CHAPTER XXVII.
A FOOL LEGISLATURE RELEASES WITHERILL AND HE RECOMMENCES HIS CAREER OF CRIME—A SWEDE MURDERED FOR HIS TEAM NEAR SILVERTON AND HIS BODY NEVER FOUND—HE FINDS ANOTHER VICTIM—CHAS. R. M’CAIN HIRED TO HAUL ORE, AND MURDERED BY WITHERILL—CAPTURED IN DENVER—THE OUTRAGED PEOPLE OF CANON CITY LYNCH THE VILLAIN.
Among the collection of laws, good, bad and indifferent, passed by the Colorado legislature of 1887, was one which was the indirect cause of the death of at least two innocent men. It was a law that provided that a life sentence in the penitentiary should be construed to mean only sixteen years, i. e., that a criminal who had been sentenced for life should be released after having served sixteen years. There were many ugly rumors out in regard to the intents and objects of the bill, but it finally passed by a small majority. It released from Cañon George R. Witherill, who was set free April 8, 1887, and the crimes he had committed before the next legislature assembled caused that body to repeal the law with great celerity.
When the murderer of the inoffensive sheep herder was released from the prison, he at once came to Denver. While in the penitentiary he had made threats that he would kill Gen. Cook if he ever got out, because, as he said, Cook had on two or three occasions prevented him from securing a pardon. When Gen. Cook heard that Witherill had come back to Denver, he thought that he had come back to carry out his threat, and at once went in search of him. When Witherill heard that Cook was after him, he at once secured the services of a friend who had been a guard at the penitentiary, and started out to find Gen. Cook to square the matter and assure him that he had no intention of carrying out his threats. He learned that Cook was in the Brunswick hotel, and, following his friend in there, threw up his hands the instant he entered the door, begging the general not to shoot him. Cook told him that, knowing his sneaking and desperate character, and the threats he had made, he would be fully justifiable in shooting him down like a dog, but that if he was sincere in his protestations that he wanted to live an honest life, he would let him go, but added that he had better leave Denver to make his attempt.
Acting upon this advice, Witherill left Denver for the mountains, and was not heard of for about a year and a half, and then as the perpetrator of another cold-blooded and atrocious murder, or rather two murders. As previously related, Witherill had gone into the mines, first working at Durango and afterward at Ironton. While at Ironton he formed the acquaintance of a Swede by the name of Marinus Jansen, who owned a splendid four-horse team and a big ore wagon and outfit for hauling ore from the mines. Witherill decided that Jansen would make an easy victim, and so commenced negotiations with him to go to Silverton to haul ore from a mine in which Witherill claimed to have an interest. That was the last ever seen or heard of poor Jansen, and his body lies rotting in some abandoned prospect hole in a lonely mountain side. They had started out early in September, and toward the latter part of the month Witherill drove the outfit into Pueblo, where he disposed of it for $400.
Having now plenty of money to loaf around and live well for a time without work, one would naturally suppose that Witherill would refrain from crime for a time at least, but he appears to have been a maniac on the subject of murder, who could not resist the temptation to kill no more than a hungry man can resist the temptation to eat when tempting viands are set before him. It would have been a good thing for the community had Gen. Cook shot him in Denver before he had time to make his lying explanations. He lost no time in seeking another victim; as before, hunting up a laboring man with some good teams. He hired Chas. R. McCain, and with him left Pueblo at 9 o’clock on the morning of October 25, to go to a point eleven miles west of Cañon City to haul ore. They had two teams, both of which belonged to McCain, who resided in Pueblo. Witherill had represented to McCain that he was the foreman of a heavy shipping mine, and would give the Pueblo man lucrative employment for himself and teams to haul the ore from the mine to the railroad track.
The men proceeded with the teams until night caught them, at Beaver creek crossing, eighteen miles east of Cañon City, and they camped. The point where they camped was not over a quarter of a mile from the house of Mr. Palmer, one of the commissioners of Fremont county. Both evidently lay down in the wagons, McCain never to awaken in this world, and Witherill to keep diabolic watch until his victim was fast asleep. Then he crept, panther-like, to where the unconscious man lay, and sent a rifle bullet crashing through his brain. Fearing, perhaps, that the wound was not of a deadly nature, or because, possibly, the victim in his dying struggles would alarm some one, the fiend grasped an axe and pounded McCain’s head into a mass of broken bone and oozing brain. The closeness of the gun when the shot was fired was such that the bullet passed entirely through McCain’s head and the bottom of the wagon, to still retain enough momentum to flatten itself on a stone. When found, it had bits of bone and the blanket, which McCain had evidently had his head partially covered with, still attached to it.
The fiend then proceeded with devilish cunning to conceal the body of his victim and indications of his crime. The body he carried or dragged into a neighboring ravine and deposited in a ditch. He then covered it with rocks and dirt and effectually, as he thought, hid from the eyes of men the lifeless remains. To destroy the blood spots and other indications of the deed, he covered them with hay and burned it. The bottom of the wagon he rubbed with stones and with hay to efface the dreadful evidences of his crime.
As coolly as if he were upon an ordinary business mission, Witherill took McCain’s money and drove both teams on Saturday morning into Cañon City. He camped just east of the city and then, going boldly into the business part of the town, he wrote a letter addressed to McCain’s wife, in which he personated her husband. He informed her that he had purchased a ranch at Grand Junction, Colo., and had sold his teams. He asked her to sell all her household effects and join him as soon as possible at the location of their new home.
Familiar with her husband’s writing, Mrs. McCain, upon the receipt of the letter, at once knew that it was not indited by him. But that might not have so much alarmed her as the quick intuition of her heart which told her something was dreadfully wrong and strange in this sudden change of plans and unexpected determination to move to the western part of the state and make a new home. She placed the matter before an officer, and at once the conclusion was reached that the life-sentenced murderer of Sheepman Wall had added another to his series of blood-stained deeds.
