Sheriff Willis V. McCall and His 28-Year Reign of Terror

You Won’t Find His Story in Florida’s Black History

Sheriff McCall after shooting two of the Groveland Four. File. (2012, October 26). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Willis.Virgil.McCall.1951.jpg

“I’ve been accused of everything but taking a bath and called everything but a child of God,”-Willis McCall

Willis V. McCall was elected as Lake County, FL, Sheriff for seven consecutive terms. He narrowly lost his eighth bid for election in 1972 after serving 28 years. This was just after being acquitted by an all-white jury of second-degree murder for beating and stomping a mentally disabled Black prisoner in his cell for allegedly throwing food. The injuries sustained in that beating by Tommy Vickers led to his death. The jury deliberated for 70 minutes.

McCall often said he wasn’t a racist, though others judged him otherwise. As late as 1971, his jail had “Colored” and “White” restrooms until the Nixon administration forced him to integrate the County jail. McCall believed in segregated schools as well; he removed five children from a segregated school in 1954 (after Brown v. Board of Education) after he visited their home and determined they were “Negro.” Official birth and marriage records listed them as white. McCall spoke to a Delaware chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of White People later that year and urged whites to oppose the desegregation of schools.

Willis McCall first gained notoriety during the Groveland Four case. In 1949, a married white woman, Norma Padgett, who was 17 years old, claimed four Black men raped her. I suggest reading the Pulitzer Prize-winning book, The Devil in the Grove, by Gilbert King to get the whole story. There was much reason to doubt Padgett’s account initially, but that didn’t stop the inevitable.

Three young Black men, ages ranging from 16–22, were arrested the next day. After hearing he was a suspect, a fourth man, Ernest Thomas, ran from Lake County. A Sheriff’s posse caught up with him 200 miles away in Madison County, sleeping under a tree in an orchard. He was shot over 400 times. A coroner’s jury found Thomas’s death “justifiable homicide.”

On Jul 26, 1949: White Mob Brutally Lynches Ernest Thomas, Member of the So-Called Groveland Four

A white mob formed at the Tavares, FL jail, where two prisoners, Sam Shepherd and Walter Irvin, were held. McCall didn’t turn them over to the mob. He hid Shepherd and Irwin in his home before transferring them to Raiford State Prison near Gainesville for their safety. Before giving McCall too much credit for saving them, read how the story plays out. The mob then went to Groveland. McCall had warned the Black residents to leave town, and most did. The mob burned several buildings to the ground, including the family home of Sam Shepherd. McCall promised the mob he would bring justice, and they eventually dispersed. None were arrested.

A Lake County grand jury indicted the three remaining defendants for rape. Two of them told the FBI that McCall and his deputies beat confessions out of them. The US Attorney refused to indict the officers for their role. Before the trial of the Black men, McCall bragged to the press of their confessions, tainting the jury pool. The jury would be all-white because Black voters couldn’t register to vote in Lake County and, therefore, could not serve on juries. The three men were quickly convicted, but the story was not over.

Photo by Carol Spivey

A young NAACP Legal Defense Fund lawyer, Thurgood Marshall, won a retrial based partially on an argument to the US Supreme Court that Black people were improperly excluded from the jury. The original convictions were overturned, and a new trial was required. Sheriff McCall personally transported the two prisoners at Raiford for the new trial. McCall pulled off on a county road, saying he had “tire trouble.” McCall claimed the two prisoners attacked him, so he shot them both in “self-defense.” The prisoners were handcuffed together the whole time.

Shepherd was killed immediately, Irvin was shot three times by McCall, and again by Deputy James Yates after he arrived on the scene. Irvin somehow lived and later testified that McCall pulled Shepherd and himself from the car and shot them without reason. The FBI discovered the bullet fired by Yates, which supported Irvin’s story, but the FBI concealed the information during the trial. The Lake County coroner found McCall acted in the line of duty and saw no reason to impanel a grand jury. McCall was charged by the Justice Department but not found guilty. Perhaps if the FBI had submitted all the evidence?

“That is when I grabbed my gun, a .38 Smith & Wesson special. I started firing and did not stop until I heard the plunger hitting empty shells.” — Willis McCall

NAACP leader Harry T. Moore was active in raising funds for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund in support of the Groveland Four. He publicly called for the Governor to suspend McCall and investigate prisoner abuse under his watch. Moore was engaged in a letter-writing campaign, keeping up the pressure on McCall. On Christmas Day, 1952, the home of Harry T. Moore and his wife Harriette Moore (also an NAACP leader) was bombed, killing them both. McCall was suspected of the bombing, but no evidence was produced.

The First Civil Rights Martyrs: Harry T. Moore and Harriette Moore | by William Spivey | The Polis | Medium

When President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, McCall refused to fly the flag at the Sheriff’s Office; he suggested the flag might get damaged flapping against the building and was “saving the taxpayers money.” McCall boasted of the times federal and state officials targeted him and that nothing stuck.

After McCall’s defeat in the 1972 election, his son later served a term as Sheriff. McCall died at age 84 from a heart attack, never having seen justice for his actions. Don’t look for his story in a Florida history book. You won’t find it.