Rock Springs - Deadly Shootout in the Wild West

Rock Springs Wyoming a frontier mining Mecca in the heart of the Wild West a rollercoaster town of booms and busts and a sanctuary for a bygone way of life Rock Springs seems to ride straight out of the pages of a Louis L'Amour novel vigilante long in cattle rustlers on the lam weather-beaten miners of the hankering for wild times more than a few of them have called Rock Springs home over the years but in the 1970s the town's rugged Wild West lifestyle got a bit too wild prostitution gambling and drugs transform Rock Springs from a brassy little boomtown and to a crime little den of sin I pledged unable to cope with his own rising tide of lawlessness attired the crested on July 15 1978 where the real-life Wild West showdown a showdown not between two outlaws but between two lawmen who had been brought in to clean the town up when it was over one would be dead and the other would be on trial for murder to think about it was like a home like a movie it's a very unique community the last place you'd expect on earth I knew this they somebody was gonna hurt him but I was coming down like that artist cases is where one first hire someone else to kill kill Rock Springs Wyoming gray Willie the last of a dying breed an original frontier mining town it's a blue-collar hamlet of working-class cowboys and roughneck welders appraiser rodeo queens dazzle hometown fans with their horsemanship and coal miners guzzle whisk between shifts and the open pits John beavers has worked the mines for the Black Butte coal company for 20 years John knows he takes a rare breed of individual to live and work in a boomtown like Rock Springs I think it's just part of the history it's a either boom or bust it's either good times or bad times you know it's gold and silver mining oil and gas I think we all seen those booms and Stephanie even aspiring young rodeo queens like Jessica Lea know that living in Rock Springs is no piece of cake they're all the miners and people like that or they work for a living this isn't a easy street place to live in the towns booms and busts make for rough and tumble breed of resident and the scenery around Rock Springs is made to match the town was built on top of a series of abandoned mining shafts it's it's over a mile above sea level on the high lonesome plains of southwest Wyoming wedge tightly between the red desert the Green River and beautiful Lake Flaming Gorge in short Rock Springs is about as close as you can get to the middle of nowhere there's not much to do there's not I mean if you enjoy the outdoors hunting and fishing and stuff but in the wintertime it's pretty desolate get lonely and with less than two people per square mile for all of Sweetwater County lonely is an understatement you're more likely to spot a desert elk for pronghorn antelope making the rounds in Rock Springs then you are a yuppie with a cellphone it's a new unique place but it's quiet when you walk out in that desert and you're by yourself you don't hear anything no cell phones no hurried traffic and nothing like that is a place where there is solace in fact Rock Springs crusty exterior and rugged image are as old as the town itself before the Civil War southwest Wyoming was nothing more than a scattering of small-time cattle ranches and ragtag mining camps barely a pit stop on the Pony Express that all changed in 1868 that was a year dr. Thomas Durant decided that the coal rich desert of southern Wyoming would be the perfect passageway to the northwest for his fledgling Union Pacific Railroad most of the people who rode the Union Pacific through southwest Wyoming kept right on riding but a few of them decided to stop these folks were the founders of Rock Springs but they weren't bankers or railroad tycoons most of them were rugged weather-beaten miners in search of the mother lode and along the miners came the requisite population of gamblers hookers and brothel barons Rock Springs was that wild town on the Union Pacific and all along the Union Pacific from as long as I could remember there was gambling and prostitution it was it just went with the railroad tracks if you heard the whistle blow and you saw the railroad tracks and heard the clickety click of the engines coming down coming down the tracks you knew that in every stop along the road was prostitution and gambling had been there for years it was part of the landscape but hookers and gamblers weren't the only narrative well that were finding solace in the high plains of Rock Springs train robbers horse thieves and other outlaws found the town to be an ideal place to lay low one of those outlaws Butch Cassidy called Rock Springs home for over five years a lot of people knew the history of the town it's always been noted as a rough town I guess by the ruffians that like that type I often hear em refer to Butch Cassidy and so it seemed like there was a drawing card for for those type of individuals to come into our community and create problems for us by 1885 the local mines were bringing immigrant workers to Rock Springs by the trainload the Union Pacific begin to recruit from all types of different nationalities begin to recruit Italians Austrians are part of the old austrian-hungarian