Earp party caught him messing around the train cars in the Southern Pacific railroad yards in Tucson and shot him to death.
Spence at this time opted for a lower profile, becoming a deputy sheriff in Grant County, New Mexico, where a newspaper in July 1886 referred to him as "one of the best peace officers in the West." A week later he beat to death a man named Rodney O'Hara. Then, during a saloon fight at Morenci, Arizona, he killed "Curley" Martinez, a young Mexican cowboy. The TTrry.)e Newvs of April 15, 1893, opened an editorial by shouting, "Pete Spence kills another Mexican in cold blood. THAT MAKES FIVE." This slaying earned Pete five years in the Yuma penitentiary, but he was released in November 1894 after serving 15 months.
He thereafter wandered around Arizona and in August 1901 was treated like a returning hero in Tombstone. He even married Phin Clanton's widow on April 2, 1910, Phin being a brother of the Clanton boys slain at the OK Corral.
Spence died of pneumonia in 1914 and was buried in an unmarked grave in the Pioneer Cemetery at Globe, Arizona.
.366 GUNFIGHT AT THE OK CORRAL; EARP, VIRGIL; EARP, BERRY STAPP WYATT
SPILLMAN, C. W. (1837-1862)
On August 21, 1862, C. W. Spillman, William Arnett, and B. F. Jermagin rode into Gold Creek, Montana, with six good horses and nothing to show how and why they had them. Four days later, two additional men rode into town, claiming they were trailing horse thieves, specifically the three men mentioned. Arnett tried to make a fight of it and was shot dead. Spillman and Jermagin surrendered. Jermagin turned out to be a local cowboy who had had the bad luck to have ridden along with the other two. He was turned loose, and that left only Spillman to be tried.
The vigilantes listened to his courtroom confession and waited patiently as he apologized and wrote a letter to his father asking for forgiveness. Then they quietly hanged him at 2:22 in the afternoon, the first death in the Montana vigilante movement.
SEE VIGILANCE COMMITTEES
STANDIFER, Bill (1860?-1902)
Bill Standifer was born in cattle country at Lampasas, Texas. He not only grew up in cattle country but died in cattle country. Bill Standifer was a cattleman-an indisputably tough-as-cowhide kind of cattleman.
By 1879, Bill Standifer was cowboying for Ike Mullins ranch in Tom Green County, not far from San Angelo. During the spring roundup a dispute broke out between young Standifer and an older and more worldly John Mahan, a rancher from Gonzales County. Facing a Winchester in the hands of a Mahan supporter, Standifer accepted a horsewhipping. Several weeks later, Bill Standifer hunted up Mahan, who was still with the roundup, but by this time in Runnels County. Sensing the seriousness of Standifer's intent, Mahan snapped a quick shot, the bullet zinging past the young cowboy's head. Standifer's bullet, however, broke Mahan's wrist. Mahan whirled his horse and fled but did not get far, because Standifer killed both horse and Mahan. Standifer then headed south to the Big Bend area of Fort Davis, where while partying at a saloon he shot and wounded two black troopers. This time the Texas Rangers caught and delivered him to Coleman, Texas, for trial regarding the Mahan killing. The 12 jurors called it self-defense. The black soldiers didn't die, but they also didn't own any cows. So their case was dismissed!
In the Panhandle, Standifer reportedly killed a rustler near Estacado; whether it was actually true or not, the scattered populace thought enough of his gunfighting reputation to elect him Crosby County sheriff in 1880. After the post office at Dockums was robbed, Sheriff Standifer and Deputy Charlie Quillen tracked the outlaws west into New Mexico. Two days later, with the two rogues in custody, the quartet started home. At a squatter's dugout, where they stopped for the night, the two desperadoes wrenched away Quillen's rifle and shot the deputy in the chest. Standifer, who had been standing outside, rushed to subdue the prisoners. Quillen survived his wound. However, once everybody reached Dickens County, Standifer discovered that he did not have the post office robbers at all but instead fugitives wanted for two murders and six robberies.
After this stint as sheriff, Bill Standifer hired out as a "protection man," meaning a range detective, for the Spur Ranch. Pink Higgins, another Lampasas lad hired by the Spur, joined him.
The ranch, although huge, wasn't big enough for both of them, however, not two men with legitimate man-killing reputations and old grievances. On October 1, 1902, the two Spur employees dueled with rifles at 62 paces. When the smoke cleared, only Pink Higgins was still standing. Higgins then telephoned the local sheriff, reporting that he thought he had killed Bill Standifer. N. N. Rodgers, a seasoned lawman himself, replied, "If you are not sure you better go back and finish the job."
