INDIANAPOLIS — "It was a pitch black space and you would see a light. I didn't know who it was. It was a picture of a man," Latonya Collier recalls a recurring image she saw in her dreams when she was a sophomore at Martin University in Indianapolis.
She had no idea why he kept appearing to her, as she slept.
The answer would unlock family mystery.
During her time at Martin University, Latonya was studying criminal justice, with aspirations to become a lawyer.
She needed an idea for a thesis project and kept coming up blank.
Latonya says a visit to her great Aunt Mildred did the trick.
Latonya recalls, "She said, 'Why don't you write about your great great grandpa? He was the first Black man in the state of Indiana to be executed by the electric chair and he actually helped build that chair.'"
Latonya had one question for her Aunt Mildred, "How do you build the chair and then get executed in it?!"
Aunt Mildred's response to Latonya, "Do the research!"
Challenge accepted.
Latonya began her research at the Indiana State Library and searched through newspaper microfishe and photographs.
One picture jarred her.
"It was his picture," Latonya said, "I was about to pass out."
The photo depicted the image of the man who appeared to Latonya in her sleep, Robert Collier, her great great grandfather.
Collier is described as strong-willed and hot-tempered, with a long rap sheet and only an eighth grade education.
Latonya poured through old newspaper articles and interviewed her elder relatives to piece together Collier's story.
His crime, Latonya discovered, was for the murder of patrolman John Cain in Evansville, Indiana.
While there are differing version of events, what Latonya learned is that the night of Officer Cain's death, an argument broke out during a late-night gathering in an Evansville neighborhood.
Police had told everyone to leave.
Latonya recounts the story, "My great great grandfather said 'I'm not moving. I have a right to be here.'
Cain told him, 'You're gonna move or I'm going to move you.'
And [Collier's] exact words were 'Do it and die.'
Cain hit him with a billy club and knocked him down.
Great great grandpa got up, shot him and took off running," Latonya said.
Collier pleaded guilty in June of 1914 and was sentenced to death.
He was moved to a state prison in Michigan City.
Collier told people the last time he stayed at that same prison, he was part of a crew that built Indiana's electric chair, using the wood from the old hanging gallow.
And the story goes, at the time, he joked he would be the first one to sit in the chair.
"And he did," Latonya said, "Not knowing that was gonna be the last place you sit."
Robert Collier was 34, when he died October 16th, 1914.
Latonya says her distant relative's last words were perhaps his most profound.
"Right before the execution," Latonya said, "The reporter asked him do you have any words you want to say. He said, 'Yeah, I dont want anyone to follow in my footsteps. They need to get an education.'"
A scholar herself, delving into this chapter of her family's history became a passion project for Latonya.
She documented her first visit to see the chair, on display at the Indiana Department of Correction Museum in New Castle.
Latonya also compiled a lavender-colored binder with notes, letters, newspaper articles and pictures -- anything she could find about her great great grandfather, including his death certificate.
In 2010, she wrote a book called "Show No Fear: The 1914 Execution of Robert Collier," which offered his perspective of events.
"It's like he wanted it to be told," Latonya said, "Nobody listened to him back then."
A man with a story that Latonya feels he urged her to share by visiting her in her sleep.
"Some people don't believe in that. I do. Just because your ancestors go doesn't mean they're not going to try to communicate and that's his way of communicating."
Latonya plans to visit Evansville this spring to put a headstone on her great-great-grandfather's grave.
