Thurman Slay Eudy was born in North Carolina on June 14, 1888. In June 1916, Eudy set fire to his cafe and traveled with a woman, to whom he was not married, from Asheville to Greenville, South Carolina. Because he crossed state lines with the woman, Eudy was charged with violating a law known as the Mann White Slave Act. In the subsequent trial, he was found guilty and sentenced to an eighteen-month term in a Federal penitentiary in Atlanta, Georgia. Upon the completion of the Federal sentence, authorities from North Carolina arrested him and carried him home to answer for charges of arson and insurance fraud, for which act he received a sentence of not less than five nor more than six years in the state penitentiary. While at the state prison farm in Halifax County in April 1919, Eudy signed his name to a document accusing prison officials of committing brutalities against a Black inmate named John Baker. During the ensuing investigation, he claimed to not know much about the incident and testified that he had received good treatment at the hands of prison officials. Eudy died in Sanford (Lee County) on April 17, 1948.