Was Wyatt Earp a Cold Blooded Murderer?

by Kellen on September 21, 2012

On October 26, 1881 in Tombstone, Arizona Territory, Wyatt Earp, his two brothers, and their comrade Doc Holliday locked horns with the Clanton and McLaury brothers in what became the most famous shootout in the history of the American West. The gunfight at the OK Corral, which actually occurred on Fremont Street six blocks west of the corral, made Wyatt Earp a legend and one of the most famous lawmen to ever pin on the Silver Star. What started out as no more than a war of words escalated into the gunfight of the century that has since been the basis for copious amounts of books, films and television productions. But what is often glazed over in these accounts is the judicial hearing that followed the fight. On October 29, 1881 Ike Clanton - brother of Billy Clanton who perished in the battle - filed murder charges against the Earps and Holliday. On November 7, Wyatt and Doc Holliday were arrested and carted off to jail. Justice of the Peace, Wells Spicer presided over the preliminary hearing that saw Wyatt Earp take the witness stand in his own defense. Wyatt swore up and down that shots were not fired between the two parties until the Clanton and McLaury boys brandished their six shooters first. Ike Clanton swore otherwise. Virgil Earp, Wyatt's brother who was severely wounded in the tussle, testified from his bed in the Cosmopolitan Hotel. After gathering a month's worth of testimony, Judge Spicer issued a decision exonerating the Earp's and Holliday of any wrong doing. If you are intrigued like I am by this story, you are in luck! Contained in the archives of the Denver Public Library is a copy of the deposition and testimony in the proceedings of the Earp-Clanon Murder case. The collection number is -M956. Visit the 5th floor reference desk to look at the collection and decide for yourself!

Submitted by SRyon (not verified) on Sun, 04/16/2017 - 00:21

Permalink

Earps went to enforce that law. Clantons knew they were violating it, even though they had abided by it in the past. They were known horse thieves, and not honorable men. Earps did not walk in shooting. Fair warning was given before any shots were fired. Ike Clanton was spared when he refused to fight. Why is this confusing to anyone.

Whether the stories are all true or not I love the stories of the men and woman who settled the West
,People who left everything for the chance to have some dirt and calling it their own I"m watching a 1950s. Series on Tubi called The Life And LegendOf Wyatt Earp.Every country has their legends,heroes,and villins .Wyatt Earp is truly a hero in the old west no matter what anyone says.

Whether the stories are all true or not I love the stories of the men and woman who settled the West
,People who left everything for the chance to have some dirt and calling it their own I"m watching a 1950s. Series on Tubi called The Life And LegendOf Wyatt Earp.Every country has their legends,heroes,and villins .Wyatt Earp is truly a hero in the old west no matter what anyone says.

Whether the stories are all true or not I love the stories of the men and woman who settled the West
,People who left everything for the chance to have some dirt and calling it their own I"m watching a 1950s. Series on Tubi called The Life And LegendOf Wyatt Earp.Every country has their legends,heroes,and villins .Wyatt Earp is truly a hero in the old west no matter what anyone says.

Earp was a bad person. A horse thief pimp brothel owner strong arming bully. He was 6 ft in a 5'8 avg time.
He had 3 wives dead within year of marriage. Last one was a degenerate gambler.
He threw the heavyweight championship of the world boxing match as referee for $$ and was vilified for basically the rest of his life as he should've been.
A pretty book was done after his death depicting a charismatic brave hero.
He was none of those.

He never owned a brothel.
He was a bouncer in one.
Brothels were legal. Lawmen often moonlighted as bouncers as brothels attracted trouble.

Wyatt's first wife died of typhoid. His common law wife died years after they split and he was married to his third for forty years. He never stole a horse. He was accused of swindling a man out of a horse. It was a civil dispute and he would likely have been exonerated. He was involved in a fixed fight late in life. He wasn't the fixer but became a scapegoat. He was no Saint but he wasn't no devil.

I believe your description to be the most accurate, we all have made mistakes , and I belive Wyatt Earp was more honorable then most law men today, if I was him I would have finished the cowboys too.

I believe your description to be the most accurate, we all have made mistakes , and I belive Wyatt Earp was more honorable then most law men today, if I was him I would have finished the cowboys too.

I believe your description to be the most accurate, we all have made mistakes , and I belive Wyatt Earp was more honorable then most law men today, if I was him I would have finished the cowboys too.

