Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio, Hey Brainstuff. Lorn
Speaker 1: Volban here. As with so many colorful characters who lived
Speaker 1: during the heyday of the American wild West, there are
Speaker 1: a lot of uncertainties about the life of Tom Horn.
Speaker 1: What no one disputes is that Horn killed a lot
Speaker 1: of people. The notoriety he earned through bloodshed made him
Speaker 1: an icon of the frontier, so renowned and feared that
Speaker 1: some people believe that Horn's spirit lingers to this day,
Speaker 1: haunting the rocky mountains and desert plains where he once
Speaker 1: stalked his human prey. Born in eighteen sixty in Missouri,
Speaker 1: Horn was the fifth of twelve children and suffered an
Speaker 1: abusive home life that he fled when he was just fourteen.
Speaker 1: Two years later, he became a scout for the Army
Speaker 1: out West, where he learned Spanish and some Apache and
Speaker 1: became an interpreter. During the Apache Wars, he played a
Speaker 1: small role in helping translate surrender terms between famed leader
Speaker 1: Geronimo and US forces. After the war, Horn restlessly wandered
Speaker 1: the West and sometimes working as a ranch hand, prospector,
Speaker 1: Deputy sheriff Us Marshall and Rodeo competitor after a few drinks.
Speaker 1: Horn had a propensity for bragging about his exploits, telling
Speaker 1: anyone with an earshot about his adventures and his courage
Speaker 1: in the face of gunfire. But he wasn't all talk.
Speaker 1: His second to none tracking skills caught the attention of
Speaker 1: the infamous Pinkerton National Detective Agency, which hired him to
Speaker 1: locate and apprehend wanted men throughout the West, but his
Speaker 1: reputation for extreme violence made him a suspect in the
Speaker 1: killings of several fugitives. Horn's behavior was a public relations
Speaker 1: risk for Pinkerton, so the company forced him to resign
Speaker 1: from his position. By then, Horn's skill set dovetailed neatly
Speaker 1: with a series of eighteen nineties frontier conflicts. As more
Speaker 1: and more homesteaders established ranches, they clashed with cattle barons
Speaker 1: who had previously had free run of the land. With
Speaker 1: more people competing for grazing land and water, the bigger,
Speaker 1: more established players took extreme measures to root out the
Speaker 1: little guys. Some went so far as paying for hired
Speaker 1: guns like Tom Horn, who intimidated and threatened homesteaders into
Speaker 1: abandoning their land. One man he was hired to take
Speaker 1: care of went by the name Kell's Nickel. Nichol was
Speaker 1: a Wyoming sheep herder who'd already had a run in
Speaker 1: with a cattle baron named John C. Cobble. For the
Speaker 1: article this episode is based on, has Stuff Works, spoke
Speaker 1: via email with Marshall Trimble, an author and official state
Speaker 1: storian in Arizona. He said Kell's Nichol had a lot
Speaker 1: of enemies. The irascable rascal had managed to offend most
Speaker 1: of his neighbors. In a scuffle with John Cobble, Nicol
Speaker 1: pulled a knife and inflict did a near fatal wound
Speaker 1: on him. Cobble carried a grudge. A Cheyenne resident had
Speaker 1: this to say, quote, Cobble hates Nichol like the devil
Speaker 1: hates holy water. In short, Nicholl wasn't the sort of
Speaker 1: man you could just run off. And that's where Tom
Speaker 1: Horn came in. In July of nineteen oh one, Nichol's
Speaker 1: fourteen year old son, Willie was shot from ambush at
Speaker 1: long range. That morning, Willy had just happened to don
Speaker 1: his father's coat and was riding his father's horse, making
Speaker 1: his death one of mistaken identity. The public somewhat numb
Speaker 1: to the violence of the cattle wars, found fresh outrage
Speaker 1: and the killing of a child. A law enforcement might
Speaker 1: otherwise have looked the other way, but was suddenly prodded
Speaker 1: into finding a culprint. In early nineteen oh two, a
Speaker 1: law man tracked down Horn and roped him into a
Speaker 1: drunken conversation at his office. True to form, Horn boosted
Speaker 1: about his past exploits and essentially bragged about being the
Speaker 1: trigger man in the Nickel killing, calling it one of
Speaker 1: the best shots he had ever made. Unbeknownst to Horn,
Speaker 1: the law man had a deputy sheriff and courts detenographer
Speaker 1: listening to the conversation in an adjacent room. Because concepts
Speaker 1: like entrapment and leading questions weren't a thing in the
Speaker 1: early twentieth century, a judge allowed the drunken confession as
Speaker 1: evidence of a crime. Horn was promptly convicted by a
Speaker 1: jury and sentenced to death. Even though some witnesses presented
Speaker 1: stories that seemed to indicate that Horn was innocent. The
Speaker 1: public largely saw Horn as a wrongly convicted man, figuring
Speaker 1: he was used by the cattle barons, who then allowed
Speaker 1: him to take the fall for their murderous methods. A
Speaker 1: hostiff Works also spoke with Joe Nichol, an author and
Speaker 1: paranormal investigator with The Skeptical Inquirer. He's also a very
Speaker 1: distant relation of Kell's. Nichol he is convinced that Horne
Speaker 1: was guilty. He said, and not everyone who had a
Speaker 1: few drinks would confess to murder. I know I wouldn't,
Speaker 1: would you. He made it pretty clear what he did.