SE15- (JAZO: HORRELL-HIGGINS FEUD
STARR, Henry (1873-1921)
Henry Starr, an outlaw, as well as three-eighths Cherokee Indian, stood tall, at six foot seven. Born near Fort Gibson in Indian Territory (Oklahoma), he attended the Cherokee Mission School and worked as a cowhand, but he was jailed and fined in 1891 for selling whiskey to Indians. Following that, he was arrested and jailed for stealing a suitcase; then he went big time and graduated to stealing horses. In 1892, he and his gang held up the Missouri Pacific and then killed deputy U.S. Marshal Floyd Wilson when Wilson attempted to arrest the gang. The outlaws slung Wilson over the saddle and slapped his horse into Fort Smith. The gang, enlarged now due to publicity, subsequently robbed three banks, a passenger train, and a railroad depot, all in less than three months.
Starr now decided to relax, but he was captured in Colorado and transported to Fort Smith, where Judge Isaac Parker sentenced him to hang. The accused responded by screaming, "Don't try to stare me down. I've looked many a better man than you in the eye. Save your wind for your next victim. If I am a monster, you are a fiend, for I have only put one man to death, while you have slaughtered many with your jawbone."
Starr certainly sounded bold, but somewhere along the way he decided that the date of his execution was not a good day to die, so he commenced a string of appeals that finally brought his case back to court, where he was assessed 15 years in the federal prison at Columbus, Ohio.
Before he could be taken to Columbus, in June 1875, Cherokee Bill attempted to escape from the Fort Smith jail. Gunfire erupted across the prison, the break ending only when Henry Starr talked Chero kee Bill into surrendering. That act earned Starr a pardon from President Theodore Roosevelt in January 1903.
Henry Starr (Robert G. McCubbin Collection)
However, he had no sooner stepped out of one prison than Colorado authorities arrested him for a previous robbery and sentenced him from seven to 25 years in the Canon City Penitentiary. Starr was paroled in 1915.
As soon as Starr hit the streets, he and whatever remained of his old gang struck two banks at Stoud, Oklahoma, on March 17. However, as he fled, a 17year-old boy put a bullet in his leg, and Starr was back in prison. This time he received a sentence of 25 years in an Oklahoma penitentiary, although he served only four. The state paroled him in 1919, and he moved from prison to starring in a movie about how crime does not pay. But even then he had not learned his lesson. In 1920, he robbed two banks, one in Chandler and one in Davenport, Oklahoma. On February 18, 1921, he hit the People's National
Bank in Harrison, Arkansas. But Harrison, Arkansas, would be his last holdup. He entered the bank wearing a suit, demanded cash, and was shot with a rifle. He died of his wound four days later, on February 22.
STARR, Myra Maybelle (a.k.a. Belle Starr) (1848-1888)
Belle Starr was born Myra Maybelle Shirley on February 5, 1848, in Carthage, Missouri, the daughter of John Shirley, a farmer and hotel owner. The family educated her. She became a competent pianist and well read. Her brother Bud-a guerrilla fighter-was slain in the Civil War. Her discouraged father moved the family to near Dallas, Texas, following the war, and there she met Jim Reed, who also had been a guerrilla fighter. They married on November 1, 1866, and promptly returned to Missouri. In September 1866, she gave birth to a daughter, who became Rosie Lee, although Belle called her Pearl.
In Missouri, Jim Reed tended to go wild. He rustled cattle and sold whiskey. Rumors arose regarding dead men on his backtrail, so the family moved to California, where a son, James Edwin Reed, was born. Meanwhile, Reed continued to rob and kill, going on forays into Texas and Arkansas. Belle went home to her parents. In the meantime, Reed held up a Texas stage, fled to Oklahoma, then twisted back to near Paris, Texas, where he was slain by a posse on August 6, 1874.
As a widow, Belle came on difficult financial times, so she drifted into Indian Territory (Oklahoma), where she married Sam Starr, a part-Cherokee Indian and the son of Tom Starr, a renegade outlaw. The Starrs lived at Younger's Bend, a rendezvous point for some of the worst class of outlaws. Belle and Sam were arrested for horse theft; Judge Isaac Parker at Fort Smith, Arkansas, sentenced both to one year in the House of Corrections at Detroit. After nine months, the authorities released them. They returned to Younger's Bend, where a son, Eddie, was born, and where Sam returned to his old trade of horse stealing, while she had her photo taken with Blue Duck, a convicted murderer. The photo shows a woman who looked twice her 38 years.
