User:Stormie777

In December of 2006 a Documentary produced by Eric Calhoun and directed by Matt Hodges at Break Of Dawn Productions presented to the public for the first time the story of the murders of seven members of the Lawson family and the suicide of the Patriarch of the family committed by a tobacco farmer named Charlie Lawson in Stokes County, North Carolina. The murders occured on Christmas Day in 1929. The story of the worst mass murders to ever occur in the state of North Carolina took the theaters by storm. The title of the Documentary is A Christmas Family Tragedy which premiered at a theatre in Mt. Airy to 2 sell out crowds on the same day for the premier showing. When it aired at Star Theatre in Stuart, Virgina hundreds of people had to be turned away because so many people turned up for both showings that day leaving no seat empty. The crowds of people who turned out to watch the Documentary was so large that four firemen had to be called out to direct and control the traffic. A second showing had to be scheduled a month later to accomaodate the people who were turned away the first time.The Grande Theatre in Greensboro had to schedule a second showing of the film due to the demands of the public. It is a more detailed account of the murders than has ever been presented to the public before and is based on interviews with family members, friends, and neighbors of the Lawson Family as well as experts in the field of Domestic Violence and an immense amount of research. In addition to the Documentary A Scrapbook of the Lawson murders is due out in 2009. The Scrapbook which is a hard back table top companion book to the Documentary contains over 200 photos, most of which have never been seen before, of the Lawson family and the murders, and is combined with a pictoral history of all of Stokes County covering a span of 59 years. The time frame of this book is from 1886, the year of Charlie Lawson's birth until 1945, the year his only surviving son Arthur Lawson was killed in an auto accident. Photos of the people back then as well as the homes, businessess, churches, schools, and way of life were taken of these people and places as they were during that time. In other words, a visit that takes you back in time to the awful day of this tragedy and lets you walk among the people and places as if you were actually there with them. Learn how it affected an entire community and how they coped with this horror. Look upon the face of the 30 year old man who carried in his arms the tiny and lifeless form of an innocent baby who only a few hours earlier had been brutally bludgeoned to death by her own father as she lay helpless in her crib, her mother dead on the floor close by. Walk with him down the long steep hill covered in ice and snow as he slowly made his way to the foot of the hill and laid her gently inside the open hearse. Listen to the voice of a 93 year old man as he describes how scared he was that Christmas Day when, as a young 14 year old boy his father suddenly burst into his home crying out that someone had just murdered a friend and neigbors entire family. Then see the grief in the eyes of one of the murdered victim's best friends as she cries out, "he killed my best friend." A soundtrack made of the Documentary won first place in the Truman Capote Awards with the Documentary taking second place in the best Documentary category in 2007. A message forum on the Lawson murders is a thriving and well attended forum which under the two years it has been on the internet has seen well over 10.000 postings. You can learn more about this story at www.breakofdawn.biz