Chief Floyd H. Malone

Floyd H. Malone

Chief County Policeman Floyd Malone and County Policeman Frank Tucker were shot to death while on a hunt for illicit stills.

The policemen had left Gray at an early morning hour to search for moonshiners in the southern part of the county. They located a still and destroyed it. Twelve hours later their bullet riddled bodies were found in a pond at an abandoned mill near Haddock by a boy who was fishing. Their bloodstained automobile was found nearby.

Days later two brothers, 29 and 36, who owned the still that Malone and Tucker had destroyed were charged with their murder. Both were convicted of their murders and sentenced to life. The Georgia Supreme Court awarded one a new trial when it was learned that a juror in his first trial was related to the prosecutor. On June 16, 1927, his second trial resulted in an acquittal. His older brother was paroled on November 17, 1933. On October 12, 1936, he was returned to prison for violating his parole. He was paroled a second time on April 8, 1937.

The double murder enraged citizens of Jones and Bibb Counties. They accused some law enforcement officers and certain prominent men of collusion when it came to the lax way the National Prohibition law was being enforced. The Jones County Sheriff and a former Jones County policeman were arrested on a federal warrant charging them with conspiracy to violate the national prohibition law. They were accused of having entered into an agreement with a group of moonshiners to permit them to operate under police protection.

In 1914 the Georgia Sate Legislature authorized county commissioners to elect or appoint county policemen. The Jones County Police Department no longer exists.