Gunslinger John Wesley Hardin was Released from Prison - February 16, 1894

This week (February 16-22) in crime history – Old west gunslinger John Wesley Hardin was released from prison (February 16, 1894); Union leaders are arrested in connection with the assassination of former Idaho governor Frank Steuenberg (February 17, 1906); Arsonists sets fire to South Korean subway train killing nearly 200 (February 18, 2003); Green River Killer Gary Leon Ridgway pleaded guilty to killing his 49^th victim (February 18, 2011); Murder of rancher John Tunstall ignited the Lincoln County War (February 18, 1878); Former U.S. Vice-President Aaron Burr was arrested for treason (February 19, 1807); Chicago Seven were sentenced for inciting riots during the 1968 Democratic National Convention (February 19, 1970); Reg Murphy, editor of The Atlanta Constitution was kidnapped (February 20, 1974); Malcolm X was assassinated (February 21, 1965); Double agent Aldrich Ames was arrested for leaking secrets to the Soviet Union (February 21, 1994); The Securitas Bank depot in Kent, England was robbed of 53 million pounds (February 22, 2006).

Highlighted Crime Story of the Week -

On February 16, 1894, old west gunslinger John Wesley Hardin was pardoned and released from a Texas prison after spending 15 years in custody for murder. Hardin, who was reputed to have shot and killed a man just for snoring, was 41 years old at the time of his release. During his lifetime, Hardin probably killed in excess of 40 people beginning in 1868. When he was only 15, he killed an ex-slave in a fight and became a wanted fugitive. Two years later, he was arrested for murder in Waco, Texas. Although it was actually one of the few he had not committed, Hardin did not want to run the risk of being convicted and fled to Abilene, Kansas. Luckily for him Abilene was run by a good friend, Wild Bill Hickok. However, one night Hardin was disturbed by the snoring in an adjacent hotel room and fired two shots through the wall, killing the man. Fearing that not even Wild Bill would stand for such a senseless crime, Hardin moved on again.

On May 26, 1874, Hardin was celebrating his 21st birthday when he got into an altercation with a man who fired the first shot. Hardin fired back and killed the man. A few years later, Hardin was tracked down in Florida and brought to trial. Because it was one of the more defensible shootings on Hardin's record, he was spared the gallows and given a life sentence. After his pardon, he moved to El Paso and became a successful attorney. But his past eventually caught up with him, and on the night of August 19, 1895 he was shot in the back of the head by former outlaw and Constable John Selman Sr., as revenge for a petty argument.

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Michael Thomas Barry is a columnist for www.crimemagazine.com and is the author of six nonfiction books that includes the award winning true crime book, Murder and Mayhem 52 Crimes that Shocked Early California, 1849-1949. Visit Michael’s website www.michaelthomasbarry.com for more information. His book can be purchased from Amazon through the following link:

 

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Franklin "Buckskin" Leslie shoots and kills Billy Claiborne in the streets of Tombstone - 1882

On November 14, 1882, gunslinger Franklin "Buckskin" Leslie shoots Billy Claiborne dead in the streets of Tombstone, Arizona. The town of Tombstone is best known today as the site of the infamous shootout at the O.K. Corral. In the 1880s, however, Tombstone was home to many gunmen who never achieved the enduring fame of Wyatt Earp or Doc Holliday. Franklin "Buckskin" Leslie was one of the most notorious of these largely forgotten outlaws. 

There are few surviving details about Leslie's early life. At different times, he claimed to have been born in both Texas and Kentucky, to have studied medicine in Europe, and to have been an army scout in the war against the Apache Indians. No evidence has ever emerged to support or conclusively deny these claims. The first historical evidence of Leslie's life emerges in 1877, when he became a scout in Arizona. A few years later, Leslie was attracted to the moneymaking opportunities of the booming mining town of Tombstone, where he opened the Cosmopolitan Hotel in 1880. That same year he killed a man named Mike Killeen during a quarrel over Killeen's wife, and he married the woman shortly thereafter. 

Leslie's reputation as a cold-blooded killer brought him trouble after his drinking companion and fellow gunman John Ringo was found dead in July 1882. Some Tombstone citizens, including a young friend of Ringo's named Billy Claiborne, were convinced that Leslie had murdered Ringo, though they could not prove it. Probably seeking vengeance and the notoriety that would come from shooting a famous gunslinger, Claiborne unwisely decided to publicly challenge Leslie, who shot him dead. The remainder of Leslie's life was equally violent and senseless. After divorcing Killeen in 1887, he took up with a Tombstone prostitute, whom he murdered several years later during a drunken rage. Even by the loose standards of frontier law in Tombstone, the murder of an unarmed woman was unacceptable, and Leslie served nearly 10 years in prison before he was paroled in 1896. After his release, he married again and worked a variety of odd jobs around the West. He reportedly made a small fortune in the gold fields of the Klondike region before he disappeared forever from the historical record.

 

 

Michael Thomas Barry is a columnist for CrimeMagazine.com and is the author of Murder and Mayhem 52 Crimes that Shocked Early California 1849-1949. The book can be purchased from Amazon through the following link:

Amazon - http://www.amazon.com/Murder-Mayhem-Shocked-California-1849-1949/dp/0764339680/ref=la_B0035CPN70_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1361552464&sr=1-3

Doc Holliday died - 1887

Gunslinger, gambler, and occasional dentist, Doc Holliday died on November 8, 1887 from tuberculosis. Though he was perhaps most famous for his participation in the shootout at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Arizona, John Henry "Doc" Holliday earned his reputation well before that famous feud. Born in Georgia, Holliday was raised in the tradition of the southern gentleman. He earned his nickname when he graduated from the Pennsylvania College of Dental Surgery in 1872. However, shortly after embarking on a respectable career as a dentist in Atlanta, he developed a bad cough. Doctors diagnosed tuberculosis and advised a move to a more arid climate, so Holliday moved his practice to Dallas, Texas.