empire and look for Serbians and Croatians and slovenians that begin to look for Greek miners it began to recruit actively polish miners and some people from Russia I think we had about 53 55 different nationalities here and it was mainly from because of the coal mines and a lot of those married men came here and worked and then made money and sent for their families a lot of them didn't send form they you know they they had intentions but they never did too so constantly had a lot of single and bachelors here you know by 1900 nearly two blocks of downtown Rock Springs was devoted to entertaining those bachelors in seedy bars late like brothels and rough-and-tumble gambling houses life in Rock Springs was certainly tough but it got a lot tougher when the countries of Coal Fired locomotives started converting to diesel in the 1950s overnight America's bulrushes demand for coal tapered off and so did the prosperity in the mines around Rock Springs in the mid-1970s Oh Rock Springs again bounce back from the brink of extinction with the construction of the Jim Bridger coal-fired power plant in Rock Springs coal was suddenly king again and the miners world diggers and construction workers were pouring into Rock Springs by the thousands again there was a boom in trona there was a boomin and uranium the coal mining companies were coming in and buying up vast areas of coal to be shipped back to be shipped back east the railroads were expanding in order to handle the the the additional demand so this little community which was a community of 10,000 people soon probably doubled its size itself in size there was plenty of work for all the newcomers but unfortunately there was plenty of housing and they were pretty desperate back then then live anywhere they could anywhere they could find to live and people would come knocking on your door and ask if they could put a tent in your front yard a lot of new people have it was like an arena a whole different world you know we went from a town of 10 or 12,000 people to 30,000 it seemed like overnight as a miners and cash poured back into town so did you captain prostitution and hardcore drugs and if it was vice that you wanted the notorious K Street was a place to find it it was a smorgasbord of illegal activity a hangout for every cowboy Caligula in the state at one time was a great one of the ten wildest towns the country meanest towns in the country we drive down by a K Street I'm sure you heard about K streets and prostitutes stuff down there I was already crazy about the wild stuff that go on the bar as for the prostitutes who work K Street their advances were so wild they even made the Cowboys blush Hollies all these females out there displaying it and and walking up and down and then during people going in out of the bars and coming in out of my place and out of the Chinese restaurant across the street it was very lively it was so blatant and I can remember at one time when I was dating someone I went into a little it's called the new grand at the time a little Chinese restaurant over here and one of them came in and tapped the guys on the shoulder I was with and asked said she's not giving you a good time you want to go with me I mean it was that blatant when you're sitting there having dinner with them that they would come up and ask and I and I thought I was amazed at that just amazed so were some members of Rocksprings law enforcement Neil Cabela's during the Rock Springs police force in six coming from a big city like San Diego you thought working the streets of Rock Springs would be a walk in the park I thought I was coming to Mayberry USA you know from San Diego to Rock Springs Wyoming I thought you sat on the on the park bench and said hello to Aunt Dee right you know and when I came out here I got a real real surprise I had never never expected that level of of crime it was unmistakable you would have to be totally naive not to drive down K Street one night and not know that those were prostitutes by 1977 Rock Springs well-earned reputation for lawlessness had become the stuff of legend and when the town's wild where you started making headlines around the country the Rock Springs City Council wanted desperately to clean up their image they wanted to bring in someone who was tough enough to stand up to the pimps and drug dealers who controlled K Street someone who would come in with both guns blazing they wanted someone who'd rather die in fact fight unfortunately for the town of Rock Springs they got exactly with it city confidential will return on any to your body it's a luxury car to the elements it's an SUV to your peace of mind it's a Volvo the new all-wheel drive cross-country this business is a lot like a marriage with a little work and a lot of love we've made this place success together that's what partnerships are about right I need to be there for each other no matter what of course I supported him when he asked his doctor about viagra I'm proud of him because he did it for us ask your doctor if a free sample of viagra is right for you Lysol presents facts of life how's my lucky marble dead fact one person's trash is another person's treasure fact kids are not leak proof fact Lysol products are the best because they