A funeral was held Saturday to remember Lynn Council, an Apex man who told WRAL News he survived being hanged by two Wake County deputies in the 1950s.
Council died in his home on Aug. 9, 2026. He was 93 years old.
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Saturday's funeral, which was held at St. Mary's FWB Church in Apex, began with an open casket and visitation. The 2 p.m. service included music and prayer, including a lively performance from the choir, which featured a soloist who said he was Council's neighbor for 60 years.
Apex Mayor Jacques Gilbert and former Wake County Sheriff Gerald Baker were among the elected leaders who attended the service, along with Fuquay-Varina and Apex council members.
"It's hard to speak about a legend in two minutes," Gilbert said, calling Council's life a "triumph" and saying Council was an outstanding and great man who will never be forgotten.
"He faced a very dark, cowardly act of injustice," Gilbert said. "The man, the legend, refused to give up. He leaned on his faith. He outlasted the hatred. He stayed right here."
Years ago, Council was honored with a ceremony outside the Apex Police Department.
"It is the right thing to do to apologize," Gilbert said. "Was that enough to make a wrong right? It will never be enough."
He read a resolution declaring Nov. 8, Council's birthday, as "Lynn Council Day" in the town of Apex and asked the congregation to honor Council by driving out hatred and living out a heart of love, quoting Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., by saying, "Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that."
WRAL anchor Gerald Owens, who interviewed Council about the ordeal in 2019, also spoke at the funeral, remembering Council as "soft-spoken, compelling, determined and unwavering in his attempt to get people to listen to him."
"He just wanted to clear his name," Owens said. "He wanted to point to the injustice that he endured, along with many other people in this country during that time."
Owens said everyone who heard the story said it "hit them," and many wondered how it was possible.
"Yes, it was 67 years ago at that time, but it reminds us of what this country was capable of back then," Owens said. "When you lay bare the past, it's often difficult for the present to comprehend."
In 1952, Council and seven others were accused of robbing a convenience store in the Apex area and were arrested by then-Apex police chief Sam Bagwell. Newspapers from that era document Bagwell's reputation for brutality.
Because it happened outside his jurisdiction, Bagwell drove Council and the others to the Wake County Sheriff's Office, where Council was singled out. Council says two deputies hanged him from an oak tree, which stood along Kildaire Farm Road, hoping Council would confess to the crime. He said they let him down when he didn't talk.
"They took me out of the cell, brung me out in the country, (and) they hung me," Council said.
The deputies eventually let him down from the tree, but he wore the scar on his neck for the rest of his life.
None of the law enforcement officers involved in the incident was charged, including Bagwell. One day after WRAL News reported on the incident involving Council, then-Police Chief John Letteney took action by removing Bagwell's brick from the Apex Walk of Honor, a memorial for past police chiefs.
A bench dedicated to Council now sits outside the Apex Police Department headquarters.
In 2020, when word spread that Council was being forced out of his home in Apex, where he had lived for decades, a GoFundMe was started to help him find a new place on Leicester Court with his daughter.