Finding His Father's Killer

Welby Lee is a tireless Tennesseean who has spent 20 years and traveled 100,000 miles in search of the hit-and-run driver who killed his father on a country road on New Year's Eve, 1944. With only a broken bumper guard as solid evidence, Lumber Merchant Lee, now 52, traced scores of cars and suspects before he caught up last year with Grover Jones, 56, an Indianapolis handyman. On the basis of Lee's mound of circumstantial evidence, Jones was indicted for second-degree murder, only to have the case wind up in a mistrial (TIME, Nov. 20).

Last week Jones went on trial again in Celina, Tenn. (pop. 1,228). Again, he denied even being in Tennessee on the night Lee's father was killed. This time prosecution witnesses placed Jones less than a quarter-mile away from the death scene only minutes before the accident. The shirtsleeved jurors needed less than two hours to bring in a verdict of involuntary manslaughter, fixed his sentence at a year and a day. "I'm very disappointed," protested Jones. Said Welby Lee: "Justice was done."

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