LIVING HISTORY
Planning, Protecting, Problem Solving . . .
BRUCE R. ABERNETHY, JR.
ATTORNEY AND COUNSELOR AT LAW
Florida Bar Board Certified in Wills, Trusts and Estates
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He turned to go up the street but didn’t get far. Rawlinson
wasted no time. He fired immediately from 5 feet away. The
first bullet struck the victim’s back and knocked him to the
ground. The metal lodged in the flesh under his right shoulder
blade. McCarty took a second bullet in the back of the
head not far from his right ear. That’s when he flipped over
and faced his killer, who stood above him emptying his pistol,
but missing every time, except for a shot through the calf
of McCarty’s left leg. Seven witnesses saw it all.
As the townsfolk all came running to McCarty’s aid, the
killer simply walked away. They say he sauntered down the
street and around the corner, twirling his gun like a dimenovel
outlaw, Billy the Kid, perhaps, or Jesse James. No one
dared get in his way, and no one tried to stop him, but it
didn’t matter. When Rawlinson reached the meat market, he
summoned the new sheriff, Dan Carlton, to come and arrest
him. Carlton himself would be gunned down on a nearby
sidewalk less than a decade later.
Two young doctors tended to McCarty while he repeatedly
called for Lizzie, who was in town visiting Mrs. A. K. Wilson,
the publisher’s wife. McCarty kept asking why Rawlinson
would shoot him. He wanted to make sure the criminal was
captured. When his wife arrived at his side, the wounded
man was moved to Dan’s big house on the other side of town,
the house Charles had given him two years earlier as a wedding
present. It was where his grandson, the future governor
of Florida, Dan McCarty, Jr., would be born and raised.
A telegram was sent to J. R. Parrott asking if one of
28 years of experience
Providing Peace of Mind
Masters degree in tax law (LLm Taxation)
Former practicing Florida CPA
Practice limited to:
• Estate and business planning
• Asset protection planning
• Estate, gift and generation skipping
tax minimization planning
• Charitable gift planning
• Trust and estate administration
772.489.4901
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ScRIPPS TREASURE cOAST PUBLISHING
The St. Lucie County Tribune used an old stock photo by Harry Hill for
its dramatic front page story about the assassination of St. Lucie county’s
“leading citizen.”
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