Michael S. Chong keeps surfing the net, looking for stray tidbits concerning the late great Charles Willeford. In with some other info he sent the above clipping, saying:
“As a bonus, a small biographical detail in the column ‘The Time Has Come’ by Ben Wasson from the Delta Democrat Times, Greenville, Mississippi, for Sunday, February 13, 1972. Willeford relates in a letter how his grandfather was killed, shot at his work desk with a shotgun.”
To read it easily, just click on the image and blow it up.
Until someone can prove it, I’m not guaranteeing that this story is true — obviously local newshound Ben Wasson has his doubts, too. If it was almost anyone else, I might accept it as 99% likely. But since it is Willeford, it could be true, partly true or just another story he made up. The “premeditated” bit sounds like classic Willeford spinning a yarn.
(And by the way, Michael keeps plugging away at short crime fiction, as well — he’s got more stories coming out: “Trespassing” in editor K.A. Laity’s Drag Noir and “Unredeemable” in The Exile Book of New Canadian Noir from editors Claude Lalumière and David Nickle.)
