Edward Roach was born around 1902. Originally from Reidsville, Roach relocated to Person County where he had secured a job as a laborer on the construction of a section of Highway 501 in southern Person County. On July 7, 1920, Roach was lynched by a mob consisting of approximately 150 white citizens in the yard of a Black church just North of Roxboro. Roxboro papers immediately took to the defensive, proclaiming the mob had lynched the right man. It turns out, however, that Roach could not possibly have been the person who had attacked a local white girl. Roach's employer, a prominent white contractor of Durham named Nello Teer, was outraged by the murder of his employee and took to the papers to vehemently defend Roach's innocence in addition to sharply castigate the Person County-based murderers. Several of Teers' employees—both black and white, colleagues and supervisors—could attest to Roach's presence on the job site at the exact time of the attack.

Edward was just eighteen when he was murdered. He was the only son of Bettie Roach and brother to Eulah Mae (born March 1, 1903 in Rockingham County).