Sheriff Jackson Stanland

Jackson Stanland

Sheriff Jackson Stanland was shot and killed at Little Shallotte when he and his posse attempted to arrest a man on a warrant for breaking into a store and being a deserter from Fort Caswell.

Members of his posse arrested the suspect and incarcerated him in the jail at Southport. On January 29, 1909, the suspect overpowered the guard and escaped the Southport Jail. On March 7, 1915, he was recaptured in Brunswick County when he tried to sneak back home to see his wife and child.

Two weeks later an Oklahoma doctor traveling on a train near Wilmington overheard other passengers talking about Sheriff Stanland's murder and the suspect. The talk about the suspect reminded him of a patient he treated for gunshot wounds in Braggs, Oklahoma, in June of 1909. The patient was seriously wounded in a gunfight with three officers and killed Braggs Deputy Constable George Kirk. The suspect was convicted of murder and sentenced to 30 years. In 1914, he escaped from the Oklahoma Penitentiary. The doctor went to the jail in Southport and positively identified the man as Constable Kirk's killer. The man was convicted of Sheriff Stanland's murder and sentenced to 30 years.

In 1919, the man escaped from Central Prison in Raleigh. In 1935 he simply walked back into the prison, told the warden that God had forgiven him, and was ready to settle his debt with the state. During his 16 years of freedom, he married, had children, and led a respectable life as a businessman in Gulfport, Mississippi. On June 6, 1936, he was paroled, taken into custody by Oklahoma officials, and returned to the Oklahoma Penitentiary. He was paroled on July 24, 1944.

Sheriff Stanland was survived by his wife and seven children.