In the meantime, Belle persuaded her husband to surrender, but while awaiting trial, he and Tom West shot each other to death at a dance. Belle had once again become a widow. Fearing she would lose her property, she married another Cherokee, Jim July, who was 15 years her junior. In the meantime, her son, Eddie, became a horse thief. Pearl became a prostitute.
It was too late for Belle Starr to turn her life around. On February 2, 1888, someone blasted her out of the saddle with a shotgun. A neighbor, Edgar Watson, was acquitted, and no one else ever went to trial. Pearl arranged the funeral.
See cO; PARKER, JUDGE ISAAC
Belle Starr (Robert G. McCubbin Collection)
ST. LEON, Ernest (a.k.a. Diamond Dick) (I 859?-1898)
Although he is usually mentioned, albeit briefly, in general histories of the Texas Rangers, Ernest St. Leon and his exploits tower well above most of the other gunmen who grabbed the 20th century spotlight. On the southwestern border he was a genuine force.
Of French extraction, St. Leon was born in Canada but at an early age migrated with his parents to San Antonio, Texas, where as a young man he chose to become an attorney, studying for the bar exam. He gave that up, the record indicating that St. Leon, with a certain wanderlust and a desire for adventure, enlisted in the U.S. cavalry and served a stint in Wyoming.
Returning to the Lone Star State, on September 1, 1890, Ernest St. Leon enlisted in the Texas Rangers at Brewster County in the Big Bend area. He was definitely not a "dandy," but because of his obviously advanced level of education, and since he always sported a large diamond stickpin, his fellow lawmen nicknamed him "Diamond Dick."
Four months later the rangers summarily discharged St. Leon. By some accounts the problem was imbibing to many liquid refreshments, and by others it was misappropriating ranger supplies, some said to feed his family. At any rate he promptly found employment in the silver mines at Shafter, Texas, the mines in those days being the constant target of Mexican smugglers who would steal ore by the packtrain load and then scoot south and sell it across the border.
Ranger sergeant John Hughes decided to stop the thefts, and since Hughes believed St. Leon had a fluent grasp of Spanish and was in fact honest and trustworthy, Hughes concocted a plan that included Diamond Dick. It began with the Texas mine owner pretending to discharge St. Leon because he had a Mexican wife, an act not raising any suspicions due to already considerable racial tensions at the Shafter mine area. St. Leon now operated in an undercover capacity. Pretending to be thoroughly incensed at mine management, he infiltrated the group of thieves responsible for the major ore thefts. Learning of a large planned midnight theft, St. Leon alerted Hughes.
Accompanied by Ranger private Lon Oden, Hughes set a trap along the intended route of the outlaws. The three Mexican suspects, accompanied by undercover agent Diamond Dick, all appeared at a prearranged location. Upon their refusal to submit to arrest, a furious six-man gun battle erupted, and the three ore smugglers were killed. In order to maintain a measure of investigative integrity and not compromise the clandestine role played by St. Leon, the news releases noted that four bandits had been killed in the blistering exchange, one of them Diamond Dick.
St. Leon and his wife now secretly departed for Mexico, where he found employment with the Mexican Central Railroad. On one occasion he shot and killed two train robbers. Meanwhile, on June 30, 1893, Texas Ranger captain Frank Jones was killed in a gunfight with Mexican bandits at Pirate Island, in the lower El Paso Valley. John Hughes replaced the respected Jones as the new company commander, and Hughes again turned to Ernest "Diamond Dick" St. Leon, assigning him another undercover identity. Hughes dispatched St. Leon to the south side of the Rio Grande, his job to avenge Frank Jones's death. There could be no official reports from Mexico, but Diamond Dick's mission was a success. Someone killed Antonio and Pedro Olguin, the two gang leaders responsible for Captain Jones's death.
St. Leon then reenlisted in the Texas Rangers on September 1, 1893. One day, Captain Hughes commented to St. Leon about the striking hand-tooled saddle, with silver adornments, that he used. St. Leon
quickly dismounted, loosened the latigo, slid the rigging from the horse's back, and laid the saddle at Hughes's feet, a gift from a generous and indisputably appreciative St. Leon.
