As with so many colourful character who lived during the flush of the AmericanWild West , there are a lot of uncertainties about the lifetime of Tom Horn . What no one disputes , however , is that Horn killed a lot of people . The ill fame he clear through bloodletting made him an icon of the frontier , so renowned ( and feared ) that some citizenry trust that Horn ’s spirit lingers to this daytime , haunting the Rocky Mountains and desert plains where he once stalked his human prey .
Born in 1860 in Missouri , Horn was the 5th of 12 children and suffered an abusive fosterage that he fled when he was just 14 . Two twelvemonth afterward he became a sentinel for the Army out West , where he learned Spanish , and some Apache , and became utile as an voice during the Apache Wars . He played a small-scale character in helping translate surrender damage between famed Apache leaderGeronimoand U.S. force .
After the war , Horn restlessly wandered the West , sometimes work as a ranch manus , prospector , deputy sheriff sheriff , U.S. Marshal and rodeo competition .
After a few swallow , Horn had an eye - rolled propensity forbragging about his exploits , distinguish anyone within earshot about his risky venture and his courage in the face of gunfire .
He was n’t all talk . His 2nd - to - none tracking skills caught the care of the noted Pinkerton National Detective Agency , which lease him to site and apprehend require Isle of Man throughout the West . But his propensity for utmost violence made him a defendant in the killings of several fugitive from justice . Horn ’s deportment was a public relations danger for Pinkerton , so the company storm him to give up his emplacement .
By then , Horn ’s skillset dovetailed neatly with a series of 1890s frontier conflicts . As more and more squatter established ranches , they clash with cows mogul who ’d antecedently had free run of the land . With more people contend for crop domain and urine , the self-aggrandizing , more established players take uttermost measures to root out the footling bozo .
Some went so far as yield for hire guns , like Tom Horn , who intimidated and threatened nester into abandoning their land .
One humanity , identify Kels Nickell , was a Wyoming sheep Johann Gottfried von Herder who had a run - in with a baron cite John C. Coble . " Kels Nickell had a lot of opposition . The irascible knave had bring off to pique most of his neighbour , " suppose Marshall Trimble , an writer and official United States Department of State historian in Arizona in an email interview . " In a scuffle with John Coble , Nickell pulled a knife and inflicted a near fatal lesion on him . Coble carried a grievance . A Cheyenne resident had this to say , ' Coble hates Nickell like the devil hat holy weewee . ' "
" When the rich cattlemen desire to browbeat [ Kels ] , they were messing with the wrong guy , " says Joe Nickell , an author and extrasensory detective with theSkeptical Inquirer . ( He ’s also a very distant coition of Kels Nickell . ) " He was n’t the guy you [ could ] run off his property , so they [ the Bos taurus barons ] lie with they had to obliterate him . "
And that ’s where Tom Horn come in .
The Murder of Willie Nickell
In July 1901 , Kels'14 - yr - sometime boy Williewas shot from trap at long range . That morning Willie just happened to don his father ’s pelage and was riding his father ’s gymnastic horse , making his death one of mistaken identity element .
The public , somewhat dead to the violence of the kine wars , found unused scandalization in the killing of a minor . law of nature enforcement that might ’ve otherwise calculate the other direction was short prod into finding a perpetrator .
In early 1902 , a lawman key out Joe Lefors chase after down Horn and roped him into a drunken conversation at his office . True to form , Horn swash about his past exploits and essentially bragged about being the triggerman in the Nickell killing , predict it one of the best stab he ’d ever made . Unbeknownst to Horn , Lefors had a lieutenant sheriff and court amanuensis listening to the conversation in an conterminous room .
" By today ’s standards that would n’t be a bonny [ interrogation ] technique because they ’d been drink , " says Nickell . " But this is the Old West when we had shootouts , and the trials were as rough as the shootouts . Justice could be uncut , too . "
Because concepts like entrapment and leading questions were n’t a affair in the early twentieth century , a judge allowed the drunken confession as grounds of a crime . Horn waspromptly convictedby a jury and sentenced to demise , even thoughsome witnessespresented tarradiddle that seemed to indicate that Horn was innocent .
The world largely see Horn as a incorrectly convicted human being , figuring he was used by the Bos taurus barons , who then tolerate him to take the fall for their murderous methods .
But Joe Nickell is convinced that Horn was shamed . " Not everyone who had a few swallow would concede to mangle , I screw I would n’t , would you ? [ In his confession ] , he made it pretty open what he did , " he says . " It ’s my judgment that if Tom Horn had shot and killed Kels first off , he in all likelihood would ’ve get away with it . "
" The public debate regarding his guilt feelings or innocence in the shooting of a young son is still get on today , " say Trimble . " The consensus seems to be that regardless of whether he kill young Nickell , he toss off a lot of others . This is what makes Western history so fascinating and it would n’t be nearly so if we had definitive answers to our questions . "
If Horn was innocent in the Nickell killing , his lifespan choices did n’t help his lawsuit . For starters , his repute as a cold - hearted killer was a rather obvious stumble engine block . Then , he take the stand during his run and offering up incriminating statements to the prosecution . last , he escape from jail but was quickly recapture . It ’s no wonder that the regulator refuse to commute his dying prison term .
allot to areporter who witnessedthehanging , Horn , who was just one day shy of his 43rd natal day , was the tranquil man on the scene . He refused to offer a last confession – he even refuse to tell on out his wealthy employer – and reportedly had the presence of intellect to kindly preen one attestator on his recent wedlock .
The Ghost Legend
The story of Tom Horn just ended with his slaying . In some ways , it was just getting get .
The legendary killer ’s presencehangs over the American consciousnessin the var. of tall tales and claims that his ghost ghost the West even today . Joe Nickell hasdocumented some of those stories .
After Horn ’s end , local anesthetic claimed that spirits were making eerie noises in the county jail . Inmates were frightened , sure that Horn ’s restless trace was causing the ruckus .
Frustrated frontier mother still their mischievous offspring using Horn ’s awful legend . Instead of threaten their fry with , " I ’ll move around this railway car around , " they ’d claim that " Tom Horn will get you . "
In Cheyenne , locals say that theWrangler Buildingis haunted . Some distrust that Horn ’s ghost frequent the hall , his apparition perhaps still awaiting a fair trial ( though in realityhe was jailed in another location ) .
And at Horn’sgravesite in Colorado , grim visitors sometimes say they ’ve seen a cowherd ghost swinging from a noose in the trees .
Yet it almost hold up without read that the legend of Tom Horn needs no supernatural embellishment .
" Horn was a mythological figure before he was hanged and would have been an even greater icon had he never die to Wyoming , " says Trimble .
But go to Wyoming he did , setting the stage for a disaster that would come to limit his legacy , one that casts a long and bloody phantom in the minds of frontier descendants to this day .
