As with Lindsey Williams Evans, Carter Lee Smith, C.L. “Seal” (a pronunciation of the C and L together) Smith, was determined not to spend a life in jail. He was convicted and sentenced to life along with Hoyt Evans. Carter Wilson and Carter Jones were sentenced to 12 months of hard labor.
Like Lindsey Evans and his wife, Carter, and Rosetta Harriet Matilda Rosetta Smith, nee McCollum, gave birth to a daughter about two weeks before Cape was murdered. Once incarcerated, C.L. worked in several labor camps in Jackson, Cobb, Muscogee, Cherokee, and Whitfield Counties.
As a point of interest, Carter’s wife moved to Whitfield County around the same time he was in a camp there. Then in January of 1931, C.L. escaped a labor camp in Cherokee County. He was never recaptured.
In the 1930 census, Carter’s wife was listed as being married. In the 1940 census, she was listed as being single. Her daughter Estell married and moved away. In 1947, Carter met with his niece Pansy and her future husband at a movie theatre in Oklahoma. After, he took a bus to Arizona. This was the last time he saw any of his family.
Carter Smith was found dead on July 31, 1957. His body was behind a mattress factory in Casa Grande, Arizona. The Sheriff’s Department found identification on him. They knew his name and age. However, they had no idea of who his kin were, or how long he’d been in Arizona as had no address in the state. His social security number had been assigned in Arizona between 1936 and 1950. The same period that Lindsey Evans had his California SSN assigned to him.
Carter Lee was buried in Mountain View Cemetery, in Pinal County, Arizona among another 140,000 plus others.
Well written & researched. Very interesting!