The alarm was at once sent out and inquiries made. It was learned that Witherill had been at Cañon City on Saturday morning. Shortly after the search began a man was found who knew him and had seen him on the road to Denver with two teams. On Wednesday afternoon, October 31, Deputy Sheriff Force, of Denver, received a telegram, informing him of the mysterious disappearance of McCain and of the anxiety to apprehend Witherill. Late the same night the deputy found Witherill at Goulding’s stables. He was surly in response to questions and said that his name was Simon Cotter. To this Mr. Force responded: “That may be your name now, but it wasn’t Simon Cotter or Simon Says-Thumbs-Up when I saw you in the pen at Cañon.” This knocked the bluff out of the ex-convict and he submitted, to arrest in silence. He refused to say anything about the whereabouts of his associate and went to jail. Upon being searched the sum of $250 was found upon him.
Despite his effort to erase the evidences of the ghastly deed there were found blood stains in the bottom of the wagon. An axe was also found, which had blood stains on the handle. The presence of two pocketbooks, a double set of blankets and other belongings of two men among his effects were also peculiarly suspicious circumstances. Yet with stolid effrontery he maintained that he knew nothing about Chas. McCain, and that he had left him in Cañon alive and well. In interviews with representatives of the press he claimed, in substance, that McCain had business in Cañon and had announced to him his determination to come to Denver and hence to go East. On that account he had obeyed McCain’s request and had driven both the teams to this city, and expected him along. The following morning, however, when informed that the body of McCain had been found, he refused to say anything more.
Sheriff Griffith arrived in Denver on the morning of November 2, and in the afternoon started with his prisoner toward Cañon City. The reports of the determination to lynch the prisoner when he arrived in Cañon City were, however, the cause of deterring the sheriff from going farther than Pueblo. Witherill was incarcerated there a few days, and then again quietly returned to the Arapahoe county jail. It was only when there was no help for it, and when it became impracticable to longer keep him there, that Witherill was at length taken to Cañon. The greatest precautions were taken to convey him there quietly. He was placed in a Rio Grande baggage car, securely manacled, and taken from the train five miles from Cañon City. From that point he was taken to the city in a close carriage and locked in a steel cell. It was believed that so secretly had the transfer been made that no information would leak out. In this the officers were mistaken, for it soon became apparent that every one in Cañon knew that at last the fiend whom they had determined to rid the world of was within their reach.
It was the 3d of December when Witherill was taken to Cañon, and the next morning news was received in Denver that he had been lynched to a telephone pole on Main street, within a stone’s throw of the penitentiary where he had spent fifteen years of his life.
The night of the tragedy was cold, dark and still. It was not until 6 o’clock that the information of Witherill’s arrival was obtained, and the fact was not assured until about midnight. All night the streets were alive with men, and the prospect of a lynching was the only subject of discussion. The terrible details of the McCain murder were discussed, and the spectacle of the grief-stricken wife weeping over her husband’s mangled remains was called to mind as demanding sure and speedy vengeance. Little knots of men assembled on street corners and in doorways recounting the infallible evidences of Witherill’s guilt, each man sitting in judgment upon the ex-convict. All this time the real organized lynchers were secretly and silently at work. Masks were provided for the entire party and every preparation made for the attack. Two of their party knocked at the back door of the jail, and when Sheriff Griffith opened the door sprang upon him and throttled him without making a sound.
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Lynching of George R. Witherill at Cañon City.
After the sheriff had been put out of the way, the crowd of masked lynchers filed into the jail and secured the keys to the cells from the sheriff’s son.
The dim light burning in the jail revealed Witherill in his cell, standing upon the defensive. He was ordered to come out, and cried out:
“Come in and take me out.”
He had broken his wooden bedstead to pieces to secure a weapon, and when some of the party stepped forward to take him at his word he used the club with the desperate energy of a doomed man. There is no telling how long Witherill might have held his own against superior numbers had not one of the attacking party drawn a revolver and shot the murderer in the shoulder, knocking him down. He was then quickly overpowered and led out of the cage, with a noose around his neck and his hands secured behind his back.
Surrounded by a solemn but earnest crowd, Witherill was marched down to Main street to a telephone pole, about one hundred yards from the jail. The condemned man was led to this pole and the rope thrown over the cross-bar by a practiced hand, and the end of the rope was grasped by fifty strong and willing hands. The triple murderer was given a minute to confess. This he refused to do, and he was drawn up five or six feet from the ground. After some seconds he was lowered until his feet touched the ground, and he was asked to confess the murders of Wall, Jansen and McCain, and upon his stubborn refusal to comply he was drawn up until his feet cleared the ground by some ten or twelve feet and the rope tied.
Witherill’s helpless body, dangling against the pole in the agony of death by suffocation, was watched by the assembled crowd without a single sign of pity or remorse. When satisfied that life was extinct the crowd quietly dispersed to conceal every evidence of the judgment of Judge Lynch, except the ghastly figure at the end of the rope.
As soon as daylight came, the fact that the anticipated lynching had been successfully accomplished was noised through the town, and hundreds of men, women and children went to the scene to view the terrible but significant sight. Old women and young girls stood in the bright sunlight, and gazed at the murderer’s body swaying slightly in the morning breeze, without a shudder, and if their looks could be relied upon they, too, had given Witherill a mental trial and found him guilty. In all the crowd that viewed the remains of the dead murderer, there were none who could forget the murders of Wall, and of Jansen, and of McCain, long enough to pity the wretch who had in a measure paid the penalty of his many crimes.
A SLICK SCOUNDREL.