Last week I introduced you to ‘Uncle’ Robert Lee Johnson, a hillbilly musician with a thousand yard stare and a worn in pair of cowboy boots. Robert was born in Witchita Falls, Texas, to a poor family of farmers. Like many thousands of others, Robert’s family moved West during the 1930’s to California, hoping to escape the devastating effects of the Dustbowl. His first criminal venture, or at least the first he was caught for, was stealing a bicycle in Oklahoma. He was fourteen years old. Throughout his teens Robert stole cars and livestock - FBI documents list ‘theft of hog’ alongside an arrest in 1942 (did he put a hog in a car? I hope so). But twelve arrests and two stints in the penitentiary later, Robert was involved in a crime that carried the death penalty.
On a cool January evening in 1951, Robert and his two nephews, Marvin and J.W Johnson were on their way into Dallas for the night. With them was Maxwell ‘Billy’ Pomeroy, a seventeen year old who joined up with the group in California after Robert promised to teach him the guitar. Billy thought he was joining a small time western band. He even offered his car as a means of transport. At first, the group drove around the South West looking for places to play in exchange for food and a place to stay for the night. When they couldn’t find anywhere they drank on the side of the road and slept in the car. Sometimes they’d stop at gas stations where Billy would watch from the car as Robert and J.W went inside. The two men always came back jittery. Robert told whoever was driving to step on it.
In Oklahoma Billy started to grow uneasy when Robert stole a 1950’s Oldsmobile and told them they were leaving Billy’s car behind because it wasn’t fast enough. The four young men piled into the stolen car and headed for Dallas. When they reached the Dallas-Kaufman County line, Robert drove them a little way into the woods and told them they’d be doing some target practice while they waited for the sun to go down.
At the same time Robert and his rag-tag gang of not quite musicians were shooting at cans in the woods, Officers Harold Dawson and Johnny Sides were out on traffic duty. Both were young men, but Johnny had only been on the job for three weeks. He was twenty one and fresh out of the police academy. Johnny had dreamed of being a traffic patrolman since childhood and started work as a police secretary straight out of high school. By the time he was old enough to attend the academy, Johnny had so many friends in the force that one colleague joked ‘he would have had a hard time trying to keep from joining up.’ Fellow officers even bought him a puppy for his birthday. Johnny named the cocker spaniel Traffic.
In his spare time Johnny trained homing pigeons and joined the Dallas Junior Chamber of Commerce. The Dallas Morning News told readers that he made friends easily and was ‘quick to take the lead’ in a group. In other words, Johnny was a picture perfect American youth, the very antithesis of the men who were about to run a red light in their stolen Oldsmobile.
J.W cruised through the red light without a second thought. Robert sat beside him with his German Luger (if you’ve ever watched a war movie set during the 20th century, you’ve seen one of these). Marvin sat behind Robert and Billy was folded in behind the driver’s seat. The men watched the cop car peel out and begin to follow them. By the time they saw the red light flicker on and heard the siren, all of them were feeling jumpy.
For their part, Officers Harold Dawson and Johnny Sides thought it was odd that such a late model car was being driven so carelessly. When the Oldsmobile pulled over, the cops parked up behind them. Robert tucked his Luger into the back of his trousers. There were three other guns in the car – a 32. automatic pistol, a .22 rifle and another .32 pistol that didn’t fire.
When Dawson and Sides peered into the vehicle they knew something was wrong. Later, Dawson testified that they ‘decided to search the occupants because they were dressed very shabbily, needed shaves and haircuts and looked very out of place in that late model car.’
There are some things we know for certain about what happened next. The four men got out of the car – J.W and Billy on the driver’s side with Dawson; Robert and Marvin on the other with Sides. J.W and Billy were not armed. Uncle Robert had the Luger. Dawson’s search of the two younger men went off without a hitch, but Sides discovered several spent .32 cartridges in Marvin’s pocket. Then there was a series of gunshots. Sides crumpled to the floor clutching his abdomen. Robert fired at Dawson as he rounded the front of the car. The bullet hit Dawson in the wrist, tore through his arm and lodged in his shoulder. Dawson returned fire. In a panic, Billy ran for the police car, then changed his mind and returned to the Oldsmobile where the rest of the band members were trying to get inside without being shot. Dawson watched the car tear away then noticed Sides on the ground, blood pooling round his pelvis. He radioed for help.
