Cherokee Bill on Trial: The 1895 Murder Case Before Judge Parker at Fort Smith

In February 1895, Crawford Goldsby — better known as Cherokee Bill — went on trial in the federal court at Fort Smith for the murder of Ernest Melton, killed in a robbery.

Crawford Goldsby, alias Cherokee Bill. Fort Smith National Historic Site

The defense: an alibi

The trial opened on February 26, 1895. Bill's lawyer was the celebrated J. Warren Reed, "that lawyer who always wins his cases." Reed called witnesses who placed Bill at various spots between Fort Gibson and Tulsa on the day of the murder and the day before — which would have put him 75 miles from the crime, too far away to have taken part.

The prosecution: eyewitnesses

The federal prosecutors put witnesses to the crime on the stand, and every one identified Cherokee Bill as the killer. Ben Vann added that at a dance soon after the murder, Bill had confessed: "I didn't intend to kill Melton. I only shot to scare him."

The verdict

On February 27, 1895, the jury returned: "Guilty as charged in the … indictment."

A local paper reported that Bill just smiled, while his mother — who had attended the trial and testified for him — broke down in grief. He turned to her, it was said, and asked: "What's the matter with you? I'm not dead yet." That afternoon in the federal jail he was "engaged in a game of poker with Bill Cook and several kindred spirits, as if nothing had happened."

Sentenced to hang

On the morning of Saturday, April 13, Bill stood before Judge Parker for sentencing. Reed asked for a new trial; when it was refused, he vowed to take the case to the Supreme Court. Parker went on:

From the evidence in the case, there can be no doubt of your guilt. That evidence shows a killing of the most brutal and wicked character… Melton was the innocent, unoffending victim of the savage brutality which prompted the robbery and murder.

He sentenced Bill to hang on June 25. A Fort Smith paper said Bill "took the sentence very calmly… [and] disclosed no emotion whatever. The only show he made that he regarded the matter more seriously than when he was convicted, was the absence of his smile."

Appeal — and an escape plan

On April 29, Reed appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, listing 14 "manifest errors to the prejudice and great damage" of himself and his client. With the case before the Court, the June 25 execution date could not stand. And in the middle of the summer of 1895, in the jail at Fort Smith, Cherokee Bill began planning his escape.

More: Crawford Goldsby, alias Cherokee Bill.

Sources

Based on "Cherokee Bill's Murder Trial," a site bulletin of Fort Smith National Historic Site, National Park Service, quoting the court and Fort Smith newspapers of 1895; a work of the United States government in the public domain.