Trapingus County

Trapingus County is the rural southern jurisdiction in which the rape-murder of the nine-year-old Detterick twins, Cora and Kathe, occurred in June 1932, and where John Coffey was arrested, tried, and convicted for the crime. It is the setting of the crime scene on the south bank of the Trapingus River, the county seat of Tefton, and the domain of Sheriff Homer Cribus, a whiskey-nosed, incompetent hypocrite who was later discovered to have been sexually involved with a seventeen-year-old black girl named Daphne Shurtleff. The county's legal and social machinery—its all-white jury, its prosecutor, and its press—functioned to condemn Coffey swiftly, and the evidence that might have exonerated him was never allowed to surface. The county is also the home of Burt Hammersmith, the reporter who covered the trial and later told Paul Edgecombe that Coffey was guilty, comparing him to a mongrel dog that bites without warning.

Geography and Setting

Trapingus County lies in the southern part of the state, a region of cotton farms, piney woods, and the slow, wide Trapingus River. The county seat is Tefton, a small town where the courthouse and the offices of the Tefton Intelligencer are located. The Detterick farm, where the twins lived, is in the county, as is the riverbank where Coffey was found holding the girls' bodies. The area is described as deep countryside where families named Cray, Robinette, and Duplissey still made their own mandolins and often spat out their own rotted teeth as they plowed; men there were apt to handle snakes on Sunday morning and lie down in carnal embrace with their daughters on Sunday night. The county is also the site of the Great Southern branch line trestle that crosses the Trapingus River, a landmark visible from the crime scene.

The Crime and the Arrest

The abduction of the Detterick twins occurred on a warm June night from the screen-enclosed side porch of their farmhouse. The killer charmed the family dog, Bowser, with sausages, then broke its neck. The girls were taken to the riverbank, where they were raped and murdered. The posse, led by Deputy Rob McGee, found John Coffey sitting on the riverbank, holding the bodies and wailing. Sheriff Homer Cribus, the county's top law officer, was not present at the arrest; McGee led the posse. Cribus was a whiskey-nosed old boy with a gut like a washtub and a head of white hair so fine it looked like pipe-cleaner fuzz. He was incompetent, the kind of fellow who would get himself photographed petting some lady's cat when it was someone else who had actually risked a broken collarbone by going up the tree where Mistress Pussycat was and bringing her down.

The Trial and the Press

Coffey's trial was held in Trapingus County, and the jury was out only forty-five minutes. The prosecutor, George Peterson, argued that Coffey had fed sausages to the dog to charm it, then broken its neck. The defense attorney's one big victory was getting Coffey to take off his shirt and show the scars on his back to the jury. The Tefton Intelligencer, the county's newspaper, covered the trial extensively. Its reporter, Burt Hammersmith, wrote most of the stories on the Coffey trial, and later told Edgecombe details the paper considered too gruesome to print. Hammersmith, who had been to college in Bowling Green and liked to think of himself as enlightened, told Edgecombe that Coffey was guilty, comparing him to a mongrel dog that bites without warning. He said, "We have to remember that your negro will bite if he gets the chance, just like a mongrel dog will bite if he gets the chance and it crosses his mind to do so."

The Sheriff and the Deputy

Sheriff Homer Cribus was the county's top law officer, but he was incompetent and corrupt. He was later discovered to have been sexually involved with a seventeen-year-old black girl named Daphne Shurtleff, an affair that caused a lot of talk, especially with him always sporting his wife and six boys around so prominent come election time. Deputy Rob McGee, who actually led the posse that arrested Coffey, was a more competent officer. After the trial, McGee was the one who, at Edgecombe's urging, went to ask Klaus Detterick about a man who had painted his barn in May 1932—a man who had given his name as Will Bonney, the real name of Billy the Kid. McGee confirmed that William Wharton had been in the county a month before the murders, but he refused to reopen the case, telling Edgecombe that "John Coffey is a Negro, and in Trapingus County we're awful particular about giving new trials to Negroes."

Significance

Trapingus County functions as the setting for the central injustice of the novel: the swift, racially motivated conviction of an innocent man. The county's legal system, its press, and its law enforcement all collaborated to ensure that Coffey was condemned, and the evidence that might have exonerated him—Wharton's presence in the county a month before the murders, his use of the alias Will Bonney, and his history of sexual assault on young girls—was never allowed to surface. The county is also the home of Burt Hammersmith, whose racist worldview encapsulates the systemic prejudice that condemned Coffey. The county's geography—the riverbank, the farm, the woods—is the stage for the crime and its aftermath, and its name becomes synonymous with the failure of justice.