Thus matters stood until the latter part of December (1887), when Frank Phillips, named as agent in the requisition for these parties, having sent the required fee, and being unable to hear anything from your Excellency, went into West Virginia in company with two others, and without any disturbance or conflict of any kind, succeeded in capturing Tom Chambers, Selkirk McCoy and Moses Christian, three of the persons named in the indictment for the murder of the McCoy brothers, who were brought to Kentucky and lodged in the jail of Pike County. This so incensed the Hatfield party that on the night of January 1st (1888) a company of twelve men, headed by Cap Hatfield and James Vance, Sr., came from West Virginia into Pike County (Kentucky) and having surrounded the house of Randolph McCoy, the father of the three McCoy brothers, who had been murdered in 1882, commanded him to surrender, saying they were the Hatfield crowd. They then forced their way into a room where the daughters were sleeping, shot one of them through the heart, and set fire to the house. The old man and his son, Calvin, seeing that they intended to kill them, made the best defense they could, but the flames soon drove them from the house. The son, in his efforts to escape, was riddled with bullets, and the old man, who ran in an opposite direction, was fired upon by several of the party, but escaped unhurt. His wife, had, in the meantime, come out of the house and begged for mercy, but was struck on the head and side with a gun, breaking her ribs and knocking her senseless to the ground, after which she was thrown back into the house to be burnt, but was dragged out by her daughters as they left the burning building. Some days thereafter, twenty-six men armed themselves and went into West Virginia in pursuit of the perpetrators of this atrocious crime, and on reaching the house of Anderson Hatfield, so far from abusing or mistreating his wife, as has been represented to your Excellency, they treated her kindly, and at her request left some of their party there with her to quiet her fears; but after leaving there in search of the men, they were fired upon by James Vance, Sr., Cap Hatfield and others, and in the fight which followed, James Vance, Sr., was killed, having on his person when killed two pistols and a repeating rifle. Old Randolph McCoy was not with this raiding party, as has been represented to your Excellency, but was at that time in Pikeville, Kentucky, as the citizens of that place will all testify.