kill 99.9% of germs in seconds and it's the number one brand recommended by pediatricians - a human's fascination with water begins early life demands Lysol that fact who done it biography did with a week of TV's top guns James Garner Jerry Orbach Jack Webb Rock Hudson Peter Paul but when the heat was on they didn't have a clue it was a half a gallon of scotch a night fame there's nothing happy there the TV sleuth as you thought you knew case closed week on biography begins October 2nd on A&E fly away with Cathy Rigby into a night of magical entertainment for the whole family Peter Pan October 8 on A&E Chris was like my shadow she was always there for three years she drive down from her job and crafts to tutor me my grades went way up for 40 years the Philip Morris companies including Kraft have given to programs like Chicago's off the street Club and our employees have volunteered their time to help make a difference in people's lives when she loves to have a baby I told her home she deaf daughter Shirley did a great job helping erase working to make a difference the people a Philip Morris we now return to city confidential on A&E the summer of 1977 was a wild one the people of Rock Springs Wyoming as a power plants and coal mines outside of town continued to thrive the prostitutes and drug dealers were pouring into town by the dozens but hookers and pusherman weren't the only unwanted riffraff heading into Rock Springs the national news media was also zeroing in on the town it was clear to me that if somebody didn't step forward and try to serve as a catalyst to dislodge that that long entrenched group of folks things were going to get a lot worse before they got better and after a scathing piece by the news show 60 minutes the town's image hit rock bottom well if 60 minutes hadn't arrived on the scene this wouldn't have been blown up to a to a scandal of national proportions and this played and I don't know how many million television sets and Rock Springs wouldn't have had the owners put on it of a Sin City we got a bad lot of bad publicity it wasn't real public the real publicity of the town they exaggerated a lot that it wasn't as bad as they could up to we'd had people come from California and come to the bar here on Saturday night sit here for a couple hours and say they've heard about the boom and now bad it was your and they would tell me they said why we've got more bad things happening in California in two hours and you have here you know they it was just what they heard whether all the negative publicity about the town was just not wyoming state legislators were feeling the pressure to crack down on rock springs before its Wild West image spun out of control so in 1977 the state convened a special grand jury to investigate the town of Rock Springs I think there was a certain portion of the community that wanted the grand jury to come in because they felt they were sort of the the saving device they would uncover all the crime and corruption or whatever was was present and I think there was another part of the community that was anxious that they were nervous about this with the state breathing down their neck the rock Spring City Council mounted a concerted effort to clean up K Street and the town's nasty reputation city officials got rid of the town sheriff and brought in a new one one they thought at the guts and the experience to take care of business the man they brought in was career long and Edie Cantrell if you looked at the definition of a frontier lawman in the dictionary they would probably be a picture of Ed Cantrell next to it on this in tough antral had over a quarter century of law enforcement under his belt and his no-nonsense approach to crime-fighting made wide earth look like Andy Griffith heads quick-draw and marksmanship had also earned in the title the fastest gun in the West a reputation that preceded at wherever he went I had always known about Ed Cantrell he was a legend even when I was a kid he's probably one of the toughest guys that I've ever met or known he's he was good with his hands his feet ease of martial arts excellent firearm he was just a machine a natural machine this work as law enforcement goes he may have in Wyoming's equivalent to Robocop but not even a grizzled veteran like Ed Cantrell was prepared for what he saw in the sordid bar scene on K Street that was pretty wide open you know you got the pimp and the prostitutes and with that comes drugs the bars on K Street were full and they were lined up two and three deep at the bar and in fact on a lot of nights there was a line out into the sidewalk waiting to get in some of the more provocative stories asserted their profits from the local drug trade and the blossoming sex industry for going straight into the pockets of city officials but if the rock Spring City Council was making money off K streets enlisted activity they sure covered it up well in fact they gave new safety director Ed Cantrell the freedom to wipe out K streets drug trade by any means necessary if I ask for something I got it so my experience with them would be a hundred percent he I was never questioned on anything you know any tactics we were using or anything like that I would never told her back off I got