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Gus Colin Langley was convicted of murdering Lonnie G. Russell during an Asheville gas station holdup.  Witnesses reported that the day before the murder they had seen a car with a New Jersey license plate at the gas station.  Five days later police located a car with a New Jersey plate in Wilmington, NC, 320 miles away.  It was driven by Langley, who, although a native of Wilmington, had worked as a house painter in Jersey City, NJ.  Police could not locate any other car with a New Jersey plate in the whole of North Carolina on the day of the murder.

Aside from his license plate, there was no physical evidence against Langley.  The prosecution's case relied on informant testimony.  Langley had alibi witnesses who could verify that his car could not have been in Asheville the day before the murder, and other witnesses who could verify that he was far from Asheville on the day of the murder.  Langley wrote letters to these witnesses, but the letters went unanswered.  Later investigation revealed that the witnesses never received his letters.  It seems doubtful that his jailers ever mailed them.  Langley's execution was stopped 25 minutes before its scheduled time because of a technicality in the judge's order.  Langley was cleared in 1936 after it was proven that he was 400 miles away from the location of the murder on the day it occurred.  (ISI)  [5/08]

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