisdiction over the crime, and tried to have the trial moved out of the victim's hometown. They protested when Rangers who were serving as the state's witnesses were allowed to remain in the courtroom while the defendant's witnesses were on the stand, claiming the officers intimidated their witnesses and improperly conferred with the prosecuting attorney while he was giving cross-examination. In short, the attorneys challenged the integrity of a white court on behalf of a black murder defendant. Whether this was a first in Austin is unknown, but in protesting the unfairness of placing Stewart before an all-white grand jury (they actually used the word "discrimination"), the attorneys pointed out that a black person hadn't served on a grand jury for 26 years, even though "persons of African descent" comprised 10% of registered voters in Austin and Travis County. It's likely they wouldn't have trumpeted this point had it been a standard complaint. The lawyer's efforts did no good, of course. The jury deliberated only 35 minutes before declaring Stewart guilty and sentencing him to the electric chair, only the second such sentence to be given in Travis County. Judge C.A. Wheeler dismissed all of the defense attorneys' objections to the trial's conduct, as did an appeals court the next year. Wheeler did not even find it prejudicial that when urging the jury to choose the death penalty for Stewart, the district attorney impressed this thought upon the jurors: "Carl Stewart is a Negro. This time he confined his crime to one of his own race. Do you have any assurance, if you turn him loose, that the next time he won't go out and kill some white man for money?" The prosecution had no hard evidence against Stewart, only the witness testimony that he had accompanied Rhambo the night of his murder, and the dubious confession. Nevertheless, Stewart died by the chair on December 29, 1933, only one month after his appeal failed. And with Stewart's death, the full story of who really killed Nathan Rhambo went to the grave. While held by the Rangers, Stewart implicated some other black men in the crime, and even if he was involved in the murder, it's likely he was working for someone else, possibly a jealous husband or other relative. How else could 23-year-old Stewart have afforded the services of three white lawyers unless he was either (1) flush with payment for pulling a hit, or (2) connected with a wealthy family that promised to help him beat the rap if he got caught? And does the fact that someone actually tried to follow through on such an impossible errand indicate that in fact his customer was not white but perhaps a wealthy black person? The newspapers never reported any personal details about Stewart, not even where he was from, and other crucial records such as witness testimony weren't kept, so it's impossible to ascertain Stewart's true role in the killing. It's said that people who remember the case still live in Austin, but for 70 years no one has wanted to talk about it. Unless someone steps forward with forgotten evidence, the true intrigue behind Rhambo's death will never be known. Source: http://www.austinchronicle.com/features/2001-01-26/80326/

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