Clifton, Arizona
Hanging out with the area's lowlifes again, Heath soon comes up with a plan for him and his friends (cowboy outlaws Daniel W. "Big Dan" Dowd, Omer W. "Red" Sample, Daniel "York" Kelly, William E. "Billy" Delaney, and James "Tex" Howard) to gain a little easy cash at the expense of Bisbee; since the mining camp does not yet have an established bank, the payroll for the nearby Copper Queen Mine (discovered by Fort Bowie cavalry patrol chasing Apaches through the area's Mule Mountains, the men never see any money from the high grade copper mine because George Warren, the man that is suppose to file their claim while they are in the field gets drunk in is delivered to the Goldwater & Castaneda Mercantile store, only a hop, skip, and a jump down the street from the businessman's bar (in partnership with Nathan Waite, who is not a part of the robbery). Seven thousand dollars just waiting to be grabbed (worth about $188,000 today), after finalizing their plans in November at a meeting about ten miles outside of town at the Buckles' ranch, on the evening December 8, 1883, the day of the next regularly scheduled payroll receipt, the outlaws make their play.
John Heath At Right
Bisbee, Arizona.
Tying their horses near the Copper Queen Mine smelter on Main Street, the five men make their way to the Goldwater & Castaneda store, and then depending on accounts, three or two of the men go inside to loot the safe the payroll is in, while the rest of the gang remains outside to prevent trouble (for some reason, Howard does not wear a mask like the rest of the gang), but instead of preventing it, they cause it. Stepping out of the Bon Ton Saloon next door, assayer J, C. Tappenier confronts the bandits, and is shot a killed by a Winchester bullet to the head when he refuses to go back inside. Hearing the shot, Cochise County Deputy Sheriff D. Tom Smith, having dinner across the street at the Bisbee House with his wife, runs out into the street to see what is going on and is also killed when he identifies himself to the outlaws as a lawman. That shot in turn brings pregnant Annie Roberts out of the Bisbee House Restaurant she owns with her husband, and she is killed by bullet that shatters her spine. Standing near his wagon, local freighter John A. Nolly becomes the fourth citizen to die when he is hit in the chest by a rifle slug (in the Main Street gunplay, another local known as Indian Joe is wounded in the leg). Meanwhile, inside the store, its owner, with a pistol in his face, is persuaded to the open the safe, and the bandits are horrified to discover the payroll has not yet been delivered. Robbing customers of any money on their persons, and taking a gold watch and some cash from the safe (estimates of their take vary from $800 all the way up to $3,000), the five outlaws race to their horses, mount, and shooting at anything that moves, ride out of town (chased by the bullets of Deputy Sheriff William Daniels), and at a place called Soldier's Hole east of Bisbee, divide up the booty before going their separate ways. In all, the robbery and killings take about five minutes.
The Riders Enter Town - True West Illustration
Copper Queen Mine Postcard
The Letson Loft Hotel - Where Once
The Goldwater & Castaneda Store
Stood
Citizens outraged at the mayhem, with the Copper Queen Mine offering a reward of $2,000 for the bandits, two posses quickly light out after the men (one will pass the stagecoach bringing the late payroll into town), with a deputized Heath participating in a group that loses the bandits trail in the wilderness outside of the town of Tombstone. Maskless Howard giving the game away, the outlaws are identified, and all being friends with Heath, the saloon owner is soon arrested and under questioning, spills the beans as to everyone's identities and that he had planned the job (but had nothing to do with the killings). Hunt on, the first outlaw captured is Kelly, apprehended in Deming, New Mexico when he foolishly gifts his prostitute girlfriend with the stolen gold watch, unaware that in his love is now the girlfriend of another man who turns the bandit in. The next outlaws to find themselves behind bars are Howard and Sample, who make the mistake of returning to their Clifton haunts, where they are betrayed by a bartender buddy named Walter Bush. Two culprits left to go, Deputy Sheriff Daniels travels into Mexico when word reaches him that the final two desperadoes are hiding out south of the border (survived by his wife and five children, the intrepid lawman will be killed in an Apache ambush near Bisbee on June, 9, 1885). Dowd is captured by Daniels in Los Corralitos, Sonora, and then, with the help of Deputy Sheriff Robert Hatch, Delaney is taken into custody in the town of Minas Prietas (after reward money is paid to the local authorities who have the murderer behind bars for getting into a brawl with a local mining foreman).