Robert took charge of his startled group of now-wanted men. They drove south to Austin, then North to Oklahoma. They robbed hardware stores to stock up on ammunition. Robert waved his German Luger around when he didn’t like the way people spoke to him. They swapped out the licence plates on the Oldsmobile. They stole knives and food and more guns. Billy wondered why they didn’t head back out West to California.
Back in Dallas Johnny Sides was in critical condition at Parkland Hospital. When Doctors discovered the trajectory of the bullet had lacerated a main artery, they were shocked that Sides hadn’t already died of blood loss. They began transfusions as he drifted in and out of consciousness. Dawson was tended to in the room next door. As word spread of the shooting, the hospital began to fill up with members of law enforcement.
Out on the street, a huge man hunt for the Oldsmobile began. The day following the shooting fifteen cars were stopped, six men were arrested and eighteen more had been interrogated. Calls came in from across Texas and Oklahoma from people claiming to have seen the group.
On the 25th January, the blue Oldsmobile and it’s four inhabitants pulled into the sleepy Ozark town of Hardy, Arkansas. Sheriff Guthrie Goodwin, a 240lb man with a hearty complexion, didn’t pay it too much attention until a Marshal reported that one of the men in the vehicle was trying to sell a gun to the local hardware store. Goodwin and Marshal Clouse glanced into the car on their way to the store and saw a ‘small arsenal’ of guns, knives and ammunition. At the store they found Robert and J.W bartering with a clerk. The men were evasive about why they were in town and grumbled when Goodwin marched them back to the car.
As the four of them approached the Oldsmobile, Robert pulled his Luger on the Sheriff and said, ‘we’ll take you guys for a nice ride.’ Whatever potential hostage scenario he envisioned backfired when Sheriff Goodwin lunged at him. Robert fired the gun and Goodwin’s hat went flying as the two men crashed to the ground. When J.W made a run at the car to grab a gun, Marshal Clouse fired through the windshield to ‘stop that nonsense.’ J.W put his hands above his head and surrendered.
Robert wrestled with the Sheriff until the two of them fell into a roadside ditch. ‘I had a gun’ Goodwin said later ‘but somehow I couldn’t seem to find it. So I reached out and picked up a rock.’ He hit Robert over the head. The blow ‘didn’t knock him out, but it addled him.’
Goodwin arrested the two men and took them up to the local jail. Marshal Clouse set out after Marvin and Billy, who gave themselves up with considerably less dramatic flair. If they were unsure of who they had in custody, Billy cleared up the confusion by making a statement that Robert and Marvin had shot a police officer up in Dallas.
The press loved the story. Sheriff Goodwin and his rock made their way into all the regional papers. The rock even made its way to Dallas, where it ended up in an Oak Cliff Café with the label ‘Arkansas six shooter.’ Newspapers, upon discovering the four apprehended men were a western band, also took the opportunity to make frequent wry comments about their need to ‘face the music.’
Back in Dallas, things were looking worse for Johnny Sides. There was debate about whether or not to amputate his leg. He had undergone twenty seven blood transfusions and was being held in an oxygen tent. If Sides was going to positively identify his assailants, they needed to be bought to Dallas as fast as possible.
Robert, Marvin, J.W and Billy arrived in Dallas on Friday 26th January. Robert, who quickly became the focus of the press due to his penchant for monologuing (and his catchy hillbilly musician moniker ‘Uncle’), was described as ‘insolent and cocky.’ He made jokes about appearing on the radio station at Huntsville Prison and bragged about playing the violin and the guitar. But his bravado began to wane when he realised they were being taken to Parkland Hospital and not straight to the county jail.
By the time they were pulled from the cars, all four men were deeply frightened. They entered the hospital heavily shackled and were greeted by long corridors full of off-duty officers. The tension between the police and potential cop-killers made the hospital staff nervous. The prisoners shrunk into themselves and kept their eyes fixed on their feet. Reporters hovered, looking for any signs of potential escalation.
