Walker v. Matthews

On the night of August 19, 1940, George Matthews, a negro, some seventy years of age, died, intestate, at his home five miles northwest of Meridian in Lauderdale County, Mississippi, where he lived alone. He had some ten thousand dollars in cash, other personal property of small value, and his home, consisting of eighty acres of land.

Immediately there was a scramble for Ms property. Mack Walker and Harriett Davis, claiming to be second cousins and heirs at law of Matthews, filed a petition in the chancery court of Lauderdale County under sections 359 and 360 of the Code of 1930 to have…