William Daniels
Culprits all caught, justice for the accused is sought in two separate Tombstone trials. Confession recanted, on February 12, 1884, Heath goes on trial, and after Sgt. L. D. Lawrence of the 3rd Cavalry testifies to hearing the businessman brag about the robbery while the men were cellmates (Lawrence had been indicted for killing two men during a saloon brawl in Wilcox, Arizona, denying he has made a deal with local prosecutor, Marcus Aurelius Smith, who will eventually serve eight terms as a territorial delegate to the U.S. Congress and becomes one of the first two senators to represent Arizona when it officially becomes a state in 1912 ... no deal wink-wink, the killer will nonetheless receive a sentence of only two years behind bars for his part in the bar mayhem), and in a compromise decision, is found guilty of second degree murder and sentenced to life behind bars at the Yuma Territorial Prison by Judge Judge Daniel Pinney. The other trial begins on February 17, 1884, and with witness identifications, the gold watch evidence, and other links to the robbery and murders, all five men are found guilty of first-degree murder after three days of testimony, and each outlaw is sentenced to be hung by the neck until they are very dead (on hearing the verdict, Kelly will tell his fellow defendants, "Well boys, hemp seems to be trumps.").
Smith
Yuma Territorial Prison
Following both trials intently, the citizens of Bisbbee are extremely disturbed at the thought of the mastermind of the crimes not sharing the gunmen's fate (even though he has been sentenced to life in a prison known as "The Hellhole Of The West"), and between 50 and 150 ride north to Tombstone on February 22, 1885 to make their feelings known to the convicted killer. Thinking a local Chinese chef is knocking on the door of the county jail in the town's courthouse to deliver its inmates breakfast, a group of seven men from the lynch mob break in, take control of the Sheriff and the guards (with pistols placed in their faces ... all are unwilling to sacrifice their lives by protecting the killer), and then march Heath out of his cell (while leaving the outlaws sentenced to die in their cells). Marched down Toughnut Street, the mob stops shortly afterwards at the corner of Toughnut and First streets where a tall telegraph pole awaits. Rope hoisted up and over a crossbeam on the pole, Heath provides his own blindfold in the form of a handkerchief from his pocket, asks the mob not to shoot up his body after he is dead, and then is strung up, slowly strangling to death. Done, a placard is placed below the body that reads, "JOHN HEITH Was hanged to this pole by the CITIZENS OF COCHISE COUNTY for participating in the Bisbee massacre as a proved accessory AT 8:00 A.M., FEBRUARY 22, 1884 (Washington's Birthday) ADVANCE ARIZONA, Then there will be picture taking by local photographer C. S. Fly (the same Fly that takes classic photos of a captured Geronimo and the victims of the O.K. Corral gunfight), and a sarcastic grand journey looking into the affair (a story that makes the New York Times and the Chicago Tribune) will state that Heath's death comes from "... emphysema of the lung - a disease common in high altitudes - which might have been caused by strangulation, self-inflected or otherwise" (according to County Coroner Dr. George E. Goodfellow). Though a tombstone stands for him in Tombstone's Boot Hill, Heath is actually sent back to Terrell, Texas and buried by his family in an unmarked grave.
Heath Lynching
Tombstone
Heath's confederates get a little longer to live, but not much. Big stuff for Tombstone, everyone scheduled to go at the same time, a special gallows is built to accommodate the party of five, Cochise County Sheriff Jerome L. Ward sends out special invitations to the leaving, and a local businessman builds a grandstand outside the jail walls where the hanging can be witnessed with the purchase of a $1.50 ticket (the Tombstone Epitaph will state that more than 1,000 people attend the hanging) ... a grandstand that a local philanthropist, Nellie Cashman and her cohorts try to chop down the day before the hanging (quite the brawl, seven people are injured in the fracas with one breaking a leg and another an arm). Shaved and dressed in matching black suits, allowed to wear their cowboy hats to the gallows, protesting their innocence, the men walk to the gibbet, ask that their bodies be delivered to the local Roman Catholic priest, Father Gallagher (they have all converted to the religion during their tenure in the Tombstone jail), then have their hats taken off and replaced by black hoods. Nooses adjusted around their necks, with Kelly uttering "Let her go," the five men are hung on March 28, 1884 at 1:18 in the afternoon. Four dead instantly, but Dowd's body is seen to jerk and twitch for several minutes as he strangles to death. Allowed to dangle for almost thirty minutes, the outlaws are officially declared dead at 1:45, cut down, and then given to Father Gallagher as requested. Placed in a group grave at the city's Boot Hill, the grave site will be guarded for two weeks by two miners (at the behest of the still upset Nellie Cashman) when rumors abound in town that a medical school seeks to exhume the corpses for research. And a good thing too ... in the death the outlaws become a photograph site for the thousands of tourists that visit the infamous cemetery yearly.
Ellen "Nellie" Cashman
Boot Hill
December 8, 1883 ... murderous gunfire disrupts the streets of Bisbee, Arizona
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