True Crime Chronicles, Volume Two

Serial Killers, Outlaws, and Justice ... Real Crime Stories From The 1800s

• Publisher: WildBlue Press
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781952225413
• Topic: Langues et linguistique
• Subtopic: Journalisme

Newspaper reports of Jack the Ripper, Jesse James, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and others compiled by the New York Times –bestselling author. Former detective and bestselling author Mike Rothmiller has brought together classic works of journalism that will take the reader on a fascinating journey back in time to when these horrific tales mesmerized a nation. Some may find these articles and their descriptions of people and crimes shocking by today's standards, but they are representative of the most colorful true crime stories of the day True Crime Chronicles, Volume Two includesstories about Billy the Kid, Jesse James, the legendary "Jack the Ripper, " Lizzie Halliday, Anna Maria Zwanziger, Jack the Haircutter, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Nebraska Murderer, and many more shocking stories. Follow along as these reporters from another century visit the crime scenes, interview witnesses, and pen the stories of murder, evil, and swift frontier justice.

The Old West

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

AUTHOR’S COMMENTARY

The annals of the old west are brimming with stories of famous outlaws. Perhaps the two outlaws best known in America are Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. For decades, their criminal exploits have been romantically and, at times, humorously depicted in books, movies, magazines, and folklore.

In 1969, actors Paul Newman and Robert Redford portrayed the outlaws in a feature film titled Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. The movie shadowed their lives as they committed crimes and always stayed just a step ahead of the pursuing posse. In some movie scenes, they are depicted as fun-loving outlaws, with a romantic twist. Many left the movie theater believing the romantic tale of the old west they just watched. In their minds, the two desperadoes were nothing more than misguided, fun-loving scamps.

However, we must not forget they were ruthless criminals, and that is how they should be remembered.

The Daily Morning Journal and Courier

Saturday, April 30, 1898

TERROR OF FOUR STATES

__________

“BUTCH” CASSIDY AND HIS FIVE HUNDRED.

__________

Governors Hold a Meeting to Talk Up a Way

of Exterminating the Gang.

In our Western states, if for no other part of the earth, the bid saying that truth is stranger than fiction holds good. Who would believe in these days there could exist among the vastness of the Rocky Mountains a band of 500 outlaws whose defiance of the law should call for a conference between the governors of four states to determine upon a plan of campaign against them? Yet such a conference was held last Monday between the governors of Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, and Idaho, and “Butch” Cassidy and his 500 followers have brought about this unwanted proceeding.

“Butch” Cassidy is a bad man. He is the worst man in four states. The states are Utah, Colorado, Idaho, and Wyoming, and where the four governors met in secret conclave on Monday, it was for the purpose of deciding upon a plan of campaign against the most notorious outlaw the West has ever had to cope with. The achievements of Jesse James and his followers pale into tawdry insignificance before those of “Butch” Cassidy and his 500.

For several years – in fact, ever since the livestock commission drove the Wyoming rustlers out of business, in 1892 – “Butch” has proven a thorn in the flesh of the authorities of the four states in which he carries on his operations. He has laughed the militia to scorn. Sheriffs and deputies, he regards with pity and contempt. He is a power unto himself.

After the ordinary method of hunting, outlaws had been tried unsuccessfully; it was decided that drastic means must be employed. Rewards have been repeatedly offered for “Butch” Cassidy, dead or alive, and after each fresh outbreak, these rewards have invariably been increased. If all the offers which have been made from time to time hold good, the slayer of “Butch,” should he ever live to claim his reward, would be entitled to upward of $20,000 in blood money.

But the rewards have proven as futile as have the efforts of the militia and the deputy sheriffs. And that is why Gov. Wells of Utah, Gov. Adams of Colorado, Gov. Richards of Wyoming, and Gov. Steunenberg of Idaho got their heads together to see what could be done. Just what the result of their conference has not been divulged. The governors believe in still hunt methods, and it is thought that a large number of experienced mountaineers and bandit hunters will be placed in the field, each state to furnish its quota and that the bandits will be rounded up in much the same fashion that cattle are. Any attempt to exterminate this desperate band is certain to be attended by bloodshed.

“Butch” and his band are the outgrowth of the rustlers of six years ago. Since then, they have broadened their field and increase their numbers. It is no idle boast to say that the leader of this notorious band has 500 men at his beck and call. Their depredations are upon a scale never before reached in the history of frontier crime. All the conditions are favorable to them. They know every foot of the vast territory in which they operate, taking in, as it does, the wildest and most inaccessible portions of four states. Every man of them is thoroughly familiar with frontier life and its rougher phases.

The forces are subdivided into five bands, each controlled by its own leader, with Cassidy as the supreme power. The outlaws now practically control the sparsely settled regions extending from central Wyoming southwesterly through Northwestern Colorado, and Utah, and almost to the Arizona line. Marauding and murderous bands conduct their raids without restraint. The thefts of livestock run into the millions. Ranchmen are murdered and driven out of business, and the officers of the law are powerless.

