Barboursville Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Woody Williams Statue Approved For Capitol

The statue of Williams will replace one of John Kenna, a Confederate veteran who represented West Virginia in the U.S. House and Senate.

During its special session this week, the legislature passed a resolution to honor one of West Virginia’s most notable veterans.

Both chambers of the legislature approved a resolution to place a statue of Hershel “Woody” Williams inside the U.S. Capitol.

That resolution came up during the regular session earlier this year but didn’t make it to the finish line.

Williams, who died in 2022 at age 98, was the last surviving Medal of Honor recipient from World War II. Williams, who lived in Barboursville, was a Marine Corps veteran who served in combat in the Pacific.

The statue of Williams will replace one of John Kenna, a Confederate veteran who represented West Virginia in the U.S. House and Senate.

Kenna’s statue, which has stood in the Capitol’s Statuary Hall since 1901, will be moved to the Culture Center in Charleston.

West Virginia Mom to be Charged in Abduction Tale

A woman will be criminally charged for falsely reporting that an Egyptian man tried to kidnap her daughter from a West Virginia shopping mall, a police detective told The Associated Press on Friday.

Detective Greg Lucas said Barboursville police will charge Santana Renee Adams with falsely reporting an emergency incident.

The charge would be the latest turn in a sensational tale of a mother who used a gun to thwart an abduction that quickly unraveled amid inconsistencies in her story.

Authorities on Thursday announced they were dropping charges against the man, Mohamed Fathy Hussein Zayan, a 54-year-old engineer from Alexandria, Egypt, who was in the area for work. He cried as he greeted family members upon his release from jail.

Adams initially told police Zayan grabbed her 5-year-old daughter girl by the hair inside a clothing store and tried to pull her away but stopped when she produced a gun, authorities said. A criminal complaint went into further detail, describing a frightening scene where a Middle Eastern man dragged the girl by the hair as she dropped to the floor.

But the story started falling apart when no witnesses could be found and mall surveillance video didn’t match up with the woman’s original statement.

“There’s quite a bit that doesn’t line up,” Lucas told the AP.

She later told investigators she may have overreacted and misinterpreted the man’s intentions. Zayan doesn’t speak English and police say he may have simply been patting the girl on the head.

“Unfortunately, as false accusations are becoming more prevalent in today’s social media driven society, we are losing our grasp on ‘presumed innocent until proven guilty,’ and Mr. Zayan has been tried around the world by the court of public opinion,” Zayan’s public defender attorney, Michelle Protzman, said in a statement Thursday to The Associated Press.

Adams couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.

Charge to be Dropped Against Man in W.Va. Abduction Case

A charge is being dismissed against a man who was arrested after a woman told police in West Virginia that he tried to abduct her young daughter but later said she might have been overreacting, a prosecutor said Thursday.

Cabell County Prosecutor Corky Hammers said an attempted abduction charge will be dropped against Mohamed Fathy Hussein Zayan, who was arrested Monday at the Huntington Mall food court in Barboursville, news outlets reported.

Hammers said no other charges would be brought against Zayan and he’s still determining whether charges will be brought against the woman, who at first told police Zayan grabbed her 5-year-old daughter girl by the hair inside a clothing store and tried to pull her away.

“Unfortunately, as false accusations are becoming more prevalent in today’s social media driven society, we are losing our grasp on ‘presumed innocent until proven guilty,’ and Mr. Zayan has been tried around the world by the court of public opinion,” Zayan’s attorney, Michelle Protzman of the Cabell County public defender’s office, said in a statement Thursday to The Associated Press.

“There is absolutely no evidence to support any wrongdoing, he is innocent and fully exonerated of all charges made against him,” the statement continues. “We hope this news will travel around the globe as quickly as the unmerited charges.”

Hammers didn’t immediately return telephone messages Thursday.

Barboursville police initially said the woman, whose name wasn’t released, pulled a gun on the man, forcing him to release the girl. No witnesses could be found, but mall surveillance video showed inconsistencies in the woman’s original statement, police Sgt. Anthony Jividen said.

Jividen said the woman later told investigators she may have overreacted and misinterpreted the man’s intentions. Zayan doesn’t speak English and police say he may have simply been patting the girl on the head.

Zayan, 54, an engineer from Alexandria, Egypt, who is in the area for work, was released from jail Tuesday night and he cried as he greeted family members.

Mom Changes Abduction Tale, Says Man May Have Just Been Nice

A sensational case of an attempted child kidnapping in a West Virginia shopping mall may have been nothing more than a man being friendly to a little girl.

Barboursville police initially said a woman pulled a gun on the man, forcing him to release her 5-year-old daughter. Mohamed Fathy Hussein Zayan was arrested near the Huntington Mall’s food court on an attempted abduction charge Monday.

Zayan, 54, an engineer from Alexandria, Egypt, who is in the area for work, was released from jail Tuesday night on a reduced bond. News outlets report he cried as he greeted family members. Police Sgt. Anthony Jividen said a prosecutor will have to decide whether to charge the woman instead.

The woman at first told police Zayan grabbed the girl by the hair and tried to pull her away from inside a clothing store. Jividen said while no witnesses could be found, mall surveillance video showed inconsistencies in the woman’s original statement.

Jividen said the prosecutor also would have to determine whether Zayan would face a potential battery charge because of “the uninvited touching of a child. Even though there was an overreaction by the mother, it was not completely baseless.”

A telephone message left with the Cabell County prosecutor wasn’t immediately returned Wednesday.

August 22, 1862: Jenkins Begins Raiding Western Virginia

On August 22, 1862, newly appointed Confederate Brigadier General Albert Gallatin Jenkins began a raid through Western Virginia. It was in response to a string of events that began with Robert E. Lee’s impending invasion of Maryland.

Earlier that month, the Union Army had shifted some 5,000 troops from the Charleston area to help protect Washington, DC. So, the Confederates took advantage of the troop reduction.

Jenkins launched his raid from Salt Sulphur Springs in Monroe County with 550 troops. The Confederates rode first into the Tygart Valley and skirmished with U.S. forces near Huttonsville. Next, they traveled to Buckhannon, Weston, Glenville, Spencer, and Ripley.

On September 4, the raiders crossed the Ohio River in Jackson County—about 60 miles north of Jenkins’s home at Green Bottom—and became the first to raise a Confederate flag on Ohio soil. They soon returned and skirmished with Union forces at Point Pleasant before moving on to Buffalo in Putnam County. On September 8, the raiders defeated a Union force at Barboursville and then rode through Wayne, Logan, and Raleigh counties. In all, Jenkins’s raid covered 500 miles.

June 21, 1849: Cabell County Plantation Owner Sampson Sanders Dies

Plantation owner Sampson Sanders died on June 21, 1849, at age 62, and was buried near Milton. At the time, Sanders, who is sometimes referred to as Saunders, was the largest landholder in Cabell County.

He owned large tracts on the Guyandotte and Mud rivers east of Barboursville and operated the largest flour mill in Cabell County. Saunders Creek, a Mud River tributary, is named for his family.

Sanders also owned at least 51 slaves, including men, women, and children, making him one of the largest slaveholders in Western Virginia and among the top three percent of slaveholders in the South before the Civil War. Upon his death, Sanders freed all his slaves, regardless of their ages.

Based on his will, the slaves were given cash, equipment, and legal assistance to start their new lives. The former slaves maintained the Sanders surname, migrated northward as a group, and settled in Cass County, Michigan.

Many of their descendants still live there today.

The story of Sampson Sanders’s slaves is one of the leading examples of manumission—or the freeing of slaves—in present West Virginia.