Speaker 1: It's my opinion that if Tom Horn had shot and
Speaker 1: killed Kel's first off, he probably would have gotten away
Speaker 1: with it. If Horn was innocent in the Nickel killing,
Speaker 1: his life choices didn't help his cause. For starters, his
Speaker 1: reputation as a cold hearted killer was a rather obvious
Speaker 1: stumbling block. Then he took the stand during his trial
Speaker 1: and offered up incriminating statements to the prosecution. Finally, he
Speaker 1: escaped from jail, but was quickly recaptured. It's no wonder
Speaker 1: that the governor refused to commute his death sentence. According
Speaker 1: to a reporter who witnessed the hanging, Horn, who was
Speaker 1: just one day shy of his forty third birthday, was
Speaker 1: the calmest man on the scene. He refused to offer
Speaker 1: a last confession. He even refused to rat out his
Speaker 1: wealthy employers and reportedly had the presence of mind and
Speaker 1: to kindly congratulate one witness on his recent marriage. But
Speaker 1: the story of Tom Horn hardly ended with his execution.
Speaker 1: In some ways, it was just getting started. Tall tales
Speaker 1: claim that his ghost haunts the West even today. Joe
Speaker 1: Nichol has documented some of those stories. After Horn's death,
Speaker 1: locals claimed that spirits were making eerie noises in the
Speaker 1: county jail. Inmates were frightened, sure that Horn's restless ghost
Speaker 1: was causing the ruckus. Frustrated Frontier mothers silenced their mischievous
Speaker 1: offspring using Horn's fearsome legend. Instead of I'll turn this
Speaker 1: car right around, they'd say, Tom Horn will get you.
Speaker 1: In Cheyenne, locals say that the Wrangler Building is haunted.
Speaker 1: Some suspect that Horn's ghost haunts the hallways his aperation,
Speaker 1: perhaps still awaiting a fair trial, though in reality he
Speaker 1: was jailed in a different location and at Horn's gravesite
Speaker 1: in Colorado, visitors sometimes say they've seen a ghost and
Speaker 1: cowboy garb swinging from a noose in the trees. But
Speaker 1: the legend of Tom Horn is plenty scary even without
Speaker 1: the supernatural embellishment. A Trimble said Horn was a mythological
Speaker 1: figure before he was hanged, and would have been an
Speaker 1: even greater icon had he never gone to Wyoming. But
Speaker 1: go to Wyoming he did, setting the stage for a
Speaker 1: tragedy that would come to define his legacy, one that
Speaker 1: casts a long and bloody shadow in the mines of
Speaker 1: Frontier descendants to this day. Today's episode is based on
Speaker 1: the article the ghost of wild West Gunslinger Tom Horn
Speaker 1: Still Haunts Wyoming on HowStuffWorks dot Com, written by Nathan Chandler.
Speaker 1: Brain Stuff is production of iHeartRadio in partnership with how
Speaker 1: stuffworks dot Com, misproduced by Tyler Kwang. Four more podcasts
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