There are five camps where the various bands make their headquarters, each of which is well-nigh inaccessible except to the bandits themselves. Two of the most famous are “Robbers Roost” and “Hole-in-the-Wall.” The former is in south-central Utah, on the San Rafaele River. The latter is hidden away somewhere in that wild, mountainous district to the northwest of Casper, Wyoming.

The other camps are located in Teton basin, near the eastern border of Idaho and south of the Snake River; Powder Springs in Southwest Wyoming, near Colorado, and about 50 miles east of the Utah line, and Brown’s Park, taking in the northwestern corner of Colorado in the northeastern portion of Utah. It is not definitely known in just which state the Brown’s Park camp lies, but it is thought to be across the line in Colorado.

The five camps form a chain extending for hundreds of miles. Between these posts, communication is maintained by a regular system of couriers and cipher dispatches, facilitating the cooperation of two or more bands when an enterprise of more than usual magnitude is undertaken.

These bands are composed of men of the most reckless and desperate character, long accustomed to deeds of crime. Whenever a murder is committed in the mountain states, or a convict escapes from a penitentiary, the criminal flees to the nearest of these retreats, where he is safe from pursuit. In this manner, the ranks of the bandits have been recruited up to a strength conservatively estimated at 500. While each band has its chosen leader, “Butch” Cassidy exercises some sort of authority over the federation.

Each of the strongholds is both a rendezvous and a fortress absolutely impregnable. They can only be reached by traversing deep and narrow gorges, scaling the lofty and rugged peaks, and penetrating the wildest recesses of the Rocky Mountains. In many places, the only trail lies over a narrow shelf of rock, cut by the bandits along the face of a precipice. Holes have been drilled into which in case of close pursuit dynamite can be placed in and the trail blown from the face of the cliff into the chasm below, thus baffling all pursuers.

There are also many places where one robber can hold 50 officers at bay, and as the bandits are armed to the teeth and will fight to the last man, any effort to exterminate them by ordinary process of law is regarded as a useless sacrifice of life. In their retreats are numerous caves, luxuriously fitted up and containing subsistence sufficient for months. Thus are the bandits enabled to set at defiance all the forces of law and order.

The outlaws roam the adjacent country and smaller settlements without molestation. Many settlers purchase immunity by extending assistance in various ways, and the robbers even attend country dances and other functions, occasionally “shooting up” the town or indulging in other forms of recreation. It is only when closely pursued by officers of the law that they retire to their mountain retreats.

“Butch” Cassidy, however, by reasons of the price upon his head, considers the higher altitude more conducive to his health and seldom ventures into the towns, unless he is making a raid or surrounded by a band of his trusty men, in which case he never fears molestation. As a killer, he has earned a reputation during the last ten years, probably equaled in the West only by that of “Wild Bill” Hickok, peace to his ashes.

Few men who knew him would care to arouse his ire for although a man of wonderful nerve, unlike most men of his class, he is possessed of a fearful temper. Sometimes he gets beyond his control, and then he throws all caution to the winds and becomes utterly reckless.

About four years ago, he was shot at from ambush near Green River by a cowboy known as “Hackey” Hughes, whose only object was to secure the reward offered by the state authorities of Utah. The bullet pierced the lobe of his ear, and the blood streaming down his face acted upon Cassidy as a red flag might to a maddened bull.

With a howl of rage, he turned his horse just as another bullet passed through the rim of his sombrero. A puff of smoke from a clump of bushes showed where the assassin was concealed. For picturesque profanity “Butch” Cassidy hasn’t his equal in the states, and on that occasion, he is said to have fairly surpassed himself. Ripping out a string of oaths that would reach from Dan to Beersheba, he jumped from his horse and dodged behind a boulder.

He waited for 20 minutes, and then the cowboy shot the outlaws horse, which had been grazing in the open. That was more than “Butch” could stand. Throwing caution to the winds, he ran toward the clump of bushes, with a pistol in each hand barking at every step.

But Hughes, considering discretion the better part of valor, had jumped on his horse and succeeded in making good his escape. But the vindictive nature of “Butch” Cassidy asserted itself. He had recognized his assailant, and every member of the band received instructions to be on the watch for him. Hughes left the Green River country, and it was not until six months later that he was located, on the North Fork of the Powder River, up in Wyoming.

Cassidy was notified, and with a dozen men, he reached the ranch where Hughes was working. It was during the spring round-up. The two men met face-to-face. Hughes knew what was coming, and pulled his gun. But he wasn’t quick enough. Cassidy’s pistol cracked first, and the cowboy dropped from his saddle with the bullet through his right eye.

“That’s the way I serve any skunk that tries to shoot me in the back,” remarked Cassidy. “If any of his friends want to take up the quarrel, I am ready.”

But if the dead cowb...