Legend or Killer: The Story of Jesse James

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We’ve all heard of him. But do you know why? There were lots of men who didn’t settle back into their old lives following the Civil War, and some of them turned to the outlaw life, like Jesse and Frank James. But why do we know these names? It’s a surprising answer that likely contributed to Jesse’s death. 

Team & Contributors

Executive Producer- Clare O'Donohue 
https://clareodonohue.com

Executive Producer - Margaret Smith

Editor – Jessica Stokey

Social Media Manager & Design - Mikayla Bogus
https://mikayladesign.cargo.site

IT Manager - Conor Sweeney

The History of Murder Logo - Bernadette Carr
https://www.bcarrdesign.com

Theme Song “My Carnal Life I Will Lay Down” - Rob Brereton
https://robertbrereton.com
 
Voice of Jesse James - Nick Rowley                                                  http://njrowley.com/

Voice of John Newman Edwards - Joe Janes
www.joejanes.net

Interview: Ralph Monaco, author, historian and attorney 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

St. Joseph, Missouri, 1882. A 34-year-old man was shot in the back of his head when he straightened out a picture in his house. The death was national news. It was both mourned and celebrated. But it didn't make the dead man a legend. Because Jesse James already was. It's the history of murder, and I'm your host, Claire O'Donohue. On December 7, 1869, just after noon, 22-year-old Jesse James and his 26-year-old brother Frank walked into the Davies County Savings Association in Gallatin, Missouri. Inside there were two men: bank owner and cashier John Sheets, and William McDowell, a lawyer who kept an office in the building. One of the James brothers, likely Jesse, walked up to the cashier and asked to have a$100 banknote changed. As the cashier wrote out the receipt, the James brother drew his revolver and fired two shots. One into the man's chest and the other into his forehead. McDowell ran for the door and was shot in the arm before he escaped. Jesse grabbed a portfolio of bank paper and raced outside. As it turned out, the paper they took was worthless, and the man they killed to get revenge for a fallen friend turned out to be the wrong person. But the robbery did have one long-lasting success. It was the first time Jesse James's name was publicly labeled as an outlaw, capturing the attention of a local newspaper man. According to Ralph Monaco, author of The Bandit Rides Again, Jesse James, Whiskey Head Ryan, and the Glendale Train Robbery.

SPEAKER_05 1:54

At that time, the editor and publisher of the Kansas City Times was a guy named John Newman Edwards.

SPEAKER_02 2:03

Edwards had been a major in the Confederate Army in the war that had ended just four years earlier.

SPEAKER_05 2:08

John Newman Edwards had been the adjutant for General Joe Shelby, had actually ridden with General Joe Shelby and Sterling Price after the war ended. They never surrendered.

SPEAKER_02 2:20

In the James Brothers, he saw kindred spirits to the cause. He made contact with them, looking to shape their image. And for years that is what he did.

SPEAKER_04 2:31

In 1872, he wrote, They are men who might have sat with Arthur at the round table, ridden in tourney with Sir Lancelot, or won the colours of Guinevere.

SPEAKER_05 2:44

He wrote about these guys like they were Robin Hood. They had robbed from the rich to give to the poor, and that's when it all began. And he became the publicist and the apologist. And the, if you will, the publisher of everything Frank and Jesse.

SPEAKER_00 3:01

Before we continue, please remember to leave a comment, like the video, and subscribe to our channel. It will help us continue to make new content. Now, back to the story.

SPEAKER_02 3:12

The legend may have started in 1869, but the real Jesse James began in 1847 in Kearney, Missouri, the middle child of Robert and Zarelda James.

SPEAKER_05 3:25

His dad was a Baptist minister, and dad wanted to go west.

SPEAKER_02 3:29

Jesse was three, and Frank was about seven when their father left the family to go to California.

SPEAKER_05 3:35

Was it to discover gold in California and Mthar Hills? Did he go out there to save souls as a Baptist minister? Or was it to get away from his wife Zarelda? Maybe a combination, but he did go west.