First, the four men were taken to Harold Dawson’s room. The officer recognised them instantly, then addressed Robert and said, ‘you’ve shaved, haven’t you?’ Robert nodded but didn’t meet his eye. Dawson then spoke to Billy and asked him if he still had his black billfold. Billy said no, the Sheriff had taken it from him during the arrest in Arkansas.
Then they were led to the room where Johnny Sides’ life hung in the balance. Sides, who could barely speak, told an attending officer that Marvin was the man who shot him and confirmed the identity of the others. The suspects were led away. Two days later Robert told the Dallas Morning News that he guessed ‘they are waiting for him to die and then will put us all in the electric chair without asking us anything about it.’ At the jailhouse he pestered staff for updates on Sides’ condition.
Johnny’s family were starting to receive donations, an amount that would eventually total $4,500. As Sides was still on probation when he was shot, concern grew that he would be unable to receive his pension funds to help with medical costs. On February 6th, the senate committee in Austin passed a bill that made probationary police officers and firemen eligible for pension benefits.
In the aftermath of the Sides shooting, newspapers ran articles reminding readers that ‘an officer is human. He endures every type of humanity – the drunk, the woman who won’t drive right, the hoodlum, con man and clever racketeer’ (one of these things is maybe not quite like the others). The police, whilst genuinely devastated at the severe physical trauma Sides was trying to live through, were using the situation to drum up support for law enforcement on a more general level. During the early fifties, the Dallas Police Department had a turbulent reputation within the city at large and faced allegations of departmental corruption, brutality and inefficiency. Johnny Sides became the face of everything right, everything promising about the force, a figure above reproach behind which the city could come together.
As Dallas rallied around its young police officer, more information about Uncle Robert drifted in from across the surrounding states. In early December 1950, Robert had shot and critically wounded a police officer in Mississippi. A similar story came in from Sedan, Kansas, where a patrolman approached Robert and his nephews only to be pistol whipped into unconsciousness. ‘Uncle Robert hates policemen because he was treated roughly in his earlier criminal career’ announced the Dallas Morning News fairly soon after his arrest. Robert did try to counter this by telling reporters ‘I don’t hate all police officers. I just haven’t had anything but trouble with them.’ Unsurprisingly this comment did little to help his cause.
Johnny Sides died of his injuries on Wednesday 7th February 1951. The city of Dallas was devastated, and his funeral was attended by over 2,000 people. Later in the year an oil painting of Sides was presented to the police department by Dallas artist, Ramon Froman.
Robert, Marvin, J.W and Billy were all due to stand trial for the murder. Remember that statement Billy made up in Arkansas that Robert and Marvin were the murderers? At Robert’s trial on March 22nd, 1951, the prosecution called Billy as their star witness. Dressed in a plaid sport shirt and brown trousers, the teenager’s appearance seemed at odds with the content of his testimony.
Billy explained that the doors of the Oldsmobile were left open, allowing him to see some ‘rassling’ on the other side of the car. He then saw Marvin pull a gun on Sides who pushed the pistol downwards before collapsing on the floor as the gunshots rang out. As Sides fell, Robert came around the front of the car and fired on Dawson. Billy told the court that he saw ‘no gun in the hand of either officer,’ then said Robert kissed his Luger as the four men drove away from the scene. Harold Dawson testified too, along with the officer who witnessed Sides’ identification of Marvin and Robert as the men who did the shooting. Among the other witnesses were Sides’ mother, who communicated with the court via a sign language interpreter as she, her husband and one of her daughters were deaf.
The big surprise came when Robert himself took the stand. Speaking nervously and chewing on a wad of gum, he told the court that it was he, not his nephew Marvin, who shot Johnny Sides in the gut. He insinuated that Sides was aggressive from the offset. Then, upon discovering the empty shell casings in Marvin’s pocket, Sides ‘pulled out his gun and held it up toward Marvin’s left shoulder.’ When Marvin instinctively threw his hands up, the gun went off by Robert’s ear. Thinking his nephew was in danger, Robert shot Sides, then went round to the other side of the car where he shot Dawson to protect J.W and Billy.
