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 Oliver
"Oll" Shepherd (1842-1868)
- Born on November 25, 1842, Shepherd married Mary Jane Vance on February
2, 1860 and the couple would have two children. He fought with the
Quantrill's Raiders during the
Civil War.
Afterwards, he joined up with the
James-Younger
Gang and was with the gang when they
committed the first daylight bank robbery in the nation in Liberty,
Missouri
on February 13, 1866.
After stealing some $57,000 and trying to make their getaway, shooting
erupted and an innocent college student was caught in the fray and killed.
Shepherd was again present when the gang robbed the Southern Bank of
Kentucky of $14,000 on March 21, 1868. With a posse hot on their trail,
Oliver's cousin,
George Shepherd
was arrested, but Oliver made it back to
Missouri.
However, he was tracked down by a posse in
Jackson County and when he resisted arrest and
attempted to shoot his way to safety, he was killed on April 4, 1868. He
had 20 bullets in his body.
Vicente
Silva
(1845-1893) - Vicente Silva was the clandestine leader of a
vicious gang of Mexicans called
Silva's White Caps, or Forty Bandits, or the Society of
Bandits. Born in Bernalillo County, Silva arrived in
Las Vegas,
New Mexico
in 1875. Silva ran a prosperous business by day and at night he led
the feared
outlaw gang. The White Caps, a Klan-like organization, sought
through fence-cutting, arson, and physical assault, to drive settlers
from lands that had once been common pasture.
Committing a variety of crimes, the
Mafia-like gang was one of the meanest and cruelest ever assembled in
New Mexico.
Often meeting in Silva's Imperial
Saloon
on Moreno Street, the gang held the area in a virtual stranglehold
until October, 1892, when they decided to hang fellow gang member Pat
Maes for an infraction.
At the request of Silva, three crooked
lawmen by the
names of Jose Chavez
y Chavez, Eugenio Alarid and Julian
Trujillo lynched Patricio Maes on October 22, 1892. Several months
later Silva began to fear that his brother-in-law, Gabriel Sandoval,
was about to inform on the group for the lynching of Maes.
Requesting help once
again from Chavez, Alarid, and Truillo, Sandoval was shot and killed in
February, 1893 and his body mysteriously disappeared.
Afterwards, Silva's wife
began to ask numerous questions about her brother’s questionable
disappearance. Silva soon decided that she too had to be killed. Afterwards, he ordered his trusty trio of crooked
lawmen to dig a grave for
his wife’s body. However, as the men dug the grave, their discussion
turned lethal, as they were dissatisfied with the paltry $10 payment and
deciding that Silva was out of control. When Silva appeared
with his wife's body, the trio robbed and murdered him, burying his body
along with his wife’s.
After Silva's death, the
gang disintegrated. Chavez, Alarid, and Truillo were eventually
arrested for the murder of Maes and sentenced to life in prison.
Sontag Brothers - Born and raised in
Mankato, Minnesota, these brothers would grow up to become train robbers
in
California.
John was born on May 27, 1861 and his brother George came along on April
10, 1864. George began a life of crime when he was just 15 years old by
stealing cigars from his employer and was sent to the state reform school
in St. Paul. After he was released he headed to Nebraska, where he went to
work as a grocery store clerk. However, when he was caught embezzling
money from his employer he was arrested again and sent to the Nebraska
State Prison. He was released in 1887.
In the meantime,
John had moved to
Los Angeles,
California
in 1878 and gone to work for the railroad, where he was badly injured in
an industrial accident. After he recovered he went to work with a farmer
by the name of Chris Evans. Harboring a deep resentment against the
railroad, John and Chris Evans began to rob trains.
When George Sontag
joined his brother in
California
in 1889, he joined them in their
outlaw
endeavors. On August 1, 1892, the trio robbed a train in Fresno, making
off with three stacks of money. Actively pursued by the Pinkertons, George
was arrested, but John and Chris managed to escape. Convicted, George was
given a life sentence at Folsom Prison.
