Crime and punishment are repeating themes today. Headlines reveal family feuds, prison breaks and an elderly Texan claiming to be the real Jesse James.
100 years ago
May 7, 1924
• A gunshot victim has sued his attacker, an elderly former minister, for $5,000.
On April 12, Rev. E.H.C. Kenner shot Jefferson Goins with a shotgun, striking his neck, shoulder, right arm and back. The violence was the culmination of a four-decade feud between the Goins and Kenners. Reportedly, Kenner’s final straw was a boundary dispute.
Goins’ petition states the shooting scarred his face and neck, and permanently injured his arm and shoulder.
Goins and Kenner both live in Butler County.
75 years ago
May 7, 1949
• Poplar Bluff’s facial hair contest, the Battle of the Beards, just received sponsorship for a hefty cash prize. Halferty-Greathouse Lumber Co. is offering $50 for the best beard in Poplar Bluff during the city’s centennial celebration this summer.
• A 101-year-old Texas man claims he’s the real Jesse James, and is travelling to the outlaw’s old Missouri stomping grounds to prove it.
Frank Dalton announced his real identity to the world while receiving a Confederate Certificate in Dallas, Texas. He flies to Stanton, Missouri today to visit Meramec Caverns, the James’ former stomping grounds, accompanied by a nurse and a historian of uncertain background named Frank Hall. Hall implied Dalton is the real deal and will prove so during the visit.
Jesse James was, officially speaking, killed in 1882 in St. Joseph, Missouri. Many impersonators attempted to market themselves as the real outlaw in the following decades, though Dalton may be the oldest.
50 years ago
May 7, 1974
• Two fugitives were captured by police less than an hour after escaping the Butler County Jail.
Eddie Orr and John Bolin, both 23, ambushed 68-year-old jailer Lee Hathaway this morning after Hathaway unlocked the “bull pen” area to get a coffee pot. Using sharpened table knives, the escapees locked Hathaway and a trustee prisoner named Howard in the bull pen and fled. They unsuccessfully searched for guns on the way out.
During all this another trustee outside the bull pen, Jimmie Metz, was sound asleep. Other prisoners threw water on him to wake him up and Hathaway tossed him the keys to the bull pen; Metz quickly released them.
Orr and Bolin were spotted near an East Side bank shortly after Hathaway raised the alarm. They fled from city patrolmen and were found shortly after, Bolin hiding in a garage and Orr in a ditch. Both still carried the table knives used in the escape, which they had honed to a sharp edge on the jail’s concrete floor.
Orr was originally held in Butler County on a change of venue from a murder case in St. Genevieve. Bolin was initially arrested for stealing. Both will have escape and felonious assault added to their charges.