SPEAKER_02 3:51

Whatever his reason, he didn't have long to enjoy it. Robert James died likely of cholera shortly after arriving in California.

SPEAKER_05 4:02

Mom is left with two little boys and a little girl trying to raise them on their own in their home in what is now called Kearney, Missouri.

SPEAKER_02 4:09

25-year-old Zarelda James was left with more than just the children. She was left with debt. Lots of it. She didn't even inherit the farm. She had the right to live there, but the terms of Robert's will put the farm itself in a trust for the children. Most of the rest, including the enslaved people they owned, were auctioned off. Then she did the next logical thing for a struggling widow in 1850.

SPEAKER_05 4:37

She quickly remarries. Well, within about three years, she remarries Mr. Sims. It was a volatile relationship. Now, whose volatility was it? Was it hers? Was it his? It was a combination. Again, you know, she's living there with her three young children, trying to farm, trying to raise a family.

SPEAKER_02 4:53

Sims was thrown from his horse and died just two years after the wedding. And within a year, she'd found another husband, Dr. Reuben Samuel, who gave up his medical practice because Zarelda told him he was wanted on the farm.

SPEAKER_05 5:09

It was her way or no way. She certainly ruled the roost, and Dr. Samuel fell in lockstep with those edicts that whenever mom spoke, everyone listened.

SPEAKER_02 5:19

The couple had three more children, bought and sold enslaved people, and continued to farm the hem crops in western Missouri. Frank, who loved to read, particularly Shakespeare, had wanted to become a teacher, but that wasn't an option.

SPEAKER_05 5:34

Frank had to grow up quickly because he was the head of the household as the oldest of three siblings, and then the oldest of three half siblings.

SPEAKER_02 5:41

By 1861, the country was at war. Though Missourians had voted not to secede from the Union in the Civil War, many of its people and many of the government were firmly on the side of the Confederacy. In November of that year, the Confederate Congress admitted Missouri as a state, though again, it was still in the Union. There are 13 stars on the Confederate flag to reflect the eleven states that did secede, and two, Missouri and Kentucky, that were claimed by both sides. Missouri formed their own military.

SPEAKER_05 6:29

And it was under the command of General Sterling Price, who was the former Missouri governor who from 1852 to 56.

SPEAKER_02 6:36

Somewhere between 23,000 and 28,000 Missourians signed up for the pro-Confederate National Guard in 1861, among them Frank James.

SPEAKER_05 6:48

He was not in the quote-unquote Confederate Army. In fact, what little bit we really know documented evidence was that Frank served with Price at the Battle of Wilson's Creek in August of 1861, which was a successful adventure by the combined forces of the Confederate Army and the Missouri State Guard.

SPEAKER_02 7:13

At some point, Frank became ill and left the guard.

SPEAKER_05 7:16

Some people said he had mumps, whatever it was, he was paroled, and he signed a loyalty oath that said he would not take up arms against the United States. Went back to Carney, Missouri.

SPEAKER_02 7:27

But he didn't keep that oath for long. By 1863, he was part of a guerrilla group in Missouri, eventually joining with William Quantrill, a former Ohioian who was now firmly on the Confederate side. In August 1863, as many as 400 men, including Frank, Bloody Bill Anderson, and Cole Younger, raided the town of Lawrence, Kansas, killing up to 200 men and boys in just a few hours. One man who legend says was there, but was almost certainly not, was Jesse Jane.

SPEAKER_05 8:01

He was only 15 at the time of the raid. He would have been 16 the next month. I don't believe Jesse was there. I don't think Jesse went into the woods until probably 64. Until 64, maybe even as late as 65.

SPEAKER_02 8:16

But even if at that point Jesse hadn't gone to war, war had come to him.

SPEAKER_05 8:21

On a particular day, Kansas Redlegs, Jayhawkers, whatever, came onto the homestead of the James family.