The two other
fugitives remained at large for almost a year until they were finally
caught up with on June 11, 1893. In the ultimate shoot-out, John was so
badly injured, the posse waited until morning when more help could arrive
to move him. Taken to Fresno, John lived for another month before he died
of tetanus. Chris Evans, who had also been wounded during the capture,
survived to be convicted and sent to prison at Folsom.
After serving 15
years behind bars, George Sontag was released on March 21, 1908 and wrote
the book A
Pardoned Lifer,
which was later made into a movie in 1914. It is unknown how or when
George died. Chris Evans
remained in prison until 1911 and upon his release was banished from
California.
He spent the rest of his life in Oregon.
William Larkin Stiles, aka: William Larkin, Billy Stiles (18?? -1908)
-
Gunfighter William Stiles allegedly killed his father when he was
just twelve years old. He gained notoriety around the turn of the century
after assisting famous
Texas Ranger
Jeff Milton. He was then hired by Willcox,
Arizona
marshal
Burton Alvord. However, the two weren't dedicated to law enforcement,
rather, they formed gang of train robbers that included George and Louis
Owns,
Three Fingered Jack" Dunlap, Bravo
Juan Yoas, and Bob Brown. After serving a stint in jail, Stiles went to
visit
Alvord and other gang members who were incarcerated at the Cochise
County courthouse. On April 7, 1900, he shot the lawman,
George Bravin,
taking off two of his toes, and released the prisoners. In January, 1908, Stiles was working in
Nevada
as a deputy sheriff and shot a man while arresting him. The victim's
12-year-old son then shot and killed Stiles.
Frank C. Stillwell (1857-1882)
- Born in the border area between
Kansas
and
Missouri,
Stillwell arrived in
Arizona in
1878 where he first worked as a miner and teamster in Mohave County.
Later, he hooked up with the
Clanton Gang and began a new career of cattle rustling. Thief or no,
Johnny Behan appointed Stillwell as a Cochise County Deputy
Sheriff in 1881. While acting in that capacity, he and a man named Pete
Spence robbed the
Tombstone-Bisbee
stage of $3,000 on September 8, 1881. Though arrested, they were
acquitted. Not satisfied with this result,
Wyatt Earp
soon rounded them up and brought them in for a second trial, but they were
again acquitted and released. After the
Gunfight at the
O.K. Corral, the
Earps suspected Stillwell, along with
Ike Clanton, as having been
the killers of
Morgan Earp on March 18, 1882. Two days after
Morgan was murdered,
Wyatt and
Warren Earp, along with
Doc Holliday,
ambushed Stilwell at the Tucson Train Station. His bullet ridden body was
found the next morning.
 I.N. “Buck” Stinson
(18??-1864) - An alleged member of a road agent gang called
the Innocents, operating out of
Bannack,
Montana,
Stinson was hanged by
Montana Vigilantes.
Born at Greencastle,
Indiana, he moved with his family to Andrew County,
Missouri
at the age of 14. From a respectable family, he was described as
intelligent, studious, and as having a bright future. However, when he
grew up, he headed west and upon reaching
Montana, got involved with
bad influences. After he arrived in
Bannack,
Stinson rented a corner space in Cyrus Skinner’s saloon, set up a
barber chair, and made his living cutting hair when he wasn’t
drinking, gambling, or getting into arguments with other men in the
saloon.
In the spring of
1863, Stinson murdered a friendly Bannock
Indian chief for no apparent
cause and would later brag about it. Despite his reputation, after
Henry Plummer was made sheriff on May 24, 1863, he appointed
Stinson as one of his deputies. Though
Plummer hired a couple of other “roughs” with less than sterling
reputations, he also hired several respectable men, one of which was
John Dillingham, who was
made the chief deputy.
But, deputies like
Buck Stinson, Charley Forbes, and
Ned Ray, who were living on the
“fringe” and thought to have been outlaws themselves, didn’t like Dillingham’s honesty.