St. Leon temporarily left the ranger service in 1894 but reenlisted again on October 1, 1897. At Socorro, Texas, on August 20, 1898, deputizing Dr. Breaux, a civilian, he attempted to arrest three drunken cowboys for creating a disturbance. The arrest went smoothly, but for unexplained reasons Diamond Dick not only turned the trio loose but accompanied them with the doctor to a saloon, where all five began drinking.
For whatever reason, the three cowboys then pulled their guns and shot Dr. Breaux dead on the spot. They then began shooting St. Leon. Seriously wounded, he was removed to the ranger encampment at Ysleta, where he lingered for nine days, succumbing on August 29 to his wounds. The identity of the shooters remains a mystery.
Ernest St. Leon is buried in El Paso's Concordia Cemetery.
.366 (YO; HUGHES, JOHN REYNOLDS; JONES, FRANK; TEXAS RANGERS
STOUDENMIRE, Dallas (1845-1882)
Dallas Stoudenmire stood at least six foot two, was born in Aberfoil, Alabama, and although underage joined the Confederate army in 1862. After his discharge, he wandered off to Columbus, Texas, allegedly killed a man or two, served a stint in the Texas Rangers, and then with his brother-in-law, Samuel M. "Doc" Cummings, rode west to Socorro, New Mexico. From there Stoudenmire and Cummings moseyed down to El Paso, Texas, where Dallas became city marshal on April 11, 1881.
Stoudenmire carried two six-shooters, one in each hip pocket. One had the standard barrel length. The other was a "belly gun," meaning its short barrel made it suitable for close-in fighting-for ramming into an opponent's belly and pulling the trigger.
On April 14, with Stoudenmire on the job three days, the bodies of two Mexican were brought by buckboard into El Paso. They had been slain while searching for stolen cattle in the Rio Grande kjcsr ue (thickets) near Anthony, New Mexico. An inquest followed, held in a couple of adobe rooms near the head of El Paso Street. With the testimony finished, El Paso city marshal Dallas Stoudenmire left first, strolling across the street to the Globe Restaurant. Gus Krempkau, the English/Spanish translator, left a few minutes later, followed by the accused slayers-former city marshal George Campbell and his sidekick, New Mexico rancher and rustler Johnny Hale.
Once outside, Campbell called out to Krempkau, accusing him of making slanted translations. The two men cursed and argued briefly, then Campbell turned to get on his horse. At this moment, Johnny Hale, who had seated himself with a whiskey bottle in a nearby adobe window, shouted, "I'll take care of this for you, George." With that he shot Gus Krempkau down.
From across the street, Dallas Stoudenmire left the restaurant on the run, at the same time pu
lling his long-barreled, very accurate six-shooter. When perhaps 30 yards from Johnny Hale, he aimed, fired, and killed an innocent bystander. Undeterred, he recocked, aimed, and fired again. This time Johnny Hale dropped dead. At this point George Campbell, aghast at the three quick deaths, began screaming, "This is not my fight." The big marshal put a bullet in him too, and now four dead men lay in the street in practically as many seconds.
On the following Sunday, April 17, with the marshal not yet on the job for a week, he and Doc Cummings were walking north on El Paso Street when yet another former city marshal, Bill Johnson, attempted to kill him with a double-barreled shotgun. He missed. Stoudenmire and Cummings altogether put nine bullets in Bill Johnson, and he died sprawled across a stack of bricks being used to build the State National Bank.
The Manning brothers, Frank, James, and Doc, owners and proprietors of the Manning Saloon on El Paso Street, as well as the Coliseum Saloon and Variety Theater farther south on El Paso Street, now started their own feud with Stoudenmire and Cummings. On February 14, 1882, James Manning shot Doc Cummings inside the barroom of the Coliseum Saloon. Cummings stumbled out onto the dust of El Paso Street, gave a loud groan, and died.
Stoudenmire, who was out of town that week getting married in Columbus, Texas, returned to find his brother-in-law dead. He and the Mannings therefore began threatening each other. The newspapers printed horror stories regarding a possible bloodletting in El Paso. According to the newspapers, some residents-not wishing to be caught in a possible cross fire-had already moved to other localities. Meanwhile, Stoudenmire, anxious to show he hadn't lost his edge, started placing targets in the streets representing the Four Dead Individuals in Five Seconds. After crowds had gathered, Stoudenmire drunkenly blew holes in the targets for the benefit of those who had missed his memorable display of marksmanship the first time around.
The Encyclopedia of Lawmen, Outlaws, and Gunfighters Page 48