Thomas Griffin

Thomas Griffin and Meeks Griffin (died September 29, 1915) were American brothers and prominent Black farmers who were wrongfully executed for the 1913 murder of John Q. Lewis. Their conviction, as well as that of their co-defendants, Nelson Brice and John Crosby, was based on the testimony by a fifth codefendant, who was sentenced to life imprisonment in exchange for his cooperation.

Life Thomas and Meeks Griffin were born as the second and third sons to Franklin and Julia Griffin in Blackstock, South Carolina. Their parents owned of land in Chester County, South Carolina, which they took over and worked on as adults. They had an older brother, John, and Clarence Preston and sister Dorothy, Julia and a younger sister, Ruth. Thomas was also called Tom while Meeks was also known as Mitch.

On the night to April 24, 1913, 75-year-old John Quarles Lewis was killed during a home invasion on his farm in Blackstock. He was discovered the following morning by Jim Dove, who worked on the property as a farmhand. Lewis' house was ten miles away from Chester, with the nearest inhabited place being the Cornwell Inn three miles away. Lewis, a wealthy farmer and Confederate veteran, had been shot twice in the back and chest with a shotgun. A stash of $40 was left undiscovered. Shortly after, police arrested a young black couple, Anna and Dave Davis, on suspicion of murder, but they were released two months later for lack of evidence. Later, John "Monk" Stevenson, a small-time thief, was arrested after he was found in possession of the victim's pistol. In July 1913, the other defendants were sentenced to death. There was no physical evidence against the four suspects, who continued to plead their innocence. The Griffin brothers and Crosby made repeated unsuccessful appeals, including to the South Carolina Supreme Court. Among others argumentation, a statement was entered by Hattie Budget, who had shared a jail cell with Stevenson, claiming that the latter had admitted to falsely accusing the Griffin brothers of involvement in the murder. Thomas Griffin was 27, Meeks Griffin was 25, Brice was 20, and Crosby around 33.

Executed alongside the four men was 45-year-old Joe Malloy, convicted of the 1910 murders of two white boys, 11-year-old Prentiss Moore and 15-year-old Guy Rogers, who had trespassed on his property in Marlboro County, South Carolina, while hunting. Malloy was also suspected of killing his wife to cover up the double murder. Malloy's execution was the subject of the US Supreme Court case Malloy v. South Carolina in 1915. Their deaths marked what was then the single largest legally processed mass execution in South Carolina history.

Legacy Over 100 people petitioned Gov. Richard Manning to commute the brothers' sentence. The signatories included Blackstock's mayor, a sheriff, two trial jurors and the grand jury foreman. Nevertheless, they were sent to the electric chair. Thomas Griffin and Meeks Griffin were pardoned in October 2009 after Tom Joyner, who was the grandnephew of the Griffin brothers through his father's family, sought from state appeals court in Columbia, South Carolina.

Joyner learned about his relationship to the Griffins through research conducted for the PBS documentary, African American Lives 2, by Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr., which also traced 11 other relatives.

Their case was dramatized in the 2021 supernatural horror film, Blackstock Boneyard. In said film, they return from the grave one hundred years later to take revenge on the descendants of the people responsible for their deaths.