Raymond and Henry Daniels were the sons of Charles Daniels, the brother of my 4th Great-Grandfather Richard Floyd Daniels.

Henry Daniels

Raymond Daniels and Henry Daniels were half brothers.  They were the sons of Charles Daniels of the Daniels-Christian Feud, who had been married twice.  Henry was the son of Clarissa Adams, who had lost her life in a shootout with police while protecting her husband and sons against arrest or death.  Her young teenage daughter, Holly, also sacrificed her life that day during the feud.  After having lost his first love to the ugly side of fate, Charlies tried his hand at having a happy home again with Martha O'Quinn.  She would go on to be the mother of Charlie's next few children:  Raymond, Earl, Cecil and Martha. 

Charles Daniels and 2nd Wife, Martha O'Quinn

Charles Daniels died in 1941.  Upon his death, Henry paid for the funeral expenses.  He asked his brothers and sisters to help cover the cost by each paying their fair share.  His siblings declined to help foot the bill, leaving the entire burden on Henry.  To help lift the burden, Henry set out to settle Charlie's estate and sell some of the land his father owned.  When Raymond heard that Henry was trying to sell a tract of land from his father's estate, he was irate and quickly claimed the land for himself, opposing the sale.  After the suit was filed, Henry Daniels had a surveyor by the name of T.J. Anderson to come survey the land in question.  The tract was situated close to both the homes of Henry and Raymond, which were only about a quarter of a mile apart on the Tug River.  The only way in and out of where the Daniels' lived was by footpath and a boat across the river.

Anderson began his survey of the land on September 4th, 1945.  He first ran a small line for John Daniels and then a little after noon, he continued to the lands of Henry Daniels and ran a line for him.  Raymond's mother, Martha O'Quinn-Daniels objected to Anderson running the line between Henry's house and the house of his other half-brother, Earl.  She created quite a heated discussion with the surveyor about it.  After finishing the survey, Henry took Anderson back to his house to share in a hearty dinner.  While the two men sat on the porch for their post-supper unwind, Henry made mention of the fish traps he had set in the river and invited Anderson to go along with him to check them.  Just as they approached the river and began looking around, a gunshot cut through the valley from someplace up the river.  A bullet hit Henry in the back and cut through his entire body.  He collapsed and died just moments later.

Henry Daniels Death Certificate

Anderson testified in court that he looked toward the place from where the shot rang out but saw no one.  He immediately made his way up a little drain and out to Henry's house, which was about 300 feet away, where he informed Henry's wife of what had happened.  Mrs. Daniels immediately ran down the path toward her husband's body and before she even made it to him, she saw Raymond Daniels standing still and looking down the way at where her husband lay dead.  He had a long gun held in both hands.  Just as she saw him, she fell to the ground and out of his line of vision. 


Raymond Daniels swore that he and his son Richard were not home during the time of his brother's murder. He contested that they were at work as railway men for the Norfolk & Western Railroad. According to the logbooks the timekeeper kept, Raymond and Richard had worked over ten and a half hours that day and worked well after 6 pm, not making it home until after 7 that evening. It was Raymond's story that the two arrived home around 7pm, washed up and ate dinner, then went out to chop wood for the night.  After finishing the chopping, he said, they returned inside and went to bed. While Raymond and his eldest son may have been away from the home at the time the surveyor came by to run lines, the younger son, Tennis, was not only home but was present during much of the surveying.  

Upon hearing that Henry Daniels had been shot and killed, Sheriff's Deputies Taylor Hatfield and James Alley, along with a special officer for the Norfolk & Western immediately made their way to the thickets of rugged terrain on the Tug River where the Daniels clan all lived.  The officers happened upon the home of Raymond Daniels first, where they stopped to notify him of the news of his brother. Raymond didn't respond to the news of his brother's untimely death in the slightest of manner.  He simply went back to bed.

The officers made their way to Henry's home where they spoke with his wife and the surveyor, Anderson.  Upon scoping out the scene, they noticed a shell on the ground near where the shooting had taken place.  Taking lead from Henry's wife who told officers that she saw Raymond lurking in the weeds on her way to her husband, the officers returned to Raymond's house to inquire about owning a high powered rifle similar to the one it took to fire the shot that killed Henry.  Raymond told the officers that he hadn't had a high powered rifle for nearly a decade.  He further directed them to have a look around and try to prove him wrong if they didn't believe him.  The officers contemplated his offer but declined at that moment, only to leave and return at 1 am to question him further.  This time they did perform a search of Raymond's home and property in search of evidence.  In an outhouse, hidden inside a thick pile of coal soot was several high powered cartridges with shells. With their new proof of ammo, they returned to the house and demanded the pistol that shot the bullets found as well as the high powered rifle they were seeking.   Raymond's wife quickly rushed to the outhouse and came back with a revolver.  She told the officers that she had taken the gun from under her husband's pillow along with some cartridges from the dresser drawer and hid them away in the outhouse, away from her husband and without his knowledge.  No rifle was ever uncovered despite witnesses claiming to have seen him shooting recently with a high powered rifle. Henry's wife stated that Raymond hadn't spoken to Henry in over two years.  Despite the claim, however, Raymond insisted there was no animosity between him and his brother and that he had no motive to kill him. 

On the morning after the shooting, Henry's son and some other gentlemen went down to observe the site where the shooting had taken place.  They noticed some tracks and footprints around 50 yards from where Henry fell dead.  The men were able to follow the tracks to the river, where they disappeared into the water and reappeared on the other side and led them right back down to Raymond Daniels' house.

Raymond and his two sons, Richard and Tennis were indicted for the willful murder of his brother and their uncle, Henry Daniels.  A separate trial was granted to the three men.  The father was sentenced to life in the state prison.  He made an appeal to the courts on eight counts.  Raymond argued that it would be absurd to believe that he would have shot his brother and continued to stand there staring at him for as long as it would have taken for Henry to die, Anderson to run back to Henry's house and notify his wife, and then for his wife to make it back down to where her husband lay.  Raymond supplied witnesses who testified that Henry's wife had told them that she had seen nobody nearby and did not now who the shooter could have been.  Henry's wife, of course, denied their claims. 

Despite telling the interrogating officers that he hadn't had a high powered gun in a decade, Raymond admitted that he did borrow one from his nephew Roy at one point but that Roy had taken it back home a year or two ago.  

Another argument Raymond made during his appeal was that the evidence introduced by the Commonwealth  was incompetent.  He argued that a person could not possibly identify what kind of gun was fired simply by the sound of its shot.  He further argued that the tracks leading down the field, through the river, and back down to his home weren't discovered until the following day, which left too much time for other people to walk in and out of the area, leaving those tracks behind.  The court, however, shot down these points.  The court found that Surveyor Anderson did in fact know how a high powered rifle sounded and that his sworn testimony about it was competent.  The court further stated that because the area they lived in was so remote and the murder had taken place late in the evening, there would have been little chance for anyone outside of those few family homes to come wondering across the river during crazy hours in the night.  It was the court's opinion that the tracks were relevant evidence.  

Works Cited

Daniels v. Commonwealth. Court of Appeals of entucky. (21 Jun, 1946). Online database: https://www.casemine.com/judgement/us/5914a1bfadd7b0493468ddb2#