A madman who may have been high on marijuana when he killed five members of his Ybor City family with an ax before escaping from a mental institution and eventually committing suicide set the stage for banning the use of cannabis.
100 years later, Tarpon Springs Hurricane reminds Tampa Bay it can happen here tampabay.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from tampabay.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Updated Mar. 2
Warning: The descriptions in this story and a photograph of a public lynching are graphic and disturbing.
Six years ago, a crew replacing light poles on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Street found an engraved metal plate. It was a few feet off the ground, blackened with graffiti and hidden behind a planter bursting with bird of paradise, almost invisible.
âAt this intersection, Nov. 12, 1914, John Evans a black laborer from Dunnellon was lynched,â it said, âcondemned by a secret council of 15 of St. Petersburgâs most influential citizens, he was then turned over to a mob of 1,500 white residents and murdered.â