Timeline: 1926
Murder, Mayhem & the Ku Klux Klan: Mortgage scams targeting the local Black community ends that summer with two murders and a suicide. Known as the Triangular Deaths. The death of African American Morgan Knox “in a hell bullets” thought connected with the Ku Klux Klan evolved in the death of a prominent white widow named Anna Carmody and the suicide of former Champaign Chief of Police, James J. Michaels. Within the Black community, legend said that Mrs. Carmody killed her victims for their property. Then she resold it to other African Americans.
C. H. Mathews, an African American undertaker, had a cross burnt on his lawn in connection with the Morgan Knox murder. He was Knox’s undertaker and a fellow church member.
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