"ED Sharkey... was one of the most persistent supporters of the fire" (15). Le Vin wanted to denounce Sharkey's claims and then demonstrated that those claims did not correspond to the actual accounts of that day. Knowing they didn't match, Sharkey told the story anyway and pushed for Wilkes' lynching.7. The accounts given by the detective coincide quite well with the accounts given by the newspaper. However the main difference noted was the killing of the nine black men. In the night's newspaper tallies, the mob single-handedly checked the black men to make sure they were all dead when they ultimately missed only one, where, as in the detective's findings, this particular event did not occur. The crowd fired three shots and hastily left the scene and the participants were never discovered.8. The gruesome and terrifying details of the lynching are meant to influence the reader by making them feel as if they were actually there watching it happen. This is to make the reader understand how truly horrific these events were. By making the reader feel this way, it was hoped they would reevaluate the way things are handled