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Date of Crime

Silas Rogers was sentenced to death for the shooting murder of Robert B. Hatchell, a police officer.  Two police officers chased a stolen car through Petersburg, VA and forced it into a ditch.  The driver escaped on foot and was pursued by one officer, R. B. Hatchell.  The other officer stayed behind to guard the car's two passengers.  The passengers were two AWOL soldiers.  A half-hour later, two shots rang out and Officer Hatchell was found dead.

Police then combed the area and picked up a black hitchhiker named Silas Rogers.  They got Rogers to confess that he had stolen the car in Raliegh, NC and had shot the cop.  A judge would not allow Rogers' confession to be used at trial because there was clear evidence that it was obtained through third degree methods.  However, at trial the soldiers identified Hatchell as the man who picked them up in the stolen car.  Rogers was convicted.

The NAACP reviewed the case and thought the evidence was weak.  They found a witness who corroborated Rogers' story that he arrived in Petersburg by train.  As a result Rogers' death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.  Then a fellow convict told Rogers of Argosy magazine's “Court of Last Resort,” an investigative agency that worked to free wrongfully convicted inmates.  Rogers wrote to Argosy and got them to work on his case.  Jack Kirkpatrick, an editorial writer for the Richmond News-Leader also began an investigation.  Working with Argosy, Kirkpatrick assembled a mass of evidence and affidavits to show the two soldiers had perjured themselves at Rogers' trial.

The soldiers testified that they shared cigarettes with Rogers in the stolen car.  However, Kirkpatrick proved that Rogers never smoked.  He also proved that Rogers could not have driven the stolen car, as he had never learned to drive.  The only remaining piece of evidence against Rogers was testimony that his coat was found in the stolen car.  When an Argosy investigator found and questioned the witness who gave that testimony, the witness quickly changed his story and acknowledged that Rogers' coat was brown while the coat found in the stolen car was blue.  Virginia Governor Battle pardoned Rogers on Dec. 23, 1952.  (Argosy) (Time)  [7/07]

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