Bus Passengers Have Hour of Terror on Speeding Bus

Article taken from The Bradford Era, January 4, 1947

Portsmouth, OH. -(/AP)- An hour of terror on a speeding Greyhound bus, in which two brothers went berserk, bent the driver and fired 14 shots among the 23 passengers was described here yesterday. Women prayed and men cringed as the vehicle roared through rain and mist in the darkness of midnight with a drink-crazed man directing the driver. To enforce this demand for more speed or less speed, the shouting, laughing figure temporarily in command held a jagged whisky bottle to the driver's throat and banged him on the head with a pistol. The nightmare ended when a passengers overpowered the men at Wheelersburg, a Portsmouth suburb about 1 a.m. yesterday. "Boy, I was scared to death all the time." Driver C. L. Stillwell 36, of Charleston, W. Va, declared as he recounted the 30-mile trip along the Ohio River from Ironton, OH, to Wheelersburg. Stillwell was weak from loss of blood as he rested in a hospital, but otherwise was in good condition. Lawrence Steele of Cincinnati, a passenger, was trented for a broken nose. In jail here were Hobert Griffith, 26, an ex-solider released from a month ago, and Ray Griffith, 20, from Wheelwright, KY. The Griffith brothers had been romming at Huntington W. Va. where they were employed. They were enroute to Cincinnati.