SPEAKER_02 8:28

The Union guerrilla group was looking for Frank, who they knew was working with a Confederate counterpart.

SPEAKER_05 8:34

They actually hung Dr. Reuben Samuels by his neck from a tree, trying to get him to disclose where his stepson Frank was. And there is, I don't think it's a legend, I think it's true. I think that blood flow was interrupted to his brain during the number of times they raised him up, lowered him, raised him up, lowered him by the neck. And then Jesse came running and they apparently threw him to the ground and kind of beat on him a little bit. And they finally let Ruben down and they left because they didn't know where Frank was. And I really believed that. I don't think they knew exactly, other than he was with Quantrill, and everybody kind of knew that. The incident was probably the climactic moment that did cause Jesse to find his brother in the woods and join up with the gorillas and Quansrell.

SPEAKER_02 9:24

Eventually, Jesse joined up with Bloody Bill Anderson and others when in September of 1864 they stopped a train outside Centralia, Missouri. They killed 22 unarmed Union soldiers, scalped them, and set the train on fire. The only military survivor, Sergeant Thomas Goodman, called the murders, quote, the most monstrous and inhuman atrocities ever perpetuated by beings wearing the form of man.

SPEAKER_05 9:50

When that attack occurred, Union troops went after the guerrillas, had absolutely no way how to fight the guerrillas, and they attacked them on horseback. The guerrillas lined up, and as the Union troops came through the lines, they were mowed down. So there's two parts to it. The Union troops had gotten their revenge. If they did, they were disenfranchised, couldn't vote. They couldn't serve on a jury. They couldn't serve on a board of directors of any corporation, couldn't serve as ministers, couldn't be lawyers. I mean, there were numerous occupations that they were prohibited from serving, even if they signed an oath, if they had given any type of support and fought in the Confederate Army. So that's how Frank and Jesse were completely disenfranchised, completely set aside from all other people. It's much akin to like a convicted felon today, even once they have served their criminal parole and they've been released from prison, they still have lost significant constitutional rights. So that analogy would be a fit for Jess and Frankie.

SPEAKER_02 12:16

Nevertheless, Jesse James was convinced by a former guerrilla captain, David Poole, to take a loyalty oath.

SPEAKER_05 12:23

As Jesse was surrendering, one of the Union troops, probably a Kansan, shot Jesse. Jesse was shot in the lung. The only reason why he survived is he crawled to a creek bed and the blood coagulated. Jesse, how he did not die, is in and of itself a remarkable feat.

SPEAKER_02 12:44

Family members helped Jesse heal first in Nebraska where they were staying, and later in Missouri when Jesse was convinced he would die and wanted to go home. One family member in particular devoted herself to his recovery.

SPEAKER_05 12:59

It was there that his first cousin, Zerelda Mims, took care of her first cousin Jesse James. They ultimately formed a union, and believe it or not, back in that 19th century, middle 19th century, first cousins married was not against the law, and it was not as uncommon as one would think.

SPEAKER_02 13:19

Zerelda, named after Jesse's mother, was called Z. And while the beginning of their romance is confirmed, other parts of his recovery from gunshot wounds are where the legend and reality of Jesse James are in conflict.

SPEAKER_05 13:35

The first crime laid at the feet of Frank and Jesse James was the February bank robbery in Liberty, Missouri. Think about it. February, he's gonna ride into Liberty shooting guns and riding in there to rob a bank. I don't think so. In fact, I think most scholars now using that same rationale have reached the conclusion that it's most likely that neither Frank nor Jesse were there.

SPEAKER_02 14:19

One robbery they were definitely involved in is the one at Davies County Savings Association in Gallatin, Missouri. Jesse, who had spent a portion of the war following Bloody Bill Anderson, had sought that bank because Samuel Cox, one of the bank's owners, was the man he held responsible for Anderson's death.