When Dillingham tried to warn a man named Dodge that fellow deputies
Stinson and Forbes, along with a man named Haze Lyons, intended to rob
him on a planned trip to Fort Benton. When the would-be robbers heard
of the warning, they shot Dillingham down in
Virginia City,
Montana on June 26, 1863. Though the killers were
arrested and tried in a miners' court, with several witnesses to the
murder, they were acquitted. This incident was just one of many that
prompted the organization of the
Montana Vigilantes in late 1863.
After capturing and
hanging alleged road agent
Erastus "Red" Yager on January 4, 1864, the
Montana Vigilantes claimed that
Yager had named
Henry Plummer as the leader of the gang called the
Innocents. The
vigilantes acted swiftly and on January 10, 1864 they rode into
Bannack from
Virginia City and apprehended
Henry Plummer and his two deputies, Buck Stinson and
Ned Ray.
Marching the three men to the gallows in a military style, the three
were lifted up and dropped to their deaths. The three bodies were left
hanging until the next morning.
Plummer’s was the only body placed in a wooden coffin and none
were buried in the cemetery, but instead all three were buried in
shallow graves in Hangman’s Gulch about a hundred yards up from the
gallows.
Isaac “Ike” Stockton
(1852-1881) - Born and raised in
Texas,
Stockton was an outlaw and leader of the Stockton Gang of robbers in
northern
New Mexico.
Making his way to Lincoln,
New Mexico in 1874, Stockton ran a saloon for a
brief time before moving north to Colfax County,
New Mexico
later that year. No doubt, he had some involvement in the infamous Colfax
County War that took place in 1875-76. He and his brother, Port, moved to
Trinidad,
Colorado briefly in 1876, but after Port killed a man in
December, they moved on to western
Colorado. There, the two posed as
cattleman, settling in the Animas Valley around 1878. Unbeknownst to area
residents, Ike was actually running a gang of robbers called the Stockton
Gang. They also became involved in a bitter feud with they were now with
the Simmons family in nearby Farmington,
New Mexico.
Sometimes referred to as the San Juan County War, the Simmons’ accused the
Stocktons of stealing their cattle and selling the beef to army posts. The
“war” erupted into full scale shoot-outs and lynchings in 1880.
On August 24, 1881, one of the gang
members, Burt Wilkinson, killed Marshal Clate Ogsbury of Silverton,
Colorado and a $2,500 reward was offered for his arrest. Ever the
scoundrel, Ike turned in his own gang member in order to secure the
reward money. Nineteen year-old Wilkinson was arrested and lynched on
September 4th.
But, local law certainly didn’t see
Stockton as any kind of hero. They soon dug up a
New Mexico
warrant for Ike for the murder of a man named Aaron Barker in 1881. When
Silverton Deputy Sheriff Jim Sullivan went to arrest, Ike, the scoundrel
resisted and the deputy shot him in the leg. The outlaw died after having
his leg amputated on September 27, 1881. Later, it was said that Deputy
Sullivan claimed to hate a traitor more than a murderer.
William Porter “Port”
Stockton (1864-1881) - Born and raised in
Texas,
Port became an outlaw and lawman. He was the younger brother of more
well-known Ike Stockson, who led the Stockton Gang, a group of thieving
robbers in northern
New Mexico.
Allegedly he killed his first man when he was just 12 years-old. He
drifted Dodge City, Kansas briefly before following his older brother to
New Mexico
in 1874, where Ike ran a saloon in Lincoln. Port shot and killed Juan
Gonzales in October, 1876 in Cimarron,
New Mexico,
but was released with of please of self defense. Then, he and Ike moved to
Trinidad,
Colorado, where he killed another man in a saloon fight just two
months later. Arrested, Ike helped him to escape from jail. Amazingly, in
1979-80, he was serving as Marshal in Animas City,
Colorado. In June,
1879, he killed a man in Otero,
New Mexico,
but escaped once again. After getting into a dispute with a rancher in
Farmington,
New Mexico
named Alfred Graves, Port was shot by Graves on on January 10, 1881.
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