Ashley Gang descendants not fond of ancestor

Then and now, the family of Ashley outlaw Ray Lynn has kept a distance

BY GREGORY ENNS

As the daughter of Ashley Gang outlaw Ray Lynn, Inez Lynn Hamilton had an unusual — and intentionally misleading — story that she would share with her grandchildren about her father’s death.

“She told us her father died when she was a child and had fallen off the Sebastian River bridge and had hit a rock,’’ said Hamilton’s granddaughter, Lee Ann Alderman of Fort Pierce.

Hamilton’s father was Jerold Ray “Shorty’’ Lynn, 25, who had just joined the notorious Ashley Gang after escaping from a state prison road crew in Marianna, Florida, on Aug. 11, 1924. Barely 90 days later, he and three others — fellow escapee Clarence Middleton, gang leader John Ashley, and Ashley’s 19-year-old nephew Hanford Mobley — would be shot to death in an ambush set up by lawmen at the Sebastian River bridge on Nov. 1, 1924.