Welby Lee and His Search for Justice
One of the most famous trials to take place in the Clay County Courthouse resulted from Welby Lee’s 18-year quest to locate the men responsible for the hit and run death of his father, Newt Lee, in 1944. Newt Lee was a Clay County farmer and a lumber merchant.
Welby Lee
Feeling a storm coming the afternoon of Dec. 31, 1944, he decided to feed his horses earlier than usual. He never made it to his barn. At approximately 4:05 p.m. that day, Newt Lee was struck by a 1939 black coupe with two men inside. According to Mildred Castile, Newt Lee’s granddaughter who lived with her grandfather, two men jumped out of the car, looked at her grandfather and then left. The only clue, besides her description of the car, was a bumper guard knocked off the car by the crash,\ and retrieved from a ditch by Welby Lee on the night of the accident.
Feeling that the police would be too busy to devote much time to the investigation and knowing how hard it would be to find the men responsible for the death of his father, Welby Lee began a methodical eighteen-year search to find the men responsible for the death of his father. His quest culminated with the indictment of Grover Jones of Indianapolis in 1963. At that time, Welby Lee had compiled a 153-page book of evidence for the Clay County prosecutor and had 35 pieces of evidence and 35 signed statements supporting the premise that Grover Jones was one of the men responsible for the death of Newt Lee.
The case generated enormous interest both regionally and nationally as it captured the imagination of the nation. Welby Lee was featured in articles in Life, Saturday Evening Post and Time magazines, and newspapers across the nation reported on the trial and its outcome.
Welby Lee, in discussing the day the first trial against Jones began, stated, “There was already a large crowd in town, most of them in the courthouse yard. There were news reporters there from different states that began asking us questions.” He stated that the courthouse was packed with spectators. “When we pushed open the swinging doors, the courtroom was so crowded that I had to push my way down the aisle to get up front with the lawyers. The balcony was also full.”
The first case against Grover Jones ended in a mistrial on Nov. 12, 1963, when it was revealed that two character witnesses for Jones were related to jurors in the trial.
Newton and Elise Lee
The trial resumed in July 1965. At that time, the trial lasted less than a week, and the jurors took less than two hours to find Jones guilty of involuntary manslaughter. Again, people thronged the courthouse to take in the trial.
Lee reports that “The courtroom and the balcony were still filled to capacity as they had been all during the two days it had taken the State to present its case to the jury. People were standing around the walls and in the aisles.”
The jury sentenced him to one year and one day in jail.
It Took a Worried Mind
This newspaper article from June 11, 1979, tells the story of Welby Lee's quest to find the person who killed his father, Newt Lee, in a hit and run. Welby Lee's tenacity resulted in the arrest and trial of Grover Jones, an Indianapolis man who had continued to live...
Grover Jones Trial Publicity
Welby Lee Never Gave Up - Grover Jones Jailed "I wanted to do it worse than anything in my life." said Welby Jones softly. He spoke alter 18 1/2 years of dogged search resulted in the arrest of a man on murder charges in connection with the hit-and-run death of Lee's...