I believe your description to be the most accurate, we all have made mistakes , and I belive Wyatt Earp was more honorable then most law men today, if I was him I would have finished the cowboys too.

I believe your description to be the most accurate, we all have made mistakes , and I belive Wyatt Earp was more honorable then most law men today, if I was him I would have finished the cowboys too.

I believe your description to be the most accurate, we all have made mistakes , and I belive Wyatt Earp was more honorable then most law men today, if I was him I would have finished the cowboys too.

You tell it! Apparently some folks don’t really know history as they should before commenting in a debate where people are most definitely messed up on the western history of our lawmen!

He never owned a brothel.
He was a bouncer in one.
Brothels were legal. Lawmen often moonlighted as bouncers as brothels attracted trouble.

Wyatt's first wife died of typhoid. His common law wife died years after they split and he was married to his third for forty years. He never stole a horse. He was accused of swindling a man out of a horse. It was a civil dispute and he would likely have been exonerated. He was involved in a fixed fight late in life. He wasn't the fixer but became a scapegoat. He was no Saint but he wasn't no devil.

He never owned a brothel.
He was a bouncer in one.
Brothels were legal. Lawmen often moonlighted as bouncers as brothels attracted trouble.

Wyatt's first wife died of typhoid. His common law wife died years after they split and he was married to his third for forty years. He never stole a horse. He was accused of swindling a man out of a horse. It was a civil dispute and he would likely have been exonerated. He was involved in a fixed fight late in life. He wasn't the fixer but became a scapegoat. He was no Saint but he wasn't no devil.

Submitted by Tbone (not verified) on Sat, 07/15/2017 - 21:53

Permalink

Earp was an evil human being. Pulp fiction emortalized his exploits and romanticized his methods. Most of what we know of Earps exploits come from Earp himself; a man that abandoned his first wife, dumped the second; and carried out a "vendetta raid" supposedly to avenge his slain brother Morgan and crippled brother Virgil. Why is the vendetta ride seen as just retaliation; yet Ike Clinton should have just let the murder of his brother slide? The deaths of Pete Spence and Indian Charlie are paramount to murder. Both were run down, captured, interrogated and executed. Lawman my ass; he was a duplicitous vigilante murderer. Yet Hollyweird stills likes to present a picture of Earp as a hero.

Jack Gantzhorn was there in Tombstone that day, and he wrote of it later in life. According to him, he witnessed Doc Holliday holding up the Wells Fargo stage, and everyone in twon was pretty sure the Earps ambushed the Clantons. Later, when Wyatt was on the run from a murder charge he murdered the federal agent sent to capture him, and went off to Colorado to hide behind the protection of his friend the governor. He died a fugitive from justice.

You are misinformed he was arrested as a vagrant multiple times especially in the 1920s also it is a known fact in Arizona that he did not kill Curly Bill him nor died, they either one could not stand up Durango and both were in Colorado so that's a lie too add to that that he is prosecuted horse thief as well as pimps that make money off girls lying on their back and that's the kind of man and the old hero worship

I disagree with you generalization of Erp. No one is perfect and Erp himself admitted on numerous occasions that he was not. There were activities in his early life those bore that out...but he was also a man who became committed to law and order individuals being innocent until proven guilty, the establishment of towns with law and order, and the importance of family ties.

I have read number numerous autobiographies, historical accounts, and other books abort out Wyat Erp. As a representative of the law he far, far more often than not did everything in his power to avoid gun played saving scores of lives by doing so. When acctually engaging in gun play, he was so fast either right or left handed, and such a good shot that he avoided killing criminals who pressed him into gun fights by either ambushing him or pressing to meet. them in the street, usually shooting for and hittin their shoulders. Their elbow, or their wrist. In this way he turned those who were cold blooded killers into much less capable shooters and killers with hand guns than they had been.

There were a relative small number of instances like the OK Corral where shooting to kill could not be avoided. But again, in the vast majority of "showdowns" he either avoided shooting, or wounded those he came up against.

Undoubtedly, if he was a cold blooded killer, or someone seeking a high body count he could have obtained it..but he is quoted on numerous occasions why he did not:

1. The relatives of those killed would almost invariably in those days seek revenge killings therby defeating his goal of making the towns he worked in safer and more peaceful and up holding of law and order.

