Solomon W. Rollins, male, 47, served as a deputy sheriff in Clark County, Arkansas. On the morning of March 27, 1897, about five miles south of Okolona near the old town of Rome, he rode up beside a wagon occupied by Charles Clyburn and Clyburn’s younger brother, ordering them to surrender in connection with a string of recent burglaries. Clyburn lifted a rifle from his lap and fired, striking Rollins through the heart; the deputy turned in his saddle, fired once into the air, and fell dead
in the road. He was buried at Smyrna Methodist Church Cemetery in Okolona.
The killing ignited a manhunt across Clark and Pike counties. Posses scoured the woods for miles while a $210 reward was posted for Clyburn’s capture. Hiding in a cave along the Antoine River, Clyburn made a daring escape: from a bluff overlooking the railroad, he leapt into the crown of a pine tree, climbed down, and concealed himself in a freight car loaded with stave bolts bound for New Orleans.
Clyburn was later identified in New Orleans and taken into custody without resistance by Clark County Sheriff James Abraham, then secured for trial after a change of venue to Nevada County. A Prescott jury found him guilty of first-degree murder; the court set his execution for March 31, 1898, and accounts note that crowds from Okolona attended the hanging. Clyburn maintained he shot Rollins in self-defense, but the verdict stood.
