Shreveport 'Butterfly Man' killer passed through Evergreen in 1934

From the April 26, 1934 edition of The Evergreen Courant:

Murderer Of Shreveport To Die On Gallows:

Editor’s Note: Local people will recall Napier’s appearance here several weeks ago when he sold his novelties on the streets.

Shreveport, La., April 23. – The law saved D.B. Napier, alias Frank Lockhart, 38, from the fury of a howling mob, but the same law today decreed that he must walk to the gallows for the murder 10 days ago of Mae Griffin, 16-year-old school girl, who he admitted criminally attacking.

A district court jury brought in a swift verdict of conviction a few hours after he went on trial today, and the butterfly trinket vendor who lured the girl from her home by promising her employment was immediately sentenced to be hanged. The execution date will be set by Gov. O.K. Allen.

“I am thankful,” said Mrs. Maggie Peters, mother of the slain girl, as she was helped from the court room.

“I am glad he is going to get killed,” said Lee Looney, Miss Griffin’s fiancée, who came here for the trial from his Board Camp, Ark. home.

The “butterfly man” accepted the sentence impassively. No appeal from the sentence is possible, as no bills of exception were reserved in the case.

A cordon of National Guardsmen, here since a mob of 3,000 persons sought to wrest Napier from officers in the city’s skyscraper jail Tuesday, stood guard during the trial today.

Late in the day, three companies of guardsmen from Minden, Ruston and Monroe, were ordered to return to their homes. The Shreveport company will remain on duty until midnight around the jail.

Napier made a complete confession of the crime Tuesday, explaining it with the remark: “It must have been the old devil coming out in me.”

He said he had gone to the girl’s home and persuaded Miss Griffin to accompany him as a companion for Napier’s wife. He said he attacked the girl; then, angered at her resistance, stabbed her to death.”