anything I asked for Cantrell may have got anything he asked for but after several months on the job the one thing he hadn't gotten was a significant drug or prostitution bust so in the fall of 1977 Cantrell decided the only way to take out the pimps and pushers of K Street would be a full-blown undercover sting operation I needed somebody undercover that's what I needed I was looking for somebody that I could put under and so I heard about a guy that had done some work injured lad his name was Michael Rosa and he was a savvy streetwise cop from Spanish Harlem having worked the streets of inner-city New York Rosa had a background that was perfectly suited for undercover work his hard-nosed mentality also made him an immediate hit with ed Cantrell he was aggressive for one thing and and for that kind of business you need an aggressive guy that can get out mix with people and get into the environment and he had the appearance of fit nan in fact Micah Rosa fit in so well that he instantly became a popular fixture in the bars and brothels of K Street which also happened to be ground zero of The Rock Springs drug trade he didn't take long for Rosa to start making some big-time drug busts after he came out and after here we made I think 15 or 16 arrests was he drug arrest early he was out there working and I guess did a pretty good job he took a lot of people down maca Rosa may have been successful in his undercover work but when it came to getting along with his fellow officers the brash New Yorker failed miserably he didn't get along with a lot of the policemen um he he was he was kind of a cocky guy a boisterous guy and maybe you have to have that kind of attitude to do the type of work he did but he didn't get along with a lot of the policemen Michael Rosa was a loose cannon and contra liked him he liked you because he was kind of a confrontational tough in-your-face guy that contra respected he respected him and saw him been sort of a like a son this kid however had had trouble everywhere he'd gone he'd been kicked out of some places that he did and he'd been fired for excessive force and he and some of the other officers didn't get along soon rumors started swirling that my Carozza was getting a little too deep into the seedy underworld of the Rocksprings drug trade but as long as he had Cantrell support loose cannon Marco Rosa was in Rock Springs to stay what ed Cantrell didn't know though was that Michael Rose's erratic behavior was about to bring their undercover operation crashing in around them it would also bring the master lawman and his volatile apprentice face to face in a deadly shootout city confidential will return on A&E I will make sure I get my piece of the technology pie it's true some technology stocks have been big winners but others have declined sharply if you believe in the opportunities presented by technology companies let fidelity expertise help guide these fidelity select funds invest in companies that benefit from technological advances see what fidelity money management excellence can do for you get the fat kid today call 1-800 for fatigue um Avaya communication without boundaries thanks for making a leave I had a hard time walking and even had surgery on both knees pain relievers like Tylenol quit after a few hours finally a doctor suggested a leave within a week I was dancing all night like I hadn't done in years just two Aleve can stop pain all day it would take a Tylenol to do that now people say I'm a walking advertisement for a lead all day strong all day long and now cold suckers can get the all-day strength of a leave a new Aleve cold and sinus John London joins a Indy you she's the ultimate insider behind-closed-doors begins October 4th on A&E she's gotten people to reveal their innermost secrets but her personal life has always been off-limits until now was it a burden to you to have a sister who was married to say um I felt always enormous guilt the only thing that makes me cry is talking about my sister Harry Smith has a revealing talk with Barbara Walters on an all new biography special October 15th on A&E - your body is a luxury car for the elements it's an SUV to your peace of mind it's a Volvo the new all-wheel-drive Haas country we now return to city confidential on A&E the summer of 1978 in Rock Springs was one of complete chaos the town's population was still growing faster than local housing authorities could accommodate and the grand jury's probe into the city's drug and prostitution problems had several local officials feeling a little hot under the collar for The Rock Springs Police Department the past year have been one of resounding success legendary lawman ed Cantrell had arrived on the scene and restored order to the Rock Springs Police Force unfortunately cantos volatile sidekick michael rosa was becoming a major problem for The Rock Springs PD despite making several key drug busts it appeared that the only major dope fiend in town Rosa hadn't arrested was himself after receiving several complaints from other cops about Rosa's drug use Cantrell finally decided to approach him about his problem it was brought to Ed's attention and and he was starting to get more and more these types of complaints and he was well aware that