CHAPTER XLI.
BROUGHT TO JUSTICE AT LAST—WELCOME, OR HOPT, AS HE CALLED HIMSELF, GETS FOUR TRIALS—IS NOT ABLE TO BREAK THE WEB OF JUSTICE—CHOSE TO BE SHOT INSTEAD OF HANGED—HELD HIS NERVE TO THE LAST.
The second trial of Welcome, or Hopt, as he declared his name to be, did not bring out any new evidence to materially affect the case, one way or the other, and the verdict was the same as in the former trial.
Again his attorneys carried the case through the territorial supreme court, and then on to the supreme court of the United States, securing another trial with the same result.
Still hoping to wear out the prosecution, and especially the unceasing efforts of Mr. Turner, the father of the murdered man, the attorneys for the fourth time invoked the aid of the supreme court and secured a fourth and last trial. Despite the cunning of his attorneys, and the sympathy of the powerful Mormon church, which he had in some manner secured, there could be but the one verdict, and that of wilful and premeditated murder. Hopt heard the verdict with stoical indifference, and as the laws of the territory permitted a man to choose between shooting and hanging as the death penalty, Hopt chose to be shot, and Judge Zane set the time for his execution on Thursday, August 11, 1887, more than seven years after the commission of the awful crime.
Another and final appeal was made by his attorneys to have the United States supreme court set the verdict aside, but that patient tribunal finally refused to longer retard justice, and declined to interfere. Strong pressure was then brought upon Gov. West, but he, too, decided that the murderer had been given too many chances to escape the consequences of his crime already, and declined to interfere.
Finding that there was no alternative but death, Hopt gave up all hope, and as the date of the execution approached, Marshal Dyer began his preparations. A space was cleared within the prison walls, and a cloth tent for the executioners, who were five in number, was set up.
Hopt’s nerve staid with him to the last. He ate his meals regularly, and his sleep was apparently undisturbed by any apparitions of his victim. At 11 o’clock on the day of his execution he ordered his dinner, which he ate with a relish, and then called for a cigar. It is doubtful whether any martyr ever met his doom with greater fortitude or more real stoicism than that which Fred Hopt exhibited in accepting the fate which the law dealt out to him. He faced Winchester rifles with a boldness and intrepidity that were remarkable, and while some fifty or sixty men who had been specially permitted to witness the execution stood aghast at the scene, he exhibited not the least evidence of excitement.
He sat on a cane-bottomed chair, posing as though he were looking into a camera instead of gazing down the muzzles of five death-dealing weapons. Four of the 45-70 Winchesters were loaded, the fifth carrying a blank cartridge, so that none of the executioners could lay the flattering unction to his soul that his gun carried the deadly missile. The names of the executioners were kept a profound secret. They were covered with black cambric to their ankles, holes being cut in their hoods to see out of.
They were sent to the firing tent at 12:30 o’clock, to which United States Deputy Marshals Pratt and Cannon had already carried the weapons. This tent, which was thirty-six feet from the victim’s chair, was of canvas, all enclosed, with five three-inch square loopholes cut in the north side. The shooting took place in the northeast corner of the penitentiary yard, the other prisoners having all been locked in the dining room fifteen minutes prior to the time when Hopt was brought forth.
It was 12:30 o’clock when Hopt was told that every thing was ready, and he marched deliberately from his cell to the spot where, seven minutes later, he paid the penalty of his crime, He was dressed in a suit of black diagonal clothes, his Prince Albert coat, low shoes, white shirt, white tie, and derby hat giving him a ministerial appearance. He walked unfalteringly beside Marshal Dyer, and on reaching the chair, said:
“Now, gentlemen, I have come here to face my fate. Had justice been done me at my first trial, I would not have been here to-day for this purpose. I have no ill will toward any man living, and now consign my soul to God.”
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Execution of Fred Hopt at Salt Lake for the Murder of J. F. Turner.
A paper one and one-half inches square was pinned over the condemned man’s heart, the good-byes were said, Marshal Dyer gave the order to fire, the guns clicked as though operated by one man, and in the twinkling of an eye Hopt was dead, two balls piercing his heart, and the other two passing through the body half an inch below that organ. There was a slight spasmodic action of the muscles of the throat, but not a muscle of the arms or legs twitched. Death was instantaneous. Father Kelly, the Catholic priest who had been with Hopt in his last hours, administered extreme unction. The body was prepared by the physicians, placed in a coffin, and taken to an undertaker’s establishment in the city.
Sheriff Turner was not permitted to witness the execution of his son’s murderer, but stood outside the walls and heard the shots fired which put an end to the wretch’s existence.
Hopt made no confession. He was very guarded in all his utterances during his last hours, but he made no protestations of innocence, nor did he say aught implicating Jack Emerson, who was at least an accessory after the fact.
The execution of Frederick Hopt for the murder of John F. Turner, seven long years after the crime, rung down the curtain on a drama as replete with startling incidents as any to be found in the realms of fiction. It is certainly one of the causes celebre of the West, and its thrilling events find but few parallels in the annals of criminal judicature. The case was made interesting, not only by the fact that the crime was a dastardly one, but also because one of the officers who tracked the murderer was the father of his victim; not only by reason of the fact that that father on three or four occasions saved the villain from mob violence, nor yet, because of the patience with which that parent for seven long years waited to see justice meted out and the law vindicated, but it is interesting because it emphasizes the marvelous safeguards which the law throws around a prisoner in this country, and the maudlin sentimentality which a criminal can arouse, no matter how cold-blooded his crime may have been.
A TALE OF TWO CONTINENTS.