Ruby McCollum
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In 1952, Ruby McCollum, a black woman, shot and killed her white lover, prominent Live Oak, Florida, physician C. Leroy Adams. Her subsequent conviction and death sentence (1954) were later overturned by the Florida Supreme Court, but she was declared mentally incompetent and incarcerated for 20 years in the Florida State Mental Hospital at Chattahoochee until she was set free under Florida's Baker Act. Zora Neale Hurston covered the trial for the Pittsburgh Courier and collaborated with William Bradford Huie who came in after the trial, and later published Ruby McCollum: Woman in the Suwannee Jail (New York, 1956). Huie's book is the principal account of the case, but is no longer in print. An annotated, copyrighted version of the trial transcript with a novella telling the story leading up to the murder is published in The Trial of Ruby McCollum, written by C. Arthur Ellis, Jr., Ph.D., and is currently available. Dr. Ellis is a native of Live Oak and knew the characters in the story.
In The Trial of Ruby McCollum, Dr. Ellis is the first scholar to report that the case was a pivotal test of Florida's "paramour rights." Paramour rights refer to a white man's assumed right over a "colored" woman's body, whether she was married or not.
Highlights of the trial include the fact that it had an all-white male jury, that mitigating circumstances were not admitted into evidence, and that the defendant was never allowed to speak to the press in violation of her 1st Amendment rights.
Some examples of other incidents in the case that would be considered unacceptable by contemporary standards are that Dr. John Workman, who was Adams' medical associate, was Ruby McCollum's physician for her prenatal care of Adams' child by her, had actively campaigned for Adams during his senatorial race, testified to Ruby's sanity at the trial, conducted Adams' autopsy and testified to that autopsy during the murder trial.
Conspiracy theorists also point out that Workman's autopsy of Adams was performed after Adams' hometown funeral director had removed the bullets from the body and embalmed it. Without following a chain of custody, the bullets were given to a local jeweler for engraving to identify them prior to being placed in the custody of Sheriff Sim Howell. Sim Howell was an associate of Adams and was also in charge of transporting Sam McCollum's cash from a safety deposit box in Tampa where Sam McCollum, Ruby McCollum's husband, had secured it after Adams' death. Allegations are that Howell may have in some way played a part in Adams' murder, although no proof of this has ever been presented.
Lake City resident Arthur Keith Black was the state's prosecutor, who was later under federal indictment for racketeering until he suffered a severe heart attack. Black was also an Adams family friend who handled the wrongful death case for Mrs. Adams, including presenting Lavergne Blue's forged Will to him after Adams' death. Blue denied ever signing the Will, which was later determined to have been written by Adams in an apparent attempt to acquire Blue's lodge, a substantial property just west of Live Oak.
Students may further research material related to this case at the University of Florida Smathers' Library in Gainesville, Florida.
Associated topics include "reparations for slavery." Additional information: www.rubymccollum.info