SPEAKER_05 14:38

Samuel Cox was actually the Union commander who was defending the area north of the Missouri River, between the north side of the Missouri River from basically Lafayette County, Lexington, to the Black County on the western border of Missouri, north of the river. And his troops under his command were the ones that were able to successfully gun down Bloody Bill Anderson. And he was involved in at least the command of ordering his decapitation, mounting his head on a pike to display that they've got Anderson. So the James boys, especially probably Jesse, they thought that Cox was at that bank, and they wanted revenge.

SPEAKER_02 15:29

Cox had been visiting family in California when the shooting happened. The shooting of John Sheets was a mistake. He was a prominent and well-liked man in the community. His death caused outrage the James brothers hadn't counted on. Another mistake happened in the escape. Jesse was thrown from his horse and stole another. His runaway horse was traced back to him. A$3,000 reward,$60,000 today, was issued for the capture of Frank and Jesse James. But instead of shrinking from their errors, six months after the robbery, Jesse wrote a letter to the governor, which was published in the Kansas City Times, saying he was innocent, but could not turn himself in. He saw the revenge for Bill Anderson's death and celebrated it.

SPEAKER_04 16:46

There is one southerner willing to appeal again to the sword.

SPEAKER_02 16:51

As Edward got to know the brothers, he focused on one in particular, Jesse, as the leader of the gang.

SPEAKER_05 16:58

You know, there's always been, and this is just me as a student of the James Boys and the James family, they always use Jesse James' name. I mean, it's a poetic name. Think about it. Jesse James. It flows. But Frank was four years older than his brother, four and a half years older than his brother. And if you look at the time period, even today, how many older brothers are the followers? Or is it the reverse? The little boys are followers of their big brothers.

SPEAKER_02 17:28

But Edwards may have given a reason why he focused on the younger James brother as the man to carry on his Confederate dream.

SPEAKER_04 17:35

There is always a smile on his lips and a graceful word or compliment for all with whom he comes in contact. Jesse laughs at everything. Frank at nothing at all. Jesse is lighthearted, reckless, devil maker. Frank, sober, sedate, a dangerous man, always in ambush in the midst of society. Jesse knows there is a price on his head and discusses the whys and wherefores of it. Frank knows it too, but it chafes at him sorely.

SPEAKER_02 18:08

Edwards began writing about the brothers and their growing gang, including Cole Younger and his brothers. He embellished some stories and made others totally up, including a story about an old woman and an evil union banker.

SPEAKER_05 18:24

A poor lady was notified that by the bank that they were going to foreclose on her mortgage. Frank and Jesse that night had gone to their home, to the lady's home. She was a widow. She told them the plight, she'd fed them. She said the banker was supposed to be there the next morning. So Frank and Jesse waited in the woods. The banker goes to the house, wasn't paid, was going to go back and foreclose on the property, took the lady's deed, and Frank and Jesse were in the woods and collared the banker and got the lady's deed back, and she was able to live happily ever after, and the banker did not. So that's one of the examples of the story that grew. I mean, there's Frank and Jesse, these knight errants who rescued this poor damsel in distress from the evil mortgage guy who was a union man. And that's just one of many wives' tales or legends that grew up around those boys.

SPEAKER_02 19:18

In September of 1872, the gang robbed the Kansas City Exposition Fairgrounds of$978, over$26,000 now. John Newman Edwards called on the public to quote revere the men who he wrote about on the front page of the Kansas City Times.

SPEAKER_04 19:36

It was one of those rare instances of amazement, admiration, and horror.

SPEAKER_02 19:43

One detail that was more horror than admiration was that as the robbers fled, shots were fired, and a young girl was shot in the leg. Jesse addressed that in a letter to the paper.

SPEAKER_03 19:56

It is true that I shot a little girl, though it was not intentional, and I am very sorry that the child was shot. And if the parents will give me their address to the columns of the Kansas City Weekly Times, I'll send them money to pay for her doctor's bill.

