#historical crimes

HUEY “THE KINGFISH” LONG DIED // Sept. 10th, 1935

after being shot two days earlier, Huey Long died in Baton Rogue, Louisiana; a month after he announced his plans to run for the president. 

On the day of the shooting, Long was at the State Capitol building, trying to push out Judge Benjamin Henry Pavy with a re-redistricting plan (”House Bill Number One”). It was Long’s top priority sense the passing of the bill would remove Pavy from the bench. The session that would determine whether or not the bill would be passed was going on all day, even until 9 p.m. Throughout the day, Dr. Carl Weiss (Pavy’s son-in-law) was trying to get a moment alone with Long so that they could speak. But Long and his body guards brushed him off each time while passing in the hallway. 

At 9:20 p.m., shortly after the house finally passed the bill that Long had wanted so much, Weiss approached the Senator for the final time. The generally accepted version of what happened in the hall of the Old Statue Capitol building is that when Weiss approached Long, he got into four feet from him and then shot him in the abdomen once with a handgun. After the shot was fired, Long’s bodyguards began firing their own guns are Weiss, shooting him a total of 62 times. 

Long was rushed to the hospital and died two days later at 4:10 a.m. His last words are reported to be, “God, don’t let me die. I have so much to do.” LSU historian, T. Harry Williams has suggested that Long could have possibly survived with better medical care. but Edgar Hall (who was among those that were called to treat Long’s wound) denies that his death was a result of medical or surgical incompetence. 

In a 2014 documentary about the event called 61 Bullets, directed by Louisiana Kreutz and David Modigliani, questions whether or not Dr. Carl Weiss actually murdered Huey Long. While the documentary debates Weiss’ innocence in the case, historians do not accept the theory that Long actually died as a result of accidentally being hit by one of the bullets fired by his own bodyguards. However, a historical plaque adjacent to the Old State Capitol grounds, at the site of Dr. Carl Weiss’ home reads, “alleged assassin.”