Loss of the Aliff family, 1974
Vernon Darrell would have been 52 today, Dec. 26, 2024.
James would have been 54, Charlotte would have been 58 and Peggy would have been 60. Their mother, Sally Davis Aliff, would have been 84 and probably a grandmother how many times over?
But, instead, the family were murdered on the day after Christmas, 1974.
James Vernon Aliff, their husband and father, came home from work that day to find his wife’s beaten, partially clothed body on the bedroom floor. Later in the day, neighbor Jack Hill discovered the bodies of the children in a ravine in the woods behind the house. The 2-year-old was found still holding two tiny plastic red roosters in his hand, and the 4-year-old was still holding a blue metal truck in his right hand. None of the children had shoes on. In the house investigators found signs of a struggle and a meal that had apparently been interrupted.
Former Henry County Sheriff C.P. Witt in 2000 called it “the most heinous” crime ever committed in Henry County.
That night, Eddie Lee “Shanghai” Thomas of Preston was arrested and charged with the murders. Thomas was a rip-saw operator who rode to work at the Nationwide Homes plant each day with Mr. Aliff, but he hadn’t gone to work that day.
A Grieving Community
The community mourned with Mr. Aliff, and several organizations raised money to aid with burial expenses: Fieldale Rescue Squad, Preston Ruritan Club, the southside office of First National Bank of Martinsville and Henry County, Nationwide Homes, Patrick-Henry Volunteer Fire Department, Bassett Rescue Squad, Martinsville Exchange Club and Martinsville-Henry County Lifesaving and Rescue Squad were active in that regard right away. Later, the family’s tombstone would be donated by Fieldale Elementary and Primary schools and friends.
Contributions to funds set up to help with funeral and related expenses totaled nearly $9,000.
About 500 people formed a funeral cortege that was 3 miles long behind the hearse which carried the family in their caskets to Stone Funeral Home in Martinsville. An estimated 5,000 people attended the funeral, their names covering 45 pages in the chapel’s register book. The funeral home stayed open until 2 a.m. to accommodate all the mourners. The family were buried in Mountain View Cemetery in Ridgeway. About 500 people attended the burial ceremonies.
‘Wreck of a Human Being’
Thomas was taken into custody on the night the bodies were found. Initially he was held on a $100,000 bond, but the next day, when he was formally charged, that changed to no bond.
Thomas’s trial was moved from Henry County to Fredericksburg.
Thomas’s defense attorney, Robert W. Mann, described Thomas to the jury as a “wreck of a human being.” He and a psychologist both said Thomas was “borderline mentally retarded,” but, the psychologist also testified, at the time of the killings he knew right from wrong.
The trial lasted at least four days. On Jan. 17, 1976, Thomas was found guilty of five counts of first-degree murder. Judge John D. Hooker of Patrick County sentenced him to five life terms in prison.
Thomas spent just two days short of 30 years in state prisons. He died on April 23, 2008 at Powhatan Correctional Center of metastatic cancer, at age 67.
‘Step Back With Them into the Past’
Five years after Mr. Aliff lost his family to violence, an interview with him, by Charles Smith of the Roanoke Times & World-News, appeared in some Virginia newspapers. By then, he had remarried and moved to Oak Level. That marriage lasted 9 years.
“Before the murders, I was a hustler,” Aliff said. “I’m slowly returning to that. I’ve grown to accept the facts, but I can’t really put a time period on how long it took to do. I’ll never recover some of it … It can’t ever be totally wiped out.”
Aliff said that during the investigation he wanted to let his feelings out, but couldn’t. He has “gone back to the everyday drag, trying to survive,” rather than be stuck reliving it in his mind.
Memories of his family still gave him great joy, he said: “I don’t bring them into the present, but step back with them into the past.”
In a Martinsville Bulletin article on July 16, 2000, Aliff said he had moved on with his life, but still thought of his family. After the murders, he drove a truck for several years, around the U.S. and Canada. Getting to see the nation while getting paid to do so helped him “more than anything,” he said.
Then he became a security officer at Bassett Furniture Industries. He also had gone back to that same house he and his young family had lived in in 1974. He is now 85.