INEPT BANDITS HAVE A BLAST

with me, I hope you choke to death.

Writers have made frequent note that Cunningham, many years later, died from throat cancer. The amateur executioner probably lived with Stewart's words rattling through his brain, and defense attorney Flannigan no doubt suffered the knowledge that if he would have let matters stand following the first trials, his clients would have remained alive, perhaps as free men after serving long terms.

Oddly, Stewart was executed for killing Kibbe, and Goodwin for killing Hillpot, when the evidence was overwhelming that it happened the other way around. But the strangest twist to these murders was the explanation of the killers that their terrible violence and blood lust stemmed from a dispute over a dog.

Adapted from the book Manhunts & Massacres, volume 2 in the Wild West Collection published by Arizona Highways Books.

Two would-be Arizona train robbers named Joe George and Grant Wheeler twice tried to rob the same Southern Pacific train and failed miserably both times.

On January 30, 1895, they stopped the train near Willcox and climbed into the express car, carrying with them a few sticks of dynamite to blow the safe. They ignored several sacks filled with Mexican silver pesos, figuring the real loot was in the safe. They tried twice to blow the safe door open before deciding to use the sacks of silver pesos for ballast. This time they used too much dynamite and blew the express car to pieces. The safe, now finally blasted open, turned out to be empty. The only real treasure had been the sacks of silver coins, which now were scattered all over creation. Wheeler and George rode away empty-handed.

Back in Willcox, local lawmen had a hard time raising enough men to form a posse. When the townspeople heard about the scattered pesos, they were much more interested in rushing out to the robbery site to gather coins than in chasing the two thwarted robbers.

A week later, Wheeler and George tried to rob the same train, this time near Doubtful Canyon.

"Well, here we are again," Wheeler said, grinning sheepishly at the crew.

The bandits told the crew to separate the train engine and express car from the mail and passenger cars. Then they forced the engineer to drive the engine and express car a mile or so down the track to where the dynamite was stashed.

Wheeler and George failed to notice, however, that the train crew had mistakenly brought the mail car instead of the express car. In disgust, the two robbers set off their dynamite anyway and rode off, empty-handed once again.

Adapted from the book The Law of the Gun, volume 4 in the Wild West Collection published by Arizona Highways Books.