Five people were killed and many more were wounded when 57 shots rang out on a cold March Day in 1912. The wounds left behind after the shootout would fester for generations. In Carroll County, Virginia families on both sides of the tragedy have continued to hold grudges and resentment, because of that the subject was taboo among locals. That may finally be changing.

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The Carroll County Courthouse shootout spilled out of the courtroom and into the streets that cold March day in 1912. The Allens were on the run, but not for too long. The five killed that day would lead to a murder trial that grabbed national headlines. A father and son would be sentenced to the electric chair while the crime would follow the families involved for generations

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Fifty seven shots were fired in about ninety seconds. Five people were killed, seven wounded. It was the biggest news story in the country in 1912 until the Titanic sank. To this day, it’s still the United States’s worst incident to occur in an open courtroom. Some people call it murder and others say self-defense, but what happened in Hillsville, Virginia on that cold March day has conjured up rumor and speculation for generations. No matter which side you’re on, everyone agrees the shootout was the result of a longstanding feud between political rivals, a clash of personalities that erupted in a bloody gun battle and ripped this small southern town apart. 

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Fifty-seven shots in ninety seconds, five people dead, seven others wounded and it all happened inside a courtroom on a cold March day in 1912. Lives and fortunes were lost over what most believe was a senseless tragedy. The echoes of the gunfire have long since disappeared but the wounds left behind in the quaint little town of Hillsville, Virginia have continued to fester. The political drama that led up to the shooting has divided families for generations. Some say the shootout was self-defense, others murder. Many of the questions surrounding that day have yet to be answered. Fifty-Seven shots in ninety seconds. Who fired the first shot?

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