SPEAKER_02 20:12

There is no evidence that he paid her family. There's no evidence that the Robin Hood version of them was even sometimes true. Nevertheless, Edwards wrote a special editorial called The Chivalry of Crime, making a clear distinction between being a thief and what he saw as Jesse James's mission.

SPEAKER_04 20:31

There are things done for money and for revenge of which the daring of the act is the picture, and the crime is the frame it may be set in. A feat of stupendous nerve and fearlessness that makes one's hair rise to think of it, with a condiment of crime to season it, become chivalric, poetic, superb.

SPEAKER_05 20:52

Jesse ate it up. I mean, there are countless accounts where Jesse would leave a leave a note after a robbery and would send it by wire and have the telegraph wires send it out to the press and Jesse James or signed by you know who or whatever house you want they want to describe it. And John Newman Edwards would pick this up and say, What a great robbery! What a great um how these boys were able to pull this one off. What a great train robbery. You know, they he would just glow about everything they did, and that helped further their cause.

SPEAKER_02 21:26

Jesse, with the possible help of Edwards, began writing editorials endorsing political candidates, including one for newspaper editor Horace Greeley for president. Greeley had promised a soft approach to former Confederates, such as an end to carpet baggers, northerners who'd moved south to profit off post war chaos. In his endorsement, Jesse explained that his methods of robbing and killing were justified.

SPEAKER_03 21:53

We never kill, only in self defense, but if a man is fool enough to refuse to open a vault when he's covered with a pistol, He ought to die. If someone gives alarm or resists, he gets killed.

SPEAKER_02 22:05

When Jesse and Z married in 1874, Jesse apparently robbed a stagecoach on their honeymoon, which only delighted his growing fan base. Even as Jesse sought to increase his influence outside the world of crime, the group expanded from bank to train robberies. In 1873, the gang derailed a train in Adair, Iowa, which netted them about$2,300, about$63,000 now. But the engineer was killed in the crash. John Newman Edwards and others focused on the fact that the train robbery was the first west of the Mississippi. Others followed.

SPEAKER_05 22:49

Pull up your arms and surrender and hover over your purse. And you know, then there were tails that would grow out if he saw that you were you had rough hands, you must be a farmer, so they wouldn't rob you. You know, who knows? But Jesse would say that. He would say that.

SPEAKER_02 23:04

The James Younger gang were getting the attention of train company owners, who in turn hired the Pinkerton Detective Agency to track them down. That led to a shootout in March of 1874.

SPEAKER_05 23:16

One of the Pinkerton agents killed, and Cole Younger's younger brother, John, was mortally wounded by a Pinkerton agent.

SPEAKER_02 23:23

But that loss pales in comparison to what happened on January 25th, 1875.

SPEAKER_05 23:30

Pinkerton agents go on to the homestead. They're looking for Frank and Jesse. Where are they? In the middle of the night, and like midnight, while the family is asleep. The former slaves were now servants who continue to live on the James farm, heard some noise, looked out their own cabin, saw some men trying to start a fire to burn down the home of Dr. Samuels, Zarilda, his wife, Frank and Jesse's ma. The three siblings, half siblings of Frank and Jesse were in the house. But they're gonna burn down this homestead to get Frank and Jesse to come out. Well, that didn't succeed. The house did not catch on fire. Finally, Dr. Samuels was awakened. All of a sudden, like almost like a canister of turpentine was thrown into the house and it was going to detonate. Dr. Samuels picks it up with a shovel, throws it into the fireplace, and it explodes. Jesse and Frank's half-brother Archie, nine years old, mortally wounded. Their maul, it shatters her wrist, her right wrist. Dr. Samuel that night has to amputate his own wife's right arm below the elbow. This is an outrage. This is an outrage. I don't care how bad you are, you don't attack a home at night and kill people.

