Fifty Years a Detective: 35 Real Detective Stories

by Thomas Furlong

On the night of September 13th, 1882, as a north-bound M. K. & T. passenger train was being moved out onto the main line from a siding about a mile north of Vinita, two men climbed onto the front platform of the smoker. "Chick" Warner, the conductor, espied them and opened the door. Before a word had been spoken, one of the men shot the conductor in the cheek with a small caliber revolver, making a painful and dangerous wound. The man who is said to have done the shooting, was then shot and instantly killed by his companion, his lifeless body falling across the platform of the car. The man who did the killing stepped from the train and walked back to Vinita station, where he reported to the station agent, who also represented the express company, that the train had been held up by the famous James brothers and Ed Miller. He named others who had often been mentioned as members of the notorious James gang. He stated that this gang had been camping in the woods, or brush, on Little Cabin Creek, about four miles to the north and east of the scene of the alleged hold-up. He had known them all personally before coming to the territory, having been born and raised in Clay County, Missouri, near the former home of the James boys. He also said that he was a cousin of the Jameses. When the gang went into camp on Little Cabin Creek, it was near to a farm where his sister lived, and where he was staying. They met him and had told him that they intended to hold up and rob, not only that train, but other trains on the "Katy," and invited him to join them. He also told the express agent that he was an expert marksman with a revolver and rifle, and that he had been practicing shooting with his gang, and had beaten them all shooting at a target, and that he agreed to aid them in holding up the train near Vinita for the purpose of causing their arrest and punishment later on.

I was Chief Special Agent of the Gould System at that time, and the M. K. & T. was one of its leased properties. Col. Eddy, the General Manager, wired me to go to Vinita at once and investigate the affair, and instructing me further to prosecute all parties connected with the crime. I arrived in Vinita the next day. I had no difficulty in establishing the identity of the man who had done the killing. His name was John B. (or Barney) Sweeney, formerly a resident of Clay County, Missouri, and whose reputation was all bad.

William (Barney) Sweeney.

Murderer, train robber and monumental liar who claimed
kinship with the James Boys.

I ascertained that during the afternoon preceding the affair Sweeney had been at Vinita, and while standing on the platform of the railroad station he, with others, had seen the special train bearing General Manager Eddy pass, south bound. The telegraph operator, of course, knew it was Col. Eddy's train and that the Colonel was aboard, and had conveyed the news to the spectators.

I learned that the man who had been killed was an unknown young man who had appeared at Vinita but a few days before the trouble had occurred. He succeeded in making the acquaintance of a brother-in-law of Sweeney's, who lived on a farm near the alleged camping place of the James gang on Little Cabin Creek, and with whom Sweeney was making his home. This brother-in-law needed help to work his corn field and employed the young man to go to work for him as a farm hand. The young man, who appeared to be a Swede, or Norwegian, and spoke but poor English, accompanied this man, whose name, I think, was Powell, to his home and there met Sweeney for the first time. I also learned that the latter had afterwards induced this unknown farm hand to accompany him and assist him in this attempted hold-up near Vinita. Sweeney had furnished the unknown with a little, light calibre, toy pistol, which was afterwards picked up near the scene of the killing. Sweeney was a man about five feet seven inches tall, stout, stocky built, and about twenty-eight or thirty years of age, dark complexioned, dark small eyes, a luxurious head of black hair, a rather pretentious, long, dark mustache, and weighed about one hundred and seventy to eighty pounds. He was very quick and active in his motions, was a great braggart, and whenever occasion presented itself, never failed to tell people of his great marksmanship and how fearless he was. He was raised near Missouri City, Clay County, Missouri, where his father owned a farm in what was known as the Missouri River bottom. He had a sister, a young woman, who kept house for the father, his mother having died prior to the occurrence of which I write.

Sweeney's father bore the reputation of being an honest, hard-working man, while his son had the reputation in Clay County of being a suspected horse thief, a notorious liar, absolutely unreliable and a treacherous coward. He had been arrested and tried for the murder of a reputable farmer of the neighborhood, who was shot and killed one evening while sitting on the porch of his home with his infant baby in his arms. The shot was fired from behind a thick hedge, from the opposite side of the road, and from a distance of perhaps seventy-five feet from where the farmer was sitting. Sweeney was seen going towards the farmer's house a short time before the shooting had occurred. He had also been seen returning to his home from the same direction some time after the shooting. He was carrying a rifle. He was arrested and tried for the murder of the man, and it was proved at the trial that he had once threatened the life of the murdered farmer, who lived but a short distance from his father's place, but he was acquitted, there being no direct evidence of his guilt. However, a great many people of Clay County believed then, as they do up to the present day, that "Barney" Sweeney, as he was familiarly called, had been the murderer of the farmer.

A short time after this, by reason of his unpopularity, he left that part of Clay County and went to live with his sister on Little Cabin Creek. Knowing the facts about Sweeney's bad reputation, and after hearing the story he had told about the affair at Vinita, I concluded to place him under arrest, charging him with having shot and seriously wounded Conductor Warner, as well as having murdered the man who he claimed was Ed Miller, or Wilson, thinking, as I did, that I would surely be able to find out who this unknown man was. I knew that it was not Ed Miller, because I knew that he was dead, having been killed while attempting to rob a bank in a little town in Minnesota. I also knew that at this time the James boys were not in or about the Indian Territory. Frank James was living peaceably, as a good citizen, in Tennessee. Jesse, his brother, was also supposed to be somewhere in that vicinity. I knew where Dick Little, another member of the outfit, was making his home, and thus knew that Sweeney was deliberately falsifying all the way through. To use stronger language, he was a deliberate liar.