Member-only story
(Taken from Stories of Rootworkers and Hoodoo in the Mid-South)
A high-profile case involving the murder of a Mid-South spiritual worker occurred in 1957 in Shelbyville, Tennessee. Forty-year-old Mose M. Martin from Stevenson, Alabama, had sought guidance from spiritual worker Simon T. Warner, known for his healing and psychic abilities in the Mid-South.
Mose drove up from Alabama to seek help for digestive problems he was
having with his stomach. Warner charged him sixty dollars for a spiritual treatment that was intended to remove Mose’s ailment. After leaving the healer’s home, Mose began to feel severe discomfort and fear. He began to
perspire as his heart raced. His head filled with fears of dabbling with magic
and thoughts of worry.
Mose could feel a spiritual rope tightening across his chest. It became
difficult to breathe. He would lie awake at night, staring at the ceiling,
sometimes clutching the tattered cover of an old Holy Bible next to his side.
Mose worried that it was no longer the stomachache that haunted him but
the insidious spirits that the “spirit doctor” had loosened on him. He could
not take any more of the psychological torture from the spiritualist
who had performed this mysterious operation on him. Mose reached into
the bureau beside his bed and retrieved a .32 caliber pistol.
The eighty-five-mile trek from Stevenson to Shelbyville, Tennessee,
seemed to take forever. Mose’s car sputtered and spurred as a cold rain began
to fall across the highway. Mose could almost feel the relief that he was about
to experience when he would break the spell that haunted him. On arriving
at Simon Warner’s place, Mose slipped his pistol into the back of his pants.
Warner met him at the door with a smile and a greeting. “Nice to see you
again Mister Mose, what can I do for you today?” Mose’s heart began to
race again as he mumbled, “There’s something I need to talk to you about.
Something important.” Warner closed the door behind him and began to
walk down a long hall on creaking wooden floors. Mose’s breathing became
louder as his eyes…