SPEAKER_02 25:00

After the raid, John Newman Edwards tried to harness the growing public sympathy to get amnesty for the James brothers. It didn't work. Jesse and Frank instead left Missouri, first for Nashville, then for Northfield, Minnesota, where many people say the events there were the last act of the James Younger gang.

SPEAKER_05 25:21

They thought that General Butler, Benjamin Butler, who was the beast of the New Orleans, Union officer who would have been, if you will, a radical Republican in the eyes of Missourians like Frank and Jesse, they were under the mistaken belief that Butler was the president of the Northfield Bank in Northfield, Minnesota. And ergo now they have a reason to believe that they could go up there and seek revenge. At the same time, these are just local farmers. They're not going to have any sense about them. Regardless, they go to Northfield, and it is an absolute disaster for the James Younger gang. This is their Waterloo.

SPEAKER_02 26:10

About 2 p.m. on September 7, 1876, Frank and Jesse, the younger brothers, and several others attempted to rob the bank. But the bank teller, Joseph Lee Haywood, would not open the safe. Bank deposits were not insured. If the bank was robbed, then in essence the entire town would be robbed. So Haywood just kept saying that the vault had been equipped with a timer, new technology in 1876, and he could not open it. Haywood knew the safe was unlocked, and all the James Younger gang had to do was open the door. But they didn't try that. Instead, they kept insisting that Haywood open it.

SPEAKER_05 26:53

I believe that it was Frank James who shot and killed the bank teller in cold blood. The bank teller said, I can't open it. It's on a timer. I don't know how to open it. It's not the time for me to open the uh the vault. And Frank just didn't believe it. And you know, then by then the townspeople heard there was noise out in the streets. Frank shoots the bank teller. Another citizen in the street gets shot and killed. And there's a gunfight in the streets of Northfield, and they get shot to hell. Cole gets shot numerous times. A couple of the men of the James Younger gang are left in the streets of Northfield dead. Frank and Jesse escape. Again, part of that great lore. How did the hell did they escape from a man in an area they have no clue where they're at?

SPEAKER_02 27:53

The rest of the gang was either dead or in custody.

SPEAKER_05 27:57

Cole and his brothers are taken into Northfield. Long story short, they plead guilty. Why do they plead guilty? Because it was a capital offense what they had committed. But under the law of Minnesota at the time, if you pled guilty, you would only get a life sentence and you wouldn't be strung by your neck and killed. So that's why they went to prison. Never in the days that those boys were in prison did they ever admit that Jesse and Frank were with them. Never.

SPEAKER_02 28:26

Jesse and Frank got away with less than$27. The bank gave Haywood's widow$5,000, and banks around the country contributed$12,000 more. The James brothers returned south, settling for a time in Nashville. A manhunt was underway for the brothers, and the myth was beginning to tarnish. An old nemesis, Robert Pinkerton, son of the agency's founder, weighed in on how he saw Jesse James. Frank, married and with his son, seemed to be tired of the life and began to work honest jobs. He would later say, quote, My old life grew more detestable the further I got away from it, unquote. Jesse went another way. He was restless and gambled so much that it caused trouble with his wife Z. For three years he tried to go straight and seemed to hate it. But the men of his old life were dead or in prison. So he needed something new.

SPEAKER_05 29:35

Jesse starts hiding out and hanging out with some really bad guys from Missouri. These are young men that grew up on the legend of the cause of the Confederacy. They grew up on the legend and the myth of Frank and Jesse and the younger brothers.

SPEAKER_02 29:53

By 1881, those men included 24-year-old Charlie Ford and his brother, 20-year-old Robert, along with Dick Little and Whiskey Bill Ryan. They had soaked up the words of John Newman Edwards, who had stopped writing about Jesse the year before. Edwards had built the Jesse James myth at the end of the Civil War as a symbol of the independent character of former Confederate Missourians at a time when they were struggling to find political power. But by 1880, most Confederate elected officials had returned to both state and federal offices, and the others to their pre-war professions. The need for a Southern anti-hero had waned. And many people, whatever their political beliefs, wanted train travel and banking to be safe. But Jesse James did not want to give up his old life. Along with his cousin Wood Height, who had also fought with Bloody Bill Anderson, Jesse returned to what he knew.

