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Some Stuff I Wrote (2001) H. Morris Williams

brambles in the fortresses thereof: and it shall be an habitation of dragons, and a court for owls.”

TANNER BROCK REVISITED... Three weeks ago I wrote the column “Cleve and Mot”
which referred to the electrocution of Lake Ci tian Tanner Brock many years ago for the murder of

his young son. After I wrote the column, 1 happened to meet the Madison, Florida, mortician who
conducted Mr. Brock’s funeral. He told me two unusual aspects of the funeral arrangements.

First, the mortician said Mr. Brock’s sister went to him in Madison to make the funeral
arrangements. Not knowing the family, the mortician asked, “When did Mr. Brock die?” The sister

answered, “He will die next Wednesday.” The startled undertaker then asked, “How can you
possibly know he will die next Wednesday?” The sister then explained that her brother would be
electrocuted on that day.

Also, the mortician said the sister stipulated that her brother’s body (which was to be picked
up immediately after the electrocution at Raiford Prison) was not to be transported through Lake City

on the way to the Madison funeral home. Why this stipulation? Apparently because she had heard
that the community outrage over the brutal killing of the young boy was still so strong that there

“might be trouble” if even Tanner Brock’s lifeless body passed through town.
Therefore, the mortician said, the hearse transporting Mr. Brock’s remains took a route from

Raiford Prison to the south of Lake Butler and completely avoided Lake City on its way back to
Madison.

Tanner Brock’s final resting place was the Bethel Creek Cemetery on Highway 53 just over
the Madison County line in Lafayette County.

A Real Hero

July 19, 1994

Lake Citian Robert Pickens (CHS, 1950) won the Alabama Department of Public Safety “Life
Saving Award” back in 1981. Here’s what he did to deserve it. He came upon a two-car collision

where both cars were engulfed in flames. Hearing the agonizing screams of the trapped occupants,
Robert went to the first car, a seething inferno of fire and heat, reached inside and pulled out the lone

survivor. Then he went to the second car and, knowing the gas tank was on fire and could explode
at any second, again risked his own life by prying the door open to save the occupants. Then-Gov.

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