Wow this really brings back some memories. Whan I was a boy, Pride Dawson was on trial for murder. They even had an article about it one of those "true crime" magazines. My mother was called for jury duty and was scared to death she would get picked. Fortunately seh did not. She said that Dewitt stood outside the courtroom and told the jurors that if his brother was convicted he would come looking for them. Pride was convicted anyway.
When I was a teenager I worked for a local furniture store. I delivered a bunch of furniture to Homer Gene's place. Like someone said earlier, there wasn't a nicer bunch of folks around if you didn't get on their bad side. A few months after my delivery Homer Gene was going to rob a bank but the FBI was tipped off. They shot him with a 12 gauge when he came through the door. The Times Daily later quoted Dewith as saying he didn't now why the FBI shot his brother, he was just going in the bank to cash a check.
Dewitt's son, Billy Ray, had the reputation of being the baddest guy around when I was growing up. I heard he got in a fight with a black kid at Colbert County High School. The black kid got arrested. Rumor was that Dewitt paid the kid's bail but the kid was scared to leave the jail.