SPEAKER_05 30:53

Eventually, Jesse and Bill Ryan, Dick Lydell, commit some additional robberies and crimes in Tennessee that can completely cause consternation between the brothers.

SPEAKER_02 31:09

Frank did not completely trust the new men spending time with his younger brother, but he was not interested in going back. Despite occasionally joining Jesse, he said returning to his old life gave him, quote, a sense of despair, unquote. There were a number of robberies, including a train robbery in Winston, Missouri that had left two men dead, both railroad employees.

SPEAKER_05 31:34

Missouri's reputation was scorned, not just nationally, but frankly internationally. One of the congressmen had said, or an economist for the New York Times, has said, what we should do is carve out Missouri and have trains go north of Missouri through Iowa or south through Arkansas and completely avoid Missouri. It's the highway robber state. It's the criminal state where you are allowed to commit train robberies and highway robberies, and it's not safe. So we had become known as the outlaw state. That was the reputation Missouri had, and it was hurting business. It was hurting train business. It was hurting bank business. It was hurting business across the board. And so this whole economic impact was being pronounced across the country. And by then, Governor Thomas Crittenden was governor of Missouri, and he had had enough.

SPEAKER_02 32:37

It made Jesse suspicious of those around him. He moved Zee and his children several times and was restless and on the move himself. But perhaps he had reason to be paranoid. Support for the outlaws had faded with newspaper articles saying about them that, quote, it's gratifying to know they are fast disappearing, unquote. Charlie Ford would later say that during this time, Jesse watched everybody, even his own brother. But Jesse had not anticipated what happened next. On December 4, 1881, Dick Little and Wood Height got into a disagreement at the home of Charlie and Robert's sister, Martha Bolton. They had argued earlier about Little stealing money from Height, but there were also rumors that both men were interested in the young widow Martha, whose home had become a haven for the gang. Whatever the reason, they apparently opened fire on each other in the dining room. Little was shot in the thigh, but Wood Height was killed, either by Little or by Robert Ford, who had walked in the room during the gunfight and opened fire. They had killed Jesse James's cousin. They buried Wood Height in an unmarked grave, but they could not pretend that everything would go back to normal. Everything had changed. And now Dick Little and Robert Ford had a choice to make face Jesse or turn themselves into the police.

SPEAKER_05 34:05

So maybe if they turned state's evidence, joined in this conspiracy to get Jesse and Frank, the government would go light on them. But my belief, and I can't really think anybody would really question it, was not because they didn't like Jesse. It wasn't yet. Were they scared of Jesse? Absolutely. There is no doubt everybody was scared of Jesse.

SPEAKER_02 34:29

Dick Little turned himself in in January of 1882, confessing to the crimes he was involved in with the James gang. Jesse's gang was now down to three: himself, Charlie, and Robert Ford.

SPEAKER_05 34:43

Jesse was planning the bank robbery there. He was also planning or thinking of moving to Kansas, moving to rural Nebraska, robbing a bank, but he had allowed the Ford brothers to become part of these plans that he was making.

SPEAKER_02 35:00

He didn't know that the Ford brothers had made other plans. They had made a deal with Governor Crittenden to kill Jesse, and in return they would collect the reward, and Robert would be pardoned for the killing of Wood Height. The brothers moved in with Jesse and his family, looking for their opportunity.

SPEAKER_05 35:19

And on that fateful Monday morning, right after Palm Sunday of Holy Week, Jesse's and the boys had just had breakfast. Zarelda was in the little house outside their main house, which was a kitchen area with the two kids, and it was just Bob, Charlie, and Jesse.

