Book Description

Did Tom Horn kill Willie Nickell? He was a death sentence to rustlers and the devil incarnate to homesteaders in late nineteenth-century Wyoming. Did Tom Horn commit the 1901 murder of the fourteen-year-old son of a sheep-owning homesteader who had stolen from the cattle barons ranges? If not, who did? Cheyenne author Chip Carlson, in this, his third book, answers these questions and others with the monumental results of more than ten years of research into primary sources. Who were Tom Horn s other victims? Was there collusion on the part of three governors in two Colorado murders? How could the jury return a verdict of guilty in Tom Horn s trial in the face of evidence that someone else was the killer? Why did Tom Horn s parents flee to Canada? Was there jury tampering and bribery? Why did Tom Horn say I would kill him and be done with him? What was the role of schoolteacher Glendolene Kimmell, and where did she end her years? Tom Horn, the most notorious of Wyoming s range detectives and a pre-eminent name in Wyoming history, operated unchecked until he was arrested for the murder of Willie Nickell. The murder and questionable nature of Horn s conviction still ignite firestorms of controversy in Wyoming. Before he was hanged Horn said, I have lived about fifteen ordinary lives. I would like to have had somebody who saw my past and could picture it to the public. It would be the most god damn interesting reading in the country. Now author Chip Carlson provides that reading.