hey I need to do something and I don't know what but I need to what ed decided to do was get Michael Rose as far away from the Rock Springs drug scene as possible at that point someone else in another jurisdiction needed an undercover officer and to give him time to think he loaned Michael to another agency that agency was a Lincoln County undercover task force compared to the dangerous Rock Springs job the Lincoln County assignment would be a piece of cake for Michael Rosa that is if Rosa had bothered to go to Lincoln County Rosa continued to show up in the bars of K Street every night telling anyone who would listen that he had information on The Rock Springs PD that certain officials would be willing to kill for Rosa was making the suggestion that he was going to go to the to the grand jury and and tell the grand jury that these cops were somehow dishonest Rosa's drunken boasts we're making in Rock Springs police force look bad and so we're his periodic visits to court when he was called to testify in the drug busts he had made it looked like he had been out for a week I mean he was dirty and just looked that way you know had a bad attitude anyway I went went in the court went down to the court to just observe and see what was what was happening and he was in there he just come off the stand he came back out and I live in the little waiting room there and I are totally nicest god you look like you look like hell Rosa had a few choice words 4head can travel as will he said her nor it just looks to me like I'm gonna have to kick your ass for these days old man just like that in front of the held several policemen in her I mean he may mad I just America squats act right now we went outside and I told him I says let me tell you something the man don't live it all back away from and don't you ever forget it and don't you ever talk to me like that again it wasn't their last confrontation either on July 13th of 1978 the state grand jury subpoena drozer to testify about the possibility of corruption and the Rock Springs Police Force unfortunately for Michael Rosa you would never make it to court tonight before his grand jury appearance Rosa was celebrating by knocking back a few drinks at the notorious Silver Dollar saloon Rosa was also bragging to the patrons of the silver dollar about how he was going to bring the Rock Springs Police Force to its knees when Ed Cantrell found out about it the no-nonsense lawman hightailed it down to the Silver Dollar Cantrell and two of his patrolmen confronted Rosa in the parking lot Rosa had a drink in his hand and a gun in his holster well the door of the silver dollars over here over off to my right my right front so Rosa come out and he's carrying a glass of wine when it come out and he looking all around and then he see he looks over he sees us us being me and biter in calais and he's mad you can just tell something was going to happen what happened has become the stuff of modern-day Wild West legend writers stayed behind me and Rosa walked back around the car and got in and sit down behind Callas so I'm like this and I can look right at him sitting in the back seat Rosa continued to stare hard at Ed Cantrell the atmosphere was charged and I'm thinking you know how am I gonna start talking to this guy without touching him off that's what I was thinking and I looked up like this and he's going backwards mouse and the words mother are looking at looking right at me i'ma just glaring at me and I shot you a bullet aim right here deputy Neil Cabela's was the first officer to arrive on the scene I'm a two-year rookie policeman who really knew everything right here's all my supervisors basically in the car and dead policemen my boss shot the policeman too it's hard to believe that this could even happen I mean in your in your weirdest fantasy how could you put something like this together as word of Michael roses death spread through Rock Springs most people assume that Ed Cantrell had shot him in self-defense but soon another story began to surface the story that ed Cantrell had gunned down his best agent in order to prevent him from testifying in front of the grand jury this guy was a grand jury witness he had things to say about the political figures of Rock Springs I mean that was basically what was what was inferred and uh had killed him keep him quiet I mean that's what else could it be that was the I think that pretty much the community's response still around Rock Springs opinions about the crime were as numerous and as wild as a barroom brawls of K Street you know ranging in gravity from the perception that it was a premeditated murder I've done at the best of of others - via you know the other end of the spectrum herb it was absolutely a an accidental shooting or was something that was precipitated by roses the aggressor and I think those were hardened hard and fast and fixed perceptions absence that would become more passion and more polarized when public safety director ed Cantrell the man charged with cleaning up Rock Springs was now charged with first degree murder City confidential will return on A&E doc heaven holy look I miss driving me crazy mushy it could be that bad she won't eat she won't nap I'm getting you memo no it's your