Luther A. Hayes was born about 1857 a few miles northeast of Farmerville, the son of James Arnett Hayes and Penelope Jane Lee, and grandson of early settlers Martin Batte Lee and Lavincy Albritton Lee. Luther married in 1877 to Sallie McCoy, and they farmed near his relatives for the next decade. By 1886, Luther and Sallie had three young children.

On Saturday evening, 27 October 1888, while in Marion near Mr. Roark's store, Luther Hayes had a chance encounter with Nathan Broadnax, a young black man born about 1867. Broadnax had just married about three weeks earlier.

When they met, Hayes attempted to collect a debt of $10 that Broadnax owed him. Their exchange ended in a dispute, during which Broadnax “became very insulting,” finally picking up a plank of wood to strike Hayes. Just as he swung the plank, a bystander grabbed the plank from Broadnax. Enraged, Broadnax then ran behind Roark’s store, picked up a shotgun and fired at Hayes from a distance of twenty feet. The blast emptied a load of squirrel shot into Hayes’ side. Hayes lived about six hours after the incident.

Broadnax promptly absconded, and many of the eye witnesses to the incident started after him in pursuit. Soon a deputized posse began searching for him, to no effect. As typical with racial issues during this era, tragic mob violence soon resulted. A group of Marion men in pursuit of Broadnax captured a black man “implicated in the murder in some way,” and they lynched him, “afterwards riddling his body with bullets.” The authorized posse searched the Marion area, and then searched in Ouachita Parish, having word Broadnax had hidden there. Wild rumors, apparently without any foundation in truth, prevailed in Marion, Farmerville, and Monroe for several weeks. Nathan Broadnax managed to elude the posse and all other attempts to apprehend him. Gov. Francis Nichols offered a reward of $250 for Broadnax’s arrest and conviction between July and November, but it appears he made his permanent escape from the region and vanished for good.