William A. Choice

Aug 15, 1879

Choice was one of Atlanta's finest amateur actors of the 1850s. He was tall and fair-haired with a massive yet sinewy frame. He had a deep, rich voice. He often played a “heavy” or killer in plays. He also drank heavily. One night in a bar in Atlanta, a bailiff approached him for a writ against him for 10 dollars. He could not pay it, but a prominent attorney passing by offered to pay it. The bailiff sneeringly said it would be ok as long as the attorney said so. Choice then asked both the bailiff and the attorney to have a drink, and when the bailiff refused, Choice became angry at being snubbed. The next day, after heavy drinking, he saw the bailiff on the street and shot and killed him.

A lynch mob formed but the mayor suggested they adjourn to the courthouse and discuss it. This calmed the mob down. Choice's only defense was insanity - that when he is drinking he is a mad man and not in his right mind. He was taken to Milledgeville for safe keeping. His performance during the trial that he had a head wound that affected his brain causing him to drink to excess and the drinking caused him to become insane did not succeed, but won him an acquittal and confinement to the Asylum in Milledgeville.

During the Civil War, he escaped from the asylum and joined the 8th Ga Volunteer Infantry Rome Light Guards, and at the end of the war he surrendered at Appomattox. In mid 1870s he returned to the asylum with severe drinking problems and died there in 1879.

Side: East, Section: F