In cross-examination the prosecutor ‘tore into [Robert] like a buzzsaw.’ Robert admitted to serving to jail terms, to stealing the Oldsmobile and to being drunk at the time of the shooting. He then claimed he would have dropped his guns if Sides hadn’t already pulled a pistol on Marvin. When the attorney questioned him about the accusations that he was responsible for attacking several other police officers, Robert mumbled inherently and then refused to answer.
It took the Jury ten minutes to return with the verdict that Robert was guilty and should be sent to the electric chair. The turnaround was so quick that someone was sent out to retrieve the Judge, who had left to go to a nearby café. Robert appeared genuinely shocked by the verdict, ‘didn’t take them very damn long did it?’ he told waiting reporters.
Less than a month later, Robert was lying on a gurney in the same hospital where Johnny Sides had passed his final days. He had a skull fracture, a broken right elbow and a broken right hip – the result of a botched escape attempt that saw him plummet four stories onto the roof of a gas station near the jail. Robert had been swinging on the end of a rope made out of bedsheets when a jailer leant out the window and caught him in the escape. With nowhere to go except down, Robert launched himself in the direction of the gas station roof, where he was quickly apprehended by police.
Marvin was the second of the four men to stand trial. Despite being the man accused of firing the fatal shot at Johnny Sides, he was treated with considerably less vitriol than his uncle. His lawyers won a change of venue, successfully arguing that media coverage of the case would have made it impossible to find an appropriate jury in Dallas. On June 14th 1951, Marvin stood trial in Brownwood, Texas, during weather that was so bad many of the attendees struggled to get to the courtroom.
The prosecution called their star witness, hoping for an easy repeat of Robert’s trial. But on the stand Billy Pomeroy shocked the courtroom by recanting his former testimony which he labelled ‘a pack of lies.’ He said he hadn’t seen Marvin with a gun. For that matter, he hadn’t seen any of what happened on the other side of the car because it was too dark and the doors of the Oldsmobile had been closed, blocking the line of sight between the two groups of men. Billy said he lied to police out of fear for his life, then when he tried to amend his initial confession, the police interrogated him for hours, repeatedly threatening him with the electric chair.
There was chaos in the courtroom. District Attorney Henry Wade was enraged, demanding to know why Billy was recanting what was written in a statement he had signed in the presence of several police officers. Billy replied that he was under so much pressure at the time the statement was written he couldn’t even remember what was in it. Exasperated, the D.A read out each line in the statement, ordering Billy to confirm its contents. Each time Billy answered the same way – ‘I said what you told me to say, you all told me you’d give me the electric chair if I didn’t say it your way.’
‘I was scared but I figure now my freedom isn’t worth killing a bunch of innocent people’ he told reporters after the trial. Billy, who could have expected a lesser sentence than his peers for being the prosecution’s star witness, really had nothing to gain by recanting his earlier testimony. But it wasn’t enough. After an hour and a half of jury deliberation, Marvin was sentenced to death.
Billy was certain he’d sealed his own fate too, in the days after the verdict he spoke occasionally to the press - ‘I feel pretty bad about what they done to Marvin because I don’t feel like he committed any murder. But I’m not sorry I did what I did Tuesday. I told the truth even if I burn for it.’
Billy and J.W (who had remained fairly chipper throughout the process and often told the press he hoped to learn a new skill in prison) were sentenced to ninety nine years in Huntsville Penitentiary. They were both offered plea deals which they accepted. As the two were not armed when the shooting took place, life in prison was perceived to be the more appropriate sentence. Perhaps two more high profile trials would have also bought down greater scrutiny on the case – though it probably would not have affected any of the verdicts.
Robert went to the electric chair simultaneously claiming sole responsibility for the shooting and telling everyone who would listen that he was innocent. ‘Marvin didn’t do anything’ he told Don Reid of the Huntsville Item the day before his execution, ‘he didn’t even have a gun.’ Before he was strapped into the chair, Robert asked that Texas do away with electric shock as a means of execution. He was pronounced dead at 12:14 on March 12th, 1952.
