Bunk Hairston was an African American teenager accused of murdering Stokes County deputy sheriff Reid P. Joyce in April 1920. Following Joyce's death, law enforcement swiftly transported Hairston out of Stokes to prevent the formation of a lynch mob. He was eventually convicted of Joyce's murder and was sentenced to twenty-five years in prison. In December 1928, Hairston broke out of a state prison camp and was reported as still being on the run five years later. He seems to have been born around 1905.