On the day of the murder, Joe Eversole, in company of his father-in-law, Judge Josiah Combs and the latter’s youthful nephew, Nick Combs, bade a last farewell to his family and the host of friends at Hazard and started for Hyden where the regular term of the Circuit Court was scheduled to begin the following morning. This court Eversole and Judge Combs had always attended, having been practising members of the bar there for years. Of this fact the assassins had been well informed.
They seemed to have feared that their intended victims might possibly leave for Hyden a day or two in advance of court, which they had done on several occasions in the past, so the murderers prepared for such an exigency and stationed themselves at the ambush for at least a day before that memorable Sunday.
Their patient waiting was rewarded on Sunday morning by the appearance of the victims. On the way the three travelers were joined by one Tom Hollifield, an officer, who was conveying a prisoner, Mary Jones, to Hyden. Judge Combs rode by the side of the officer, well in advance of Eversole and young Nick Combs.
They had passed the ambush some forty yards or more, when suddenly the roar of rapidly fired guns echoed and re-echoed through the valley. At the sound of the shots Judge Combs turned and saw, to his horror, that the messengers of death had accomplished their cruel mission, saw Joe Eversole and Nick Combs fall from their rearing and plunging horses, saw them struggle in their blood and then lay still.
Paralyzed with horror and agony, he gazed upon the scene. He had no sense or realization of his own danger, for in danger he had been. It was purely accident that he had ridden in advance of his kinsmen.
One of the assassins climbed down the steep hillside and approached the body of Nick Combs, who was then in his death-throes. He had fainted, but upon the approach of the assassin, opened his eyes.
The murderer, finding life still lingering in the mangled, bleeding body, raised his rifle to finish the bloody work. The youth begged piteously to shoot him no more, that death would claim him in a few moments. Mountains might have been moved by his pleadings, but not the heart of the cowardly assassin. “Dead men tell no tales,” he exclaimed, with a smile of derision upon his lips. Slowly he raised the Winchester rifle, placed the muzzle against the boy’s head and fired, dropping the eyeballs from their sockets.
The murderer then calmly rifled the pockets of Eversole of their contents and retreated, thus adding the crime of robbery to that of murder.
Judge Combs, brought to himself, spurred his horse to utmost exertion and dashed like a maniac into Hyden to bring the news.
The scene of the crime was within about three hundred yards of a house. Shortly after the shooting one Fields, the owner of the house or cabin, and one Campbell proceeded to the scene of the tragedy.