favorite word MC I let you 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mean everybody began to believe it I mean was a time where nobody trusted anybody and everybody as you look everywhere you looked you were looking for somebody that might do you it with all the media coverage and security issues surrounding the case the Sweetwater County Court decided to move the trial to Pinedale another cowboy town and nearby sublet two local conspiracy theorists and political watchdogs movin sharpshooter Ed Cantrell's crowd to a tough town like Pinedale was like moving the OJ Simpson trial to the Pro Football Hall of Fame not to run find al down too much but we used to call Pinedale divorce was when one spouse shot the other there I don't think that those people up there had had kind of more of a wild western look at things Pinedale you're probably got the best locality I would say for defense of this type of a situation there was an awfully tough place to go in I it's my understanding at that time there had never been a murder conviction in a jury trial and we were in subway County moving in trial to Pinedale may have been a coup for Ed Cantrell's defense team but it wasn't the only one Ed's lead defense attorney was high profile cowboy lawyer Jerry Spence famous for his 10-gallon hats and his honky Tonk demeanor in the courtroom gerry spence was the best attorney money could buy jerry is you know everybody knows that you know he seizes someone flamboyant character and and certainly articulate and an Eyeborg I've watched he I watched him work in that in the preliminary hearing and he's he's a master and so I mean if I were deep trouble that's probably one of the first people I call I don't even take my case but but he yeah he's good he's really good contra may have had a friendly venue and the best defense attorney in the state of Wyoming but early on it was the prosecution who had the upper hand in the case after all they had a murder weapon eyewitnesses to the crime and damaging testimony from two of Cantrell's patrolmen understand both officers Jim callous and Matt biter begrudgingly admitted the Cantrell had bound to kill Rosa just 20 minutes prior to the shooting I can hear ed saying he would have said well we ought to take the son of a bitch out and shoot the son of a bitch run the wife that hadn't said to her husband some time or another you know if you get home on time I'm gonna kill you if I was a member of the jury if I heard that an individual said I'm gonna kill somebody in 30 minutes later they'd killed somebody I think that's pretty pretty strong testimony the prosecution asserted that Cantrell had gone to the silver dollar bar to kill Michael rose in order to keep him from spilling the beans about illegal activity going on in the police department the Prince attorney's Prince counted the prosecution by attacking mark of roses character spreads calls several members of the Rock Springs Police Force to the stand as well as members of mica roses family every one of them testified that Michael Rosa was addicted to alcohol and cocaine we had people at my trial who testified that Ed done cocaine was him on several occasions that he was a regular user of cocaine he was a man that was in trouble the emotional trouble there was evidence that he had had some relationship with big drug dealers there was questions about whether or not he wasn't on drugs himself he had gone many nights without sleep so we were dealing with a really mentally disturbed highly paranoid individual Jerry's friends had made it clear that Michael Rosa was no saint but as a trial wound down the chances for a not guilty verdict still seemed bleak particularly bleak when Jerry Spence called his final witness to the stand in boom-and-bust towns like Rock Springs Oh bad luck can turn on the drop of a hat and after Gary's Prince's last witness testified the town of Rock Springs would never be the same city confidential will return Oh ever get the feeling some people just stop trying and Avis we take a novel approach to 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Springs Wyoming a record snowfall suffocated the town but it was nothing compared to the fall it looked like Ed Cantrell was about to take for the murder of undercover agent Michael Rosa after two and a half weeks of trial the announcement of a guilty verdict seemed like only a formality just before resting though defense attorney Jerry Spence decided to call his client Ed Cantrell to the stand understand Cantrell gave emotional testimony about the love and respect he had from Michael Rosa and now Cantrell had trusted him up until the bitter end Godse probably honestly I was the only friend he had in her nobody know police are not electing he had a bit left a bad impression with everybody and I defended him canto claim but on the night of his death Michael Rosa was ready to shoot Cantrell the first chance he got but not even a savvy undercover agent like Michael Rosa was fast enough to out draw the fastest gun in the West an attorney Gerry Spence brought in quick-draw expert and fellow gunslinger bill Jordan to prove it he was purportedly the fastest man with a gun in the world he came in with his guns and he any and he's and he said to