Fifty Years a Detective: 35 Real Detective Stories

by Thomas Furlong

Left Brookville, June 20, 1874, for Parkers Landing. Got a boat there and went down the river. My father, James Watts, traded a gun for the boat. We built a shanty on the boat as we proceeded down the river. The names of the parties on that boat were: Charles Beach, Oliver Brooks, James Watts, J. W. Watts, Sarah M. Watts and Myrta Watts. There was no difficulty on the boat until we arrived at a point near Ironton, Ohio. We got a woman by the name of Fanny Rose on board the boat, and from there down to Maysville there seemed to be some trouble between Oliver Brooks and James Watts, my father, about Fanny Rose, the girl above named. My father had been talking of turning state's evidence, and on Sunday, the 6th of September, 1874, he took an axe and cut a hole in the bottom of the boat. I remonstrated with him and he was going to strike me with the axe. The water began filling the boat, which necessitated our landing. On the night of the 6th of September, 1874, Oliver Brooks shot James Watts, killing him almost instantly, for threatening to turn state's evidence, concerning what had been stolen during our trip down the river, by the male portion of the gang on the boat. James Watts stole nothing himself. He only lived a few minutes after Brooks shot him. I was on another boat about sixty yards above the one James Watts was on. I knew that Oliver Brooks was going to shoot my father, and it made me very nervous. It made me sick and I laid down. I got up and started down to tell my father, when I heard a gun shot, but having an idea of what had occurred I was very much frightened, and was very weak through fear, and did not go into the shanty on the boat, where James Watts and Oliver Brooks were. During this Sunday afternoon Oliver Brooks and James Watts had some difficulty, and Brooks told us all, except James Watts, that he would shoot James Watts. Alston told Brooks that he would get my father to play a game of cards by a window, in order that Brooks could slip around and shoot him from the bank of the river through the window, and he did shoot him.

I am here to tell the whole truth, and want to keep nothing back. My father stole nothing, but he did help conceal what the rest of us stole.

After he was shot, and when I came up, either Brooks and Beach, or Brooks and Alston, were gathering up stones on the bank and carrying them into the shanty on the boat where my father was lying, and I suppose they were taking them in to tie around his neck to sink him in the river, from what they said before the deed was committed. After they got everything fixed up, I heard them putting my father into a skiff and rowing out into the river and I heard them throwing him overboard. They used sixty or eighty feet of half-inch rope to tie the stones to him, judging from the amount that was gone from the boat. Alston told me he had just dealt the cards and turned trump. The old man passed, and he (Alston) turned it down. My father said he would make it hearts, but turned and looked towards the window from where the shot came and then fell. Alston caught him to keep him from falling so hard. This is what Alston told me. After they took my father out into the river and threw him in, Oliver Brooks said he felt just as well as he did before he committed the deed and better, too. After this there was no more conversation about it in my presence as I would not listen to them, nor permit them to talk to me about it. I did not go into the room where he was killed, for five or six weeks. It was my rifle that he shot him with and it was the best rifle I ever saw or used, but after Brooks used it to shoot my father, I never shot out of it, or looked into the muzzle of it, but what I saw blood, or thought I saw blood in it. Other persons saw blood in the muzzle of the gun after shooting it. I showed it to them without giving them any other information. There was an understanding and mutual agreement between us that we were never to say anything about the killing of James Watts. We pushed the boat off that evening, after my father had been killed and thrown into the river and went on down stream following our usual avocation of stealing, etc., and we did not stop permanently until we got to Paducah, Kentucky. At Paducah, all the males in our party were arrested on the Illinois side by Marshal Geary of Paducah, Frank Farland, Wood Morrow and Bill Green, on a charge of grand larceny, committed at Buddsville, Ky. We were tried, convicted and sent to the penitentiary at Frankfort, Ky. I got three years, Oliver Brooks got two years and nine months, Pete Alston got one year and six months and Charlie Beach got three years. Brooks got pardoned through his wife on the 14th of May, or June, 1875, and I got pardoned on the 7th of July, 1875, and M. P. Alston on the 10th of August, 1875.

Brooks and his wife got Beach pardoned. Brooks' wife, as I understood it, had illicit relations with the son of the Governor of Kentucky, and through the influence of the son on his father, Beach was pardoned. My wife got Governor King to write to Governor Leslis, then acting Governor of Kentucky, and through his intercession I was pardoned. After Brooks was pardoned out he stayed until Beach and I got out. As soon as I got out I started for or back to Paducah, Ky., and left Brooks and Beach in Frankfort. I left there on the 7th day of July, 1875, and have never seen any of them since. Alston, a short time after he got out of the penitentiary, went down the Kentucky river, broke into a store, and got shot in the back. He was sent back to the penitentiary for five years, and is there at the present time. Up to the time I left Brookville I was in the habit of going out with a gang composed of Dan Miller, Frank Watts, John Johnson, Frank Loader, Oliver Brooks, John Lyons, and his father, and Charlie Beach. Frank Watts and myself went through Eshelman's grocery store at Dowlingville, and at other places, I cannot now remember.

I make this confession of my own free will and without the expectation of any reward or through any fear. I make it because this thing has been lying on my mind like a lead weight, and I concluded I would tell the whole thing just as it occurred. My wife and I had a conversation at one time in regard to the affair and we thought of going to the officers and telling all about it, but for some reason we did not do it. This was when we were in Paducah.

Made, signed and sworn to in the presence of Thomas Furlong, detective for the Allegheny Valley Railroad Company, Wm. P. Steele, deputy sheriff of Jefferson County, Pennsylvania, and John W. Reed, Attorney-at-law, August 22, 1876.

Watts made the above statement with a view to shielding himself as much as possible. He, himself, killed his father, and Mrs. Brooks so testified. She said it was not only Wess Watts' gun that killed old man Watts, but the gun was in the hands of Wess Watts.

I, having been subpoenaed as a witness for the state against Wess Watts, arrived at Brookville on the morning set for his trial. The whole forenoon was consumed in selecting a jury. When the last juror had been selected it was about twelve o'clock, and the court took a recess until one p. m. At that time, his Honor, Judge Sterritt, stated that the prisoner, Wess Watts, should be brought into court, when the testimony for the prosecution would begin. I went to the hotel, ate my dinner and had returned to the sheriff's office in the courthouse a few minutes before one o'clock. While sitting there talking to Sheriff Steele an old man entered the office, whom the sheriff familiarly greeted, calling him Uncle John, in the following manner:

"Hello, Uncle John. I haven't seen you for a long time. How've you been?"

Uncle John replied, "Quite well, but I'm getting old. Mammy wanted to get some things in the store and we drove in this morning from Beechwoods. I've been reading in my paper about Wess Watts and it says that he is to be put on trial today. You know, Bill, I knew old Bill Watts, Wess' father, before Wess was born. I've been reading all about the boy and his gang and he surely must be a very bad and desperate man. While I'm here in town, I'd like to get a look at him."