In September 1920, Ed Cole shot his wife and her seventeen-year-old niece during a family argument at their home on South Baylen Street in Pensacola. His wife survived. The niece, Bebe Johnson, did not.
After the shooting, Cole fled by boat across Pensacola Bay to a remote lighthouse station near the entrance to Pensacola Harbor. Modern research suggests the location may have been associated with the range lights maintained near old Fort McRee on the eastern tip of Perdido Key.
Believing he had found the perfect hiding place, Cole settled into the isolated station.
Then a storm carried away his boat.
With no roads, no bridge, and no way back to town, the fugitive found himself stranded. For nearly two days he remained trapped until a lighthouse tender arrived and discovered him.
The man who had escaped the law had accidentally imprisoned himself.
Cole was returned to Pensacola, later pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, and was sentenced to life in prison.
It remains one of the strangest and most uniquely Pensacola crime stories ever recorded—a tale of murder, flight, and a fugitive marooned beside a lonely lighthouse at the entrance to Pensacola Bay.
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Michael Earl Simmons
