Top 10 Unsettling True Stories Of Life In The Wild West

while the wild west wasn't quite the world of gunslingers and desperados portrayed in movies it was still a dangerous place with law enforcement often miles away criminals flourished and people were left to take matters into their own hands often with terrifying results number 10 the people under the floor in 1870 a man was making his way through the lonely mountains of new mexico when he came across a stoutwood cabin tucked at the foot of the pala flechado pass the owner introduced himself as charles kennedy and invited his new acquaintance inside for a meal as kennedy's wife served dinner the traveler sat next to the couple's young son and asked if there were other native americans nearby the boy looked back at him for a moment and then answered can't you smell the one papa put under the floor the unfortunate traveler had stumbled into the lair of one of the west's most notorious killers charles kennedy killed at least 14 people who stopped at his isolated homestead on their way through the pass after shooting the traveler kennedy beat his son to death for nearly warning the man in time to escape the murder of their son was too much for kennedy's wife who slipped out of the house while her husband was drunk and walked to elizabethtown where she made a full confession after unearthing the grisly evidence the townsfolk dragged kennedy behind a horse until he died and then staked his severed head outside the local inn number nine clay allison's war dance the leader of the mob that butchered charles kennedy was clay allison a vile and local vigilante who might have racked up a higher body count than the serial killer he beheaded on one occasion he tried to settle a petty dispute with a neighbor by digging a grave and proposing that they have a knife fight inside it thus saving the effort of moving the loser's body allison gained notoriety as one of the deadliest participants in the colfax county war a massive land dispute that caused up to 200 murders at the start of the war allison organized the lynching of a local constable he suspected was moonlighting as an assassin when the dead man's uncle came looking for revenge allison got the drop on him and shot him dead in the local saloon he reportedly then stripped naked tied a red ribbon around his penis and did a ward dance around the crime scene number eight the going snake fight nobody's certain exactly what caused the feud that left 11 men dead in judge blackhawk six killers courtroom at going snake whatever it was it came to a head in 1872 when zeke proctor rode up to jim kesterton's mill and opened fire the miller recovered from his wounds but his wife polly beck was hit by a stray round and killed the murder took place in the cherokee nation and proctor and beck were both cherokee so it seemed obvious that the case would be handled by the cherokee courts but proctor came from a well-connected family and was a member of the powerful kitau society as a result the becks argued that they couldn't get a fair hearing in indian territory they wanted the case transferred to the federal court at fort smith when their request was rejected a group of becks burst into the courtroom and opened fire but things went wrong for the becks who found themselves crowded in the doorway of the windowless courtroom zeke porter somehow produced a gun and fired back as did several guards the planned massacre turned into a nightmarish close range battle 11 men died seven becks two proctors a lawyer and a u.s marshal the participants quickly scattered and nobody was ever convicted over the incident number seven the crusade of felipe espinosa felipe espinosa was a petty criminal who deeply resented the movement of anglo-american settlers into 19th century colorado he was also a fanatical member of the penny tennis a local catholic brotherhood known for whipping themselves bloody and performing other acts of self-mutilation when american soldiers tried to arrest him for banditry felipe declared his own personal war on the protestant interlopers accompanied by his brother vivian and later his nephew jose felipe roamed through the mountains of colorado slaughtering every anglo he came across some of the bodies were found with a cross carved into their chest felipe wrote taunting letters to the governor telling him to inquire if anyone had ever killed as many men as the espinosas we have killed 32 despite a massive manhunt which killed vivian espinosa felipe remained elusive in a letter to his wife he boasted they have hands and cannot touch me they have feet and cannot catch me they have eyes and cannot hear me they have ears and cannot hear me the desperate government finally hired the famed mountain man tom tobin who tracked felipe and jose espinosa through the sandre de cristos and personally killed both in a bloody battle near the summit of mount mestas tobin then returned to fort garland and collected his bounty by dumping felipe espinosa's severed head in front of the shocked colonel who had hired him number six the cowboy cop of el paso in 1881 el paso texas hired the legendary gunfighter dallas student meyer as their new marshal he successfully cleaned up the town but only by launching a reign of terror in which he killed numerous locals in shootouts it was said that he used the church bell for target practice and was often visibly drunk when the town council tried to fire him student wire charged in and dared them to try taking his guns student meyer's most famous gun fight took place just three days after taking the job the four dead and five seconds fight started when a local ruffian named john hale grabbed a gun from his friend george campbell and killed one of student meyer's constables student meyer immediately whipped out his own pistols and gunned down hail a random bystander and campbell who was loudly shouting that he wanted nothing to do with the fight campbell had been good friends with the wealthy manning brothers who hired a man named bill johnson to assassinate