SPEAKER_02 35:41

Robert Ford would later say that it had become clear that Jesse was increasingly suspicious, especially after he read that Dick Little confessed to police. He felt the Ford brothers knew, but hadn't told him. But he didn't kick them out of the house. Instead, he did chores with Charlie, and when they returned, he took his gun belt off, saying he didn't want his neighbors to see him wearing it. Then he noticed a picture on the wall and said his last words. He stood on a chair with his back to the brothers. Robert Ford clicked his weapon, but before Jesse had a chance to turn, he was shot in the back of the head, just behind his ear.

SPEAKER_05 36:24

The story is, according to Jesse's son, who was about five at the time, he ran in, tried to grab a shotgun out of the closet to gun down Bob and Charlie Ford, but his mom arrested it from him, and said, We're not going to do that.

SPEAKER_02 36:40

John Newman Edwards, who had been out of Jesse's life for two years, even ignoring a note Jesse had written to him the year before, wrote the obituary.

SPEAKER_04 36:51

We called him outlaw, and he was. But fate made him so. When the war closed, Jesse James had no home, hunted, shot, driven away, a price upon his head. What else could the man do? Except what he did. When he was hunted, he turned savagely about and hunted his hunters. Jesse was murdered.

SPEAKER_05 37:18

Is it justifiable homicide? Is it not justifiable? I don't think anybody's gonna question you don't shoot a man in the back of the head. It's not in the law of the West. And the law of the West was still the law then, and it's probably should be the law of the West today. You don't shoot somebody in the back of the head. Bob and Charlie are indicted immediately for murder. They plead guilty to murder of Jesse. The judge sentenced them to death for the murder of Jesse. Right after they're convicted of pleading guilty, convicted and sentenced to death, Governor Crittenden grants them a full and complete pardon.

SPEAKER_02 37:59

Jesse was buried in the front yard of his mother's home in Kearney.

SPEAKER_05 38:04

Ma would sell stones to visitors off the grave. Well, as many stones as she sold, the grave would never have any stones. And they would sell the stones. Then they sold admission to get on their property.

SPEAKER_02 38:20

Five months after Jesse's death, Frank James reached out to an old friend for help.

SPEAKER_05 38:26

He's tired of being chased around the country. Every night he would say that he heard somebody in the woods. He would awaken with his gun in his hand to look out to see if it were the Pinkertons, if it was someone trying to kill him, or his son, or his wife. So he contacts John Newman Edwards, again, the publicist for the James gang. And John Newman Edwards works out a deal with Governor Crittenden that Frank is going to surrender, the last rebel to surrender. And on October 4th, 1882, Frank James with John Newman Edwards, presents his firearm to Governor Crittenden and surrenders. It's a big fanfare. Frank James surrenders. And that was the end of Frank James's career as a criminal.

SPEAKER_02 39:16

Frank was tried for two train robberies and acquitted both times. He worked a variety of jobs before returning to Kearney with his family.

SPEAKER_05 39:25

Frank ultimately retired to the family home and took over running the family home until he died in the summer of 1915.

SPEAKER_02 39:35

Jesse's grave was moved in 1902 to Mount Olived Cemetery in town, where he is buried next to Z. Charlie Ford was already dying of tuberculosis when he ended his own life in 1884. For a time, Robert Ford ran a saloon with Dick Little, but eventually he moved on from there to Colorado, where on June 8, 1892, Edward O'Kelly entered the tenth saloon that Robert had opened and shot him in the neck. O'Kelly never gave a motive. Robert Ford tried to make money as the man who shot Jesse James, but public opinion had turned back to Jesse, who now saw him as a fallen hero. Jesse's reputation had risen and fallen through the years following the Civil War, but it was his death that determined where it would remain.

SPEAKER_05 40:25

But Jesse's reputation as Robin Hood that was cemented by his assassination was certainly what has led to this legend. And it won't die.