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Wednesday, June 26, 2024

June 26, 1942: Mortician Arranges Fatal Abortion

Summary: 18-year-old Inez McGraw died in Spartanburg, South Carolina after an abortion perpetrated by midwife Henrietta Henderson. Interestingly enough, the man who arranged the abortion was sentenced to more than double the sentence faced by the abortionist.


On day two of a two-day trial, Henrietta Henderson, a 43-year-old black midwife, changed her plea to guilty in the abortion death of 18-year-old Inez McGraw of Woodruff, SC. She then turned state's evidence against 51-year-old mortuary proprietor and father-of-three William E. Evans, asserting that he had been the baby's father and had arranged the abortion. 

Much was made of race during coverage of the trial, likely because both Inez and Evans were white and the bulk of the witnesses were black in a time and place where race was considered much more significant than it is now.

Robert Lee Bobo, a black man who worked for Evans, said he'd picked Inez up in a truck owned by Evans and dropped her off on the Greenville highway, where she got into Evans's private car. 

Another black man, John Nix, said that Evans had come to him asking where to find a midwife.


The abortion was perpetrated June 23, 1942.  Inez died in Spartanburg General Hospital two days later, on June 25, though news coverage sometimes erroneously gives her date of death as June 26. Her cause of death was generalized gas gangrene, necrosis of the uterine wall, acute peritonitis, and septicemia. The physician filling out the death certificate, in the space to note if the death was related to pregnancy or childbirth wrote "after miscarriage."

In court on July 28, 1942, Henrietta Henderson testified that Evans told her, "You don't know me and I don't know you. ... I want you to help me out. ... I want you to see after this girl for me. ... I done it."

Inez, a white woman who had worked as a stenographer at the mortuary, went into a room in Henderson's home on the old Greenville highway near Travelers Rest Church outside Spartanburg, South Carolina. Evans sat on a cot and waited while Henderson used "an instrument" that resembled "a little spoon" "I used it in her," Henderson said.

Evans denied being the baby's father and denied arranging the abortion.

When Henderson finished, she and Inez returned to the room where Evans waited. Evans handed Inez $10, which she then handed to Henderson. Evans had, Henderson testified, promised her another $5 but she never collected it.

Jesse Henderson, Henrietta Henderson's husband testified as well but news coverage doesn't say what evidence he provided. His wife's testimony had been that he'd been in the yard during the abortion.

A farmer and bondsman, J. L. Kimbrell, testified that Evans paid him ad Ab Kimbrell $30 to sign a $2,500 bond for Henrietta's release. Evans admitted to paying $30 to J. L. Kimbrel and his brother, Ab Kimbrell, for signing Henderson's bond to get her out of the county jail. The state asserted that Evans had arranged bond because he wanted Henderson to flee and thus be unable to testify. Evans, however, testified that he'd sought her release because he "knew she had been under pressure," and he wanted to know what she was planning to say in court. 

Evans said that he spoke with Henderson. "I told her she knew that I wasn't the man who came out there." He also said, "I told her if she was not guilty to go up there and make a statement. She said she was not guilty." He said that Henderson told him that the officers, one with his hand on his gun and the other with a billy club in his hand, had threatened to put her in "a sweatbox."

Henderson was expected to testify that he had an alibi for the afternoon of the fatal abortion.


A woman named Eva Dixon said that she went to Evans in Inez's behalf to say that she needed help.

Henderson and Evans were arrested separately on June 30. Bond for each of them was set at $5,000, but only Evans was able to post bond.

It took the jury just 19 minutes to return a guilty verdict.

"Your sins have overtaken you -- 12 years," Circuit Judge T. S. Sease said in handing down Evans's sentence. Henderson was sentenced to 5 years. Evans's attorney announced an intention to immediately appeal. Because he was sentenced to more than 10 years, bond would have to be set by the state supreme court. 

Evans was a father of three.

The trial took only two days, July 27 and 28, 1942. 

Strangely enough, Inez's surname is given as Crawford, not McGraw, in the court's decision on Evans's appeal.

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