Blog on "Romeo Must Hang" in the Gazz (Click Here)

Here is a blog in the "GaZZ" by Steve Fesenmaier about "Romeo Must Hang" and Davis Grubb . . .

Bob Wilkinson, director of “Shades of Gray,” the award-winning 2008 feature documentary about Clarksburg’s UFO pioneer Gray Barker, is working on “Romeo Must Hang,” (new website with link to trailer) a new film about another famous person from Clarksburg, Harry Powers. He was famous as one of America’s first serial killers and the basis for Davis Grubb’s landmark book/film, “The Night of the Hunter.”(1955)

Wilkinson, with support from Robert & Jeffrey Tinnell’s Allegheny Image Factory, has traveled the region to interview people who knew Harry Powers and have chronicled his evil life. Interviewees include Merle Moore, former Clarksburg library director and good personal friend of Davis Grugg, Gerald Milnes, Elkins filmmaker/writer/musician who interviewed many people on audio tapes before they passed away. The film should be completed some time this coming fall. Hopefully, Wilkinson and team will finally make a good film about Davis Grubb, who also grew up in Clarksburg after leaving Moundsville, and spent some of his last days there.

WVLC has a videotape copy of a local Clarksburg play that was performed several times there called “The Harry Powers Case.” Recently, Stan Bumgardner, creative advisor to the new WV State Museum, wrote a story for Goldenseal about the case.

As I have written recently, there is a renewed interest in Davis Grubb. I loaned Wilkinson DVD copies of Grubb’s other great film, “Fools Parade” plus a documentary on the “making of Fools Parade” which was filmed entirely in Moundsville in 1970. Hopefully, WV native son Professor Tom Douglass will finally published his long-awaited biography of Grubb. ( Douglass wrote an introduction for the republished novel of “Fools’ Parade” several years ago, talking about Grubb’s life.)