Kentucky's Famous Feuds and Tragedies: Authentic History of the World Renowned Vendettas of the Dark and Bloody GroundMutzenberg, Charles Gustavus
History
Kentucky's Famous Feuds and Tragedies: Authentic History of the World Renowned Vendettas of the Dark and Bloody Ground
Mutzenberg, Charles Gustavus
Crime -- Kentucky; Vendetta -- Kentucky
"He that sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed." This
threat was fulfilled to the letter in the cases of both Judge Hargis
and Sheriff Callahan. Both men died with their boots on.
Judge Hargis was shot and killed at his store in Jackson in the winter
of 1908 _by his own son_, Beach Hargis. The young man was indicted for
murder February 18th, 1908, tried and found guilty. He escaped the
death penalty, and received a life sentence, but is already at large,
having been paroled 1916.
The judgment of the court was appealed from and strenuous efforts were
made by the widow of the slain man to secure a new trial and save her
son from conviction for the murder of her husband. Hers was indeed a
pathetic situation. Mrs. Hargis employed the best counsel obtainable.
Senator William O. Bradley, a lawyer of national fame, argued the case
exhaustively before the Court of Appeals. The judgment of the lower
court was affirmed.
The case was one of widespread interest. The facts and circumstances
attending the murder appear at length and are commented upon in an
opinion of the Court of Appeals, written by Judge Hobson, and reported
in 135 Kentucky Reports.
Judge Hobson, in his statement of the case, says:--
"The proof for the Commonwealth on the trial showed in brief these
facts:--
"On the night before the homicide Beach Hargis had gone to his
father's store and asked one of the clerks for a pistol. The clerk
declined to give him a pistol out of the stock, but told him that
his father's pistol was there in a drawer of his desk and he could
take that. The defendant secured the pistol, but said nothing to
his father, although he was then in the store. The next morning
between nine and ten o'clock the defendant was sitting in the
barber shop. His face was swollen. He told the barber that his
father had hit him in the mouth and hurt him there. A man who
looked like his father passed. He raised up in the chair, threw
his hand back and said: 'I thought that was the old man.' About
an hour later he drank a bottle of Brown's Bitters, and said to a
bystander: 'Did you hear about the old man mashing my mouth?' and
added that it was hard to take. Some two hours later he appeared
at a drug store kept by his brother-in-law, Dr. Hogg, drew his
pistol, and was waving it about, pointing it in the direction of a
bystander and his brother-in-law. From this drug store, after a few
minutes, he went to his father's store. It was a double storeroom.
His father was in one room and he entered the other and took a
seat in a chair not far from the front door. While he was sitting
there in a chair, a man in the other room asked his father where
Beach was. His father pointed him out to the man and said: 'There
he sits. I have done all I can for him and I cannot go about him or
have anything to do with him.' A few minutes later his father said
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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