While there have been a small number of capital murder charges filed in Loudoun County over the past several decades, most have been reduced to life imprisonment, or a rare case, the defendant found innocent.
One must go back 65 years to find Loudoun’s last capital murder conviction that resulted in an execution, punishment for the brutal murders of five people on a farm near Purcellville during World War II. The crime was committed by Thomas William “Bill” Clatterbuck, 33, a casual friend of the victims–three members of the A. Morris Love family and Mr. and Mrs. Walter Russell, who lived on their farm. Sadly, Clatterbuck committed the mass murders in order to avoid prosecution for a simple forgery.
Killed during the brief frenzy of violence on June 1, 1943 were A. Morris Love, 58; his wife Ruth Love, 55; and their son, James Love, 22. After murdering the Loves in their house on Route 609 (today’s Silcott Springs Road), Clatterbuck ambushed farm worker Walter Russell, 38, in a field near the Love’s barn, and then shot Russell’s wife Katheryne, 28, as she stood in the kitchen of their tenant house.
Innocent Victims
By all accounts, the Love family was well known and highly regarded in Loudoun, and throughout the region. Morris, a successful farmer, was the son of Fenton M. Love, a former state delegate representing the area, and Gertrude Woolf Love. The third generation of his family to live in Loudoun, Morris was a member of the Catoctin Farmers Club and served on the Loudoun County Ration Board. One of his three brothers, F. Mercer Love, lived nearby in Purcellville.
Ruth, the daughter of Robert and Sara Grubb of Hillsboro and sister of Dr. W. H. Grubb of Purcellville, also had deep roots in Loudoun. Both she and Morris were active members of Harmony Methodist Church in Hamilton.
The Loves had two children. Son James was a recent graduate of Randolph-Macon College in Ashland, and had previously been a swimming teacher at the Purcellville Golf Club. Their daughter Sarah Love, a teacher at Aldie High School, was spared because she was at work grading papers on the morning of the murders. She would later testify at Clatterbuck’s trial. Less is known about the Russells, although Walter reportedly had family in the area, including a brother, Leon Russell.
The investigation revealed that Clatterbuck acted alone and was responsible for all five deaths. He was indicted on five counts, which could have resulted in five trials. However, it was decided that Clatterbuck would be tried on just one count of capital murder: the killing of Walter Russell.
An Unlikely Perpetrator
He was married to Frances Lunsford, one of the 17 children of the Mr. and Mrs. R. B. Lunsford family. Bill and Frances had four young children–and one more on the way. The couple was living in a small house in the Blue Ridge foothills near Hillsboro at the time of the murders.
Due to the rigors of his job, he was described as powerfully built, weighing 240 pounds.
According to testimony by family members and others, Bill Clatterbuck had a normal childhood and had never been in trouble. His mother described him as “a loving, attentive son” until the months leading up to the murders.
He had struggled to provide for his growing family during the closing years of the Great Depression. Along with other family members, Clatterbuck joined the Church of the Nazarene in Loudoun, where he was a “contributing member” and singer in the choir. He remained committed to his church, even when he was living away from Loudoun.
Clatterbuck’s business grew slowly, but got a boost in 1942 when the U.S. Government began construction of a $5 million Army General Hospital in Martinsburg, W.Va. Clatterbuck was contracted to haul sand and gravel to the site.
The potential new source of steady income encouraged Clatterbuck to borrow more money from family members and friends–including A. Morris Love. Needing money to fix up his house, Clatterbuck worked out a loan from Love for $500 in November 1942, followed by a $2,000 note in December.
It was at this point where Clatterbuck’s life began to fall apart.
As wartime scarcities began to emerge, it became increasingly difficult for Clatterbuck to get tires and gasoline for his trucks from the ration board. Later, the two young men he
To make matters worse, Clatterbuck suffered from a “rotten knee”–diagnosed as multiple boils or carbuncles on his leg–that kept him bedridden for weeks. During his trial, his older brother John Clatterbuck testified, “It got so he could walk again, but I never thought he would.”
When he returned to work, Clatterbuck was down to one truck. The Army was slow in paying him for what he had already hauled, and had taken their business elsewhere, due to his inability to deliver.
Frances Clatterbuck later testified that up until early 1943, her husband had shared the family finances with her. However, after the business soured, he no longer told her about their income sources, including the loans he had taken out – which by then involved five banks in Loudoun and Fauquier counties, totaling over $8,200 including the money owed to Morris Love.
Other family members, including brothers John and Meredith, also noted the change in Bill, and their mother was also concerned. She testified during the trial that she wanted Bill to “have his head examined,” and if the family could convince him to go, she would have paid for the exam herself.
But Bill was doing something else that the family had become aware of shortly before the killings. He had borrowed more money, and because of his shaky financial situation, forged the names of co-signers.
He was already late paying off a $317 note that he had arranged with the Farmers & Merchants National Bank at Hamilton, which he had secured by forging his brother Meredith’s name as a co-signer. When Meredith found out and gently confronted him, Bill he admitted what he had done and told him “…he was going to make it alright,” according to Meredith’s later testimony.
While forgery among family members might be “made alright,” it didn’t work with the bankers or Morris Love. Near the end of May, Love ran into Meredith at Peyton’s Garage and asked him if he had co-signed the delinquent note he had with Bill, and Meredith told him he had not.
Meredith talked to his father and older brother John about the forged signatures on the Love note. It did not surprise them, as they were aware of the forged signatures on the Hamilton bank note. But they did nothing as the June 1, 1943 hearing before Loudoun County Trial Justice W. A. Metzger regarding the Hamilton bank note approached.
“I knew Bill already had enough on his mind without me crowding anything else on it,” according to testimony given later by John Clatterbuck.
However, the hearing–which Bill Clatterbuck managed to put off–did not compare to what else would happen in Loudoun County on the morning of June 1, 1943.
Elizabeth Caccia assisted in the research of this article.
Next Week: Confrontation and Fatal Consequences
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