Blood on the Bay: Life Sentence for Tavern Killer

In a gruesome crime that shocked the rural community of Rison, Maryland, a 23-year-old timber worker was sentenced to life imprisonment for the brutal murder of a local tavern keeper. Herbert Smallwood, a 23-year-old black man, was convicted in July of first-degree murder for beating Clarence Wheeler, 64, to death as he lay sleeping in a rear room of his tavern. The victim’s body was then intentionally set on fire in a desperate attempt to destroy evidence of the heinous crime.