Bert

"Vengence is mine . . . ."

In the fall of 1971 a young man was killed in a shootout with the FBI at at motel in Marietta Georgia, a small town just outside Atlanta.  He had kidnapped a banker and his family and was holding them for ransom.  He was an escaped convict, murderer and bank robber who was wanted for a previous kidnapping.  His name was Marvin Elbert Grissom, and his hometown was McDougal Arkansas. 

Marvin's father was Bert Grissom.

Bert lived in the flatlands that surround McDougal and was quite well known by everyone as "someone you don't mess with".  Bert and Doug Batey evidently had a longstanding dislike for each other, a dislike which had grown after Doug, from the same part of the county, had been elected sheriff.  Sheriff Batey's office had answered a number of disorderly conduct, domestic violence, and other complaints at the Grissom residence.  By all accounts, Bert was just plain mean.

I believe that Bert's wife was the one who put the bruises on my aunt's face and blacked her eye for good measure over some derogatory remark that Elzora was alleged to have said.  Elzora was probably guilty, given her propensity to thinking a lot and speaking her mind often.

After Marvin's demise, Bert evidently suspected that Sherriff Batey had been instrumental in the FBI's locating and dispatching his son.  This may also have been true.

|Anyway, it came as no surprise, the following April, when the Sherriff's office was called to tell them that Bert was again engaged in a domestic disagreement that was about to get nasty.  Knowing Bert as he did, Doug decided to take the call personally and, just for good measure, take along a couple of deputies.

When they arrived at the Grissom residence and stepped out of the car, Bert stepped out of the carport with a 12 gauge shotgun and open fire.  Sherriff Batey and Deputy Troy Key died at the scene; Deputy Glen Ray Archer died about ten days later.  Forty-one years ago this month.

Bert sat down in the carport and waited.  And that's where he was when the state trooper arrived sometime later. He is reported to have said, "I've got no argument with you."

Bert was sentenced to life in prison, where he died sometime in the 1980's.  I've hear that a petition, with many signatures, requested his release was submitted to either the governor or the prison authorities.  It was, apparently either ignored or denied.  The entire episode was reported in detail in one of the detective magazine, but which one, I don't know.