Marvin’s family fought for clemency until the last moment. His father, who travelled from California to fight his son’s case told officials that Robert had always been a bad influence on the rest of the family who ‘worked hard and are honest.’ The day before his son’s execution he expressed his wish to ‘to go back with some sunshine for my wife instead of hauling him back in a box.’ On April 9th 1952, Marvin Johnson was sent to the electric chair, where he was pronounced dead at 12:05.
Whatever the actual chain of events that unfolded on January 22nd, 1951, the traffic stop was always going to be a tinderbox. Robert was a violent, impulsive career criminal with a personal vendetta against police officers. His nephews were both petty criminals, and all three of the younger men were in thrall to their band leader. It was a dark night where events unfolded quickly and in extremely close proximity. Neither Dawson, Billy nor J.W had seen who fired the fatal shot into Sides. The only people who knew what really happened were Marvin, Robert and Sides himself. Sides identified Marvin as his shooter when he was in hospital, but Sides was also grievously wounded, pumped full of painkillers, and drifting in and out of consciousness.
It is not out of the realm of possibility that Johnny Sides pulled a gun on Marvin after finding the empty shell casings in his pocket (after all, this discovery implied that there were probably firearms in the vehicle). It’s also not unreasonable to think that Robert shot Sides without provocation, and that Sides was the last in a long line of retaliatory attacks for Robert’s treatment by police as a juvenile. Or maybe it is as simple as Robert taking the blame for the shooting in an attempt to save his nephew’s life. But, given his history, Robert does seem the more likely culprit here. He had managed to evade arrest for his prior attacks on police officers, so perhaps he thought he would be able to drive away from this one too. What is indisputable, is that the general public’s largely unfettered access to guns heightened the risk involved in the traffic stop for everybody on the scene.
The year after the death of Johnny Sides, the Dallas Police and Junior Chamber of Commerce created an award in his honour – The Johnny Sides Rookie of the Year is a prize which is still awarded today. A graphic on the force’s Facebook page describes the events of January 22nd, 1951, as follows:
‘Officer Sides was shot after he and his partner stopped a vehicle for running a red light. As they approached the vehicle the men inside opened fire, shooting both officers.’
Primary Sources from the Dallas Municipal Archives
91-019 Dallas Police Department, Box 1, Annual Reports 1951-1956.
91-019 Dallas Police Department, Box 17, Historical Criminal Cases, 1940’s - 1960’s. Folder: Robert Lee Johnson - Murder of Dallas Police Office Johnny Sides.
United States Department of Justice Federal Bureau of Investigation Record for Robert Lee Johnson, FBI No. 1352403. February 2nd, 1951.
The State of Texas Department of Public Safety Arrest Record for Robert Lee Johnson. March 13th, 1952.
Fingerprint card for Robert Lee Johnson. Police Department, Dallas, Texas, 1951.
Fingerprint cards - taped together, showing only right index finger - for Marvin Eugene Johnson, Maxwell Billy Pomeroy and J.W Johnson. Police Department, Dallas, Texas, 1951.
The Portal to Texas History:
[News Script: Shooting Suspects] January 26, 1951. NBC 5/KXAS News Scripts (AR0787), University of North Texas Special Collections.
[News Script: Police Awards] February 14, 1951. NBC 5/KXAS News Scripts (AR0787), University of North Texas Special Collections.
[News Script: Personalities of the week] January 28, 1951. NBC 5/KXAS News Scripts (AR0787), University of North Texas Special Collections.
[News Script: Texas news review] April 22, 1951. NBC 5/KXAS News Scripts (AR0787), University of North Texas Special Collections.
Issues of the Dallas Morning News via Genealogy.com (not mentioned in image captions)
24th, 27th, 28th January, 1951.
8th, 11th, 12th, 14th, 18th February, 1951.
23rd, 25th March, 1951.
19th April, 1951.
15th May, 1951.
13th, 14th, 22nd, 24th June, 1951.
11th January 1952.
12th March, 1952.
5th April, 1952.
9th April, 1952.
Other Newspapers:
San Diego Evening Tribune, 25th January, 1951.
Morning Advocate, Baton Rouge, 25th January 1951.