By all accounts, Holliday was a competent dentist with a successful practice. Unfortunately, card playing interested him more than dentistry, and he earned a reputation as a skilled poker and faro player. In 1875, Dallas police arrested Holliday for participating in a shootout. Thereafter, the once upstanding doctor began drifting between the booming Wild West towns of Denver, Cheyenne, Deadwood, and Dodge City, making his living at gambling halls. Holliday was a good friend of Wyatt Earp, who believed that Holliday saved his life during a fight with cowboys. For his part, Holliday stood by him during the 1881 shootout at the O.K. Corral and the bloody feud that followed. In 1882, Holliday fled Arizona and returned to the life of a western drifter, gambler, and gunslinger. By 1887, his hard living had caught up to him, forcing him to seek treatment for his tuberculosis at a sanitarium in Glenwood Springs, Colorado where he died in his bed at the age of 36.

 

Michael Thomas Barry is a columnist for CrimeMagazine.com and is the author of Murder and Mayhem 52 Crimes that Shocked Early California, 1849-1949. The book can be purchased from Amazon through the following link:

Amazon - http://www.amazon.com/Murder-Mayhem-Shocked-California-1849-1949/dp/0764339680/ref=la_B0035CPN70_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1383928220&sr=1-4

 

Old West gunslinger Tom Horn was hanged - 1903

On October 22, 1903, infamous hired killer, Tom Horn was hanged for having allegedly murdered Willie Nickell, the 14-year-old son of a southern Wyoming sheep rancher. Some historians have since questioned whether Horn really killed the boy, pointing out that the jury convicted him solely on the basis of a drunken confession that Horn supposedly made to a detective. The jury also seems to have failed to give adequate weight to the testimony of a number of credible witnesses who claimed Horn could not possibly have committed the crime. Yet even Horn's defenders in the Nickell case do not dispute that he was a brutal hired killer who was unquestionably responsible for many other deaths.

Born in 1860 in Memphis, Missouri, Horn reportedly showed an aptitude for hunting and marksmanship at an early age. After moving westward in the mid-1870s, Horn was at various times a cowboy, miner, army scout, deputy sheriff, and packer for the Rough Riders in Cuba, but his most notorious job was as a hired gun. Horn first worked for the famous Pinkerton Detective Agency which hired him to track down and apprehend, western outlaws who were preying on Pinkerton clients, but after four years he became bored; and in 1894 he signed on as a hired killer with the privately run Wyoming Cattlemen's Association. For several years the large Wyoming ranches had been fighting a vigilante war in Johnson County against a diverse group of small farmers, sheep ranchers, and rustlers who were resisting their domination. By 1894, negative publicity had made a public war too costly. Instead, the ranchers shifted to more stealthy means, hiring Horn to use his gun-handling skills to murder any man the ranchers marked as a troublemaker. Some historians suggest that Horn may have murdered Willie Nickell by accident, having mistaken the boy for his father. Others, though, argue that it is more likely that Horn was deliberately convicted for a crime he did not commit by Wyoming citizens seeing an opportunity to take revenge.

 

Michael Thomas Barry is a columnist for CrimeMagazine.com and is the author of Murder & Mayhem 52 Crimes that Shocked Early California 1849-1949. The book can be purchased from Amazon through the following link:

Amazon - http://www.amazon.com/Murder-Mayhem-Shocked-California-1849-1949/dp/0764339680/ref=la_B0035CPN70_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1361552464&sr=1-3

Future gunslinger Wild Bill Hickok, then a sheriff shoots and kills man during brawl in 1869

On the early morning hours of September 27, 1869, then lawman Wild Bill Hickok (and future gunslinger) responded to a report of men brawling at a saloon in Hays, Kansas. A local ruffian named Samuel Strawhun and several friends were tearing up John Bitter's Beer Saloon when Hickok arrived and ordered the men to stop, Strawhun turned to attack him, and Hickok shot him killing him instantly.

Famous for his skill with a pistol and steely-calm under fire, James Butler Hickok initially seemed to be the ideal man for the sheriff of Ellis County, Kansas. The good citizens of Hays City, the county seat, were tired of the wild brawls and destructiveness of the hard-drinking buffalo hunters and soldiers who took over their town every night. They hoped the famous "Wild Bill" could restore peace and order, and in the late summer of 1869, elected him as interim county sheriff. Hickok had a reputation as a deadly shot and this keep many potential lawbreakers on the straight and narrow. But when Hickok applied more aggressive methods of enforcing the peace, some Hays City citizens began to wonder about their decision. Shortly after becoming sheriff, Hickok shot a belligerent soldier who resisted arrest, and the man died the next day. A few weeks later Hickok killed Strawhun. While his brutal ways were indisputably effective, many Hays City citizens were less than impressed that after only five weeks in office he had already found it necessary to kill two men in the name of preserving peace. During the regular November election later that year, the people expressed their displeasure by not reelecting Hickok. Though Wild Bill Hickok would later go on to hold other law enforcement positions in the West, his first attempt at being a sheriff had lasted only three months.

 

Michael Thomas Barry is a columnist for CrimeMagazine.com and the author of Murder & Mayhem 52 Crimes that Shocked Early California 1849-1949. The book can be purchased from Amazon through the following link:

Amazon - http://www.amazon.com/Murder-Mayhem-Shocked-California-1849-1949/dp/0764339680/ref=la_B0035CPN70_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1361552464&sr=1-3