The Digital Yoknapatawpha Project

In Chapter 4 the "marshal" who works with Sheriff Kennedy at the scene of Joanna's murder is named Buck Conner (99, etc.). (The unnamed town "night marshal" who joins Percy Grimm's unit of peace keepers in Chapter 19 [456] may be the same man.)

This is Joanna Burden's nephew. When word of her death reaches him in New Hampshire, he offers a thousand dollar reward to find the murderer. That reward plays a larger role in the narrative than he does.

Mrs. Waller reports the fire to the police after she and her husband discover the burning house and Joanna Burden's body.

Identified as a "countryman" - i.e. a farmer from the county of Yoknapatawpha not the town of Jefferson (90) - Hamp Waller is the first person on the scene of Joanna's murder. Riding to town in a wagon with his family, he finds Joe Brown in the burning house. He also finds Joanna Burden's body in the house and removes it.

Byron lives at Mrs. Beard's boarding house, and refers to the other men who live there as men who come to Jefferson on business or to serve on a jury, or as he puts it, "every durn horsetrader or courtjury that passes through the hallway" (300). They talk about the fire at the Burden House.

He and Captain McLendon discuss what they hear Joe Brown (aka Lucas Burch) talking about at the barbershop before Christmas "run in and dragged him out" (87).

McLendon (a World War I veteran) and Mr. Maxey discuss what they hear Joe Brown (aka Lucas Burch) talking about at the barbershop before Christmas "run in and dragged him out" (87).