two deputies that was standing at the door he said the son he said could you come over here and he said I'd like to have you help us Jordan gave the deputy a colt 45 loaded with blanks and told him the point the gun at him then he took the deputy's gun was loaded with blanks and cocked it so the cop stood there with the 45 cocked and ready to go so that all he had to do is just touch the trigger and and here was here was Jordan standing there in front of him with his own gun holstered suddenly Jordan's gun came out and he pulled the trigger and they hoped the guy standing there with his gun still uncocked this look on his face like how did that happen after his dazzling display of quick-draw marksmanship Jordan took the stand and Ed Cantrell's defense so I put Jordan on the stand I said did you know ed Cantrell he says oh yes he said ever seen him shoot a gun yes ever had seen him draw yes I said how fast is ed Cantrell he says well jury he was a mite bit faster than me Cantrell was so fast according to Spence that he'd been able to draw and fire the instant Rosa reached for his gun heads lightning quick reaction had given a shooting the appearance of a cold-blooded murder when in reality it was a simple clear-cut case of self-defense between Bill Jordans quick-draw demonstration spence's self-defense explanation and Ed Cantrell's emotional testimony the Pinedale jury was turned after just three hours of deliberation they found the Rock Springs Sheriff not guilty a first-degree murder back in Rock Springs the verdict came as quite a shock I think if if I read the public right and you'd probably have to go ask them they all felt like he got away with murder not everyone in town thought Edie Cantrell was guilty though well gosh I guess we're all capable if we get pushed to a certain certain level I just didn't believe a guy was guilty that's all I know he got I know he shot the man but he wasn't guilty a first-degree murder there's the as Shakespeare would say there's a rub you know this is a this is a travesty of justice the people across the state said and I remember I talked to Ed about that I said how does it feel ed after you've gone through all of this all this time laid it all out for everybody to see in a public courtroom and a jury finds you not guilty and they say oh it's just your fancy lawyer who got you off how does that make you feel I'll never forget what he said he said come I'm free after his acquittal ed Cantrell retired from Rock Springs law enforcement but the fastest gun in the West still holds bitter memories about his time the safety director of Rock Springs and the grand jury that investigated him I don't think they showed us the proper respect they treated I had the feelings they treated just all the suspects instead of as sworn officers of the law now the that was the impression that was given the papers were full of it we were under a cloud of suspicion I think the whole town was that was my feeling and it wasn't good what was good where the political changes had swept through Rock Springs in the wake of McElroy death his methods may have been unorthodox but roses undercover work eventually resulted in over two dozen major drug and prostitution convictions and not long after that several in government city councilmen were voted out of office and four-time incumbent Mayor Paul Baca was persuaded not to seek re-election despite the upheaval and all the unfortunate publicity and the stress and the anguish that came with that for everybody in the community the process worked the people ultimately did the right thing very quickly and in the short term government changed attitudes change politics changed the social and the economic and the political approach to how the community chose to live change and I think this is a great community to live in a far different community 23 years later than it was in 1978 Rock Springs has come a long way since boomtown days of the 70s many of the coal miners and well diggers who came here in search of wild times and easy money that moved away and so have the pimps and drug dealers who followed them even notorious K Street is tame compared to its former self well there's no gambling there's no bordellos there's uh heck all the funds gone there's no asker our places there's uh no it's just town grew up I guess got respectable in fact the only real remnants of Rock Springs wild days are the amazing public facilities that were financed with money the city made during the booth but no matter how many indoor pools are Fitness and as they build the city of Rock Springs will always be thought of has at body frontier boomtown and with the nation's economy riding higher than ever another boom seems right around the corner for Rock Springs but in the wild American West sometimes the only thing harder to handle than adversity is prosperity especially on the rugged plains of southern Wyoming especially in boom towns like Rock Springs you

Channel: Wm DeKrey

Views: 471,321

Rating: 4.4014964 out of 5

Keywords: Rock Springs, Wyoming, Gerry Spence, Ed Cantrell, Michael Rosa, City Confidential (TV Program), Cowboy, Outlaw, Murder, A&E

Id: LgT0RoWSC8Q

Length: 56min 23sec (3383 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 09 2013