student meyer in revenge unfortunately for johnson he discharged his shotgun early allowing student meyer to whirl around and shoot his testicles off he quickly bled to death and student meyer remained in el paso until he died in a shootout with the manning brothers 18 months later number five the horrible horrors the horror brothers were a nightmarish family of cowboys who carried out some of the old west's worst atrocities in 1873 they murdered five policemen in a texas bar and fled to lincoln county new mexico shortly after they arrived ben horel drunkenly gunned down yet another lawman only to be murdered and turned by a local posse ben's killers were mostly of mexican descent and the remaining horrors decided to take revenge on the entire hispanic community the ensuing race war started with the murder of two mexican americans on the oral ranch a few weeks later the whorls burst into a wedding reception and killed four guests local hispanics armed themselves and seized the hills surrounding the horror property but the horrells withstood a short siege and escaped before the ranch was burned to the ground recruiting a gang of texans they rode through the country massacring random mexicans the killings ended when local authorities requested military assistance and the horrors fled back to texas official estimates say at least 29 people died in the war number four the horril higgins feud after returning to lampasas texas the whorls secured a jury of their old cronies and were promptly acquitted of the new mexico murders but the crimes would catch up with them in a way in 1877 merritt horrell died in a bar fight with rancher pink higgins since everyone remembered the massacres triggered by ban horrell's death the terrified higgins family decided that they had no option but to strike first in march the higgins clan ambushed tom and mark horrell on their way to court but they were no match for a hardened killer like mart horel who stood over his wounded brother and single-handedly drove off the attackers by june lempassus had become a miniature war zone as the feuding families battled each other through the town the texas rangers ended the feud by forcing the clans to sign a peace treaty astonishingly the horrors were allowed to continue their criminal ways for another year until mart and tom were murdered by an enraged mob apparently incited by pink higgins number three the bascom incident in 1860 the inexperienced lieutenant george baskin was ordered to retrieve a young boy who had been kidnapped in a native american raid baskam wrongly believed the chirikawa apache were responsible and wrote off to find their leader cochise meanwhile cochise had no idea he was being hunted and simply rode into bascom's camp for a visit one day accompanied by his wife and son a ridiculous conversation followed with baska making all sorts of threats unless the boy was returned immediately and a frustrated co-cheese insisting that he didn't have the boy and therefore couldn't return him baskin then announced that he was taking cochise and his family prisoner at which point cochise whipped out a knife sliced through the side of the tent and sprinted out of the camp with bullets whizzing around him bascom still had cochise's wife and son hostage so the apaches attacked a wagon train tortured eight mexicans to death and kidnapped four americans as bargaining chips however bascom stubbornly refused to make the trade unless the kidnapped boy was included in a fury cochise slaughtered his hostages and retreated after some consultation the americans hanged most of their own hostages and likewise retreated the ensuing war lasted a decade and killed thousands number two the death of mangas coloradas the brutality of the war sparked by the bascom incident can be seen in the death of mangas colorada's while the american civil war raged the apaches drove white settlers out of most of southern arizona however reinforcements began arriving as the war in the east wound down and it became clear that the apaches couldn't hold out forever cochise's father-in-law the great chief mangas coloradas decided to try to negotiate peace when the chief rode up with a flag of truce general joseph west immediately had him arrested he then took the guards aside and told them that the old murderer has left a trail of blood for 500 miles on the old stage line i want him dead or alive tomorrow morning do you understand i want him dead that night the guards entered the room where the chief was being held tortured him with red hot bayonets scalped him with a cooking knife and then shot him dead while trying to escape the war would rage for several more years number one papa niceties in 1870 four people settled in labette county kansas not far from where a young laura ingalls wilder lived with her parents they called themselves the benders and claimed to be a family although the exact nature of their relationship would later be questioned ma and pa bender spoke only german but their children were fluent in english and the family soon turned their one-bedroom shack into a small inn they were rumored to practice magic and kate bender became popular locally as a fortune teller and spiritualist in the years that followed settlers began to vanish while traveling through lebet county body parts began to turn up in the countryside but nobody knew who to blame eventually the locals held a meeting and agreed to form a party to search every house in the area but this was delayed by bad weather when the party finally reached the bender place the family were long gone underneath the bed a trapdoor led to a secret basement where the floor was stained with blood eight bodies were found buried in the garden each with a cut throat and a smashed skull the benders were never found and it's unknown how many more victims they claimed over the years

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Keywords: True Stories, Life, Wild West

Id: WTFlPdwr3ps

Length: 10min 53sec (653 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 10 2020