Armstead Otey Grubb

Grubb was born in Chanute, Kansas, on March 14, 1903, to Alfred and Mabel Bailey Grubb.^[3] He received a BA in modern languages with highest honors from Princeton University in 1925, spending a summer at the University of Dijon.^[4] He received a PhD from the University of Pennsylvania in 1928.^[5] Privately printed in 1937, Grubb's dissertation examined French sports neologisms. Writing in Language, Roland G. Kent praised Grubb's monograph as a "valuable contribution to lexicology."^[6]

Grubb taught French for ten years at the William Penn Charter School in Philadelphia before joining Lincoln University's faculty as a professor of modern languages in 1937.^[1][5] Starting in 1940, Grubb served as registrar and head librarian, overseeing Vail Memorial Library's collections and staff. He was an advisor to the Spanish Club and The Lincolnian student newspaper.^[7][8] Grubb served as acting president of Lincoln University from 1957 to 1960 after President Horace Mann Bond resigned.^[2]

At the time of his death, Grubb was on the Oxford Library Council and formerly was on the board of the Community Memorial Hospital.^[2] He was a member of the American Library Association^[9] and the American Association of University Professors.^[10]

Grubb married Marianna Priest on December 27, 1928. She died in 1962. The couple had one daughter, born circa 1936.^[1][11]

Grubb was murdered on the evening of December 5, 1968, after returning home from a visit to Mrs. Katherine Wilson, whom friends reported that Grubb planned to marry.^[1] He died sometime between 8 pm and midnight.^[1] Assailants stole Grubb's wallet containing $100 along with his car keys, clubbed him eight times on the head with a baseball bat found bloodied nearby,^[1] and dragged him into the basement of a vacant house next to his house on campus. Investigators established that Grubb had been lured outdoors and assaulted.^[12] His long-time neighbor, Marjorie Cole, reported that Grubb habitually walked his cat at night. The cat was nowhere to be found.^[2]

The next morning (Friday, December 6), Wilson and Cole searched the area and discovered Grubb's body in the basement of the vacant house at approximately 8:30 am.^[1] According to the coroner, Grubb had died within two or three minutes of the assault, suffering from a fractured skull and acute brain injury.^[3] He had lived alone after his wife died in 1962 and his mother in 1963.^[2] His house and others on faculty row, along with nearby residences, had experienced a rash of burglaries over the previous five years.^[1][2]

Police arrested three local youths within hours and charged two with murder, robbery, burglary, and pointing a deadly weapon. The main suspects were Richard Twyman, an 18-year-old unemployed man who had dropped out of elementary school, and Gary Butcher, a 15-year-old high school student. The third suspect was Richard's 16-year-old brother Frankie Twyman, who worked in the kitchens at Lincoln University. Frankie was held as a material witness.^[13] Two of the suspects knew Grubb—the professor had recently reported Richard Twyman to the police for breaking into his house, and he had given Frankie Twyman a check for five dollars on December 3. The suspects' father, farmer Earl Twyman, told The Philadelphia Inquirer that this gift reflected Grubb's customary generosity. The Twymans lived half a mile away from the scene of the crime.^[1]

In December 1968, the 15-year-old suspect, Gary Butcher, was convicted of voluntary manslaughter and conspiracy in a jury trial and was sentenced to six to twelve years in prison.^[12] In July 1971, the 18-year-old suspect, Richard Twyman, was convicted and sentenced to serve eight to twenty years in prison for burglary, six to twelve years for voluntary manslaughter, and two and a half to five years for violation of Pennsylvania's Uniform Firearms Act. The sentences were to be served concurrently.^[14] In 1974, Twyman received a furlough from the state penitentiary and assaulted a young woman in Oxford less than five hours after his release. He was returned to prison.^[15]