Book excerpt: What really happened before, during and just after the sensational, Prohibition era murder of the police chief by the town's most admired physician has been saved from oblivion by this book by retired newspaper editor Wint Capel, The Good Doctor's Downfall. The author dug up the facts and has arranged them to show in great detail how brilliant Dr. J. W. Peacock ambushed the young, arrogant police chief, John Taylor, on a busy downtown street in Thomasville, a small North Carolina factory town. The doctor finished him off with a World War I souvenir, a German Luger. The doctor, also a city councilman, and the chief began feuding after the chief decided to crackdown on those, like the doctor, who ignored the laws against gambling and drinking. The feud became unbelievably bitter and explosive. By the time of the attack downtown, the doctor had been convinced, "It's either him or me." In a trial that featured the best legal minds in North Carolina, the doctor barely escaped the electric chair. Then, a year later, he escaped a prison for the criminally insane. He managed to outrun them all. Only a horrible accident in California could rob him of his freedom.