2. Making a huge name for himself with scores of killings would have also invariable invited every outlaw who themselves sought such accounts for themselves to come wherever Erp worked to try and say they had "knocked him off" once again, thereby defeating his own goal for law and order.

These things are simply the truth for his career in Whichita, Dodge City, and Tombstone.

For several years after he quit his law career, he did, himself become a vigilante chasing down and killing several of the plannning members of the two families of those involved in the OK Corral and its following feud. In those accounts as far as I have been able to research, he only killed those involved with planning and carry out the murders who had escaped justice and mostly fled to far flung hide outs and places where local law enforcement was not interested in risking their personnel rooting out and finding those involved in those crime which lay far outside of their area of Jurisdiction.

But once he had completed that effort he retired peacefully for several decades with his wife (who was by far his most long standing, Josephine Sarah Marcus married 1882-1929, married 47 years) in California, him dying at a ripe old age of 80 years old in Los Angeles.

Right about much of above. He was buried in Los Angeles, California. and when Josie, his common law wife died, she was buried next to his grave.

Wyatt Earp was buried in Colma, California. A town south of San Francisco.
I once lived in the Bay Area. I have been to the cemetery and have seen his final resting place.

You’re either for or against. Most historians reviewing available evidence,as well as judge Spicer concur with the Earp’s version of events. The vendetta ride was just that. A vendetta. Pay back for Morgan and Virgil Earp.

You are entitled to think what you want. The west was “tame” the west. All of the true hero’s are no longer seen as that because our world has turned evil. If this world had more hero’s like the President we just had it would not be a sick world.

Wyatt Earp did NOT abandon his first wife, she died of typhoid fever while pregnant just as it was portrayed in the movie. He was devastated by her death and went west. Look it up like I did. He wasn't a faithful husband to the second "wife" and she did have a drug addiction and died in her 40's about 10 year after Wyatt left her. As for Pete Spence and Indian Charlie and the rest of what happened, I haven't done enough research yet on that to either validate what you say or not. It was a different time then, laws in the old west were also different then. You can't apply todays rules and laws with what it was like 150 years or so ago. If someone shot your brother in the back and maimed another brother and threatened your family, just what would you have done back then? I don't know what I'd do myself. Do You??

You leave Roger and I out of this Tbone! Neither one of us know nor did we ever claim to know any this man. So I want to say one thing to the American people. I want you to listen to me. I'm not going to say this again: I am not any relation to that man, Ike Clinton. I never told anybody to lie. Not a single time. Never. These allegations are false. And I need to go back to work for the American people.

You fit right in with todays whiny, poor criminal mentality. They were sworn law officers, times were different then, and today would be much better if some of that hard ass Justice was around in 2023!

Submitted by Paul F Hogan (not verified) on Sat, 07/15/2017 - 22:40

Permalink

Indian Charlie was killed at the Spence homestead; but Spence was in jail at the time. However the accounts of the death of Frank Stillwell at the Tucson rail station do leave questions. Earp himself claims he shot Stillwell while the later tried to push the barrel of his shotgun away. All other witnesses claim both Ike Clinton and Stillwell were fleeing the scene when Stillwell stumbled allowing Earp to catch him. Both the Stillwell and Indian Charlie killings have the eerie similarities of men fleeing the Earp posse only to be gunned down. It was said Indian Charlie's body was riddled with bullets. Between that and the close quarters shotgun blast that killed Stillwell; it screams of vengeful/retaliatory murder. Don't forget that Earp surrounded himself with murderers and outlaws; Doc Holiday; Sherman McMaster who purportedly assisted in a jailbreak by Curly Bill Brocius while he was a Texas Ranger; and both Texas Jack Vermillion and jack Johnson (an alias used by Jack Blunt/Blount) both killed men whilst arguing over card games. Interestingly enough; Johnson petitioned Earp to write to the governor to free a man named Bud Blunt/Blount (imprisoned for a shooting) who is assumed to have been Turkey Creek Johnsons' brother. In repayment for this act, he participated in the vendetta ride.

Mr. Hogan has an educated grasp that's reinforced by all my studies of the crooked lawman and his vagrant, immoral life. John Wayne is the principal fool in this story. Raising a failed hoodlum to a Hollywood fantasy.
But John was an actor looking for a role to sell. Truth had nothing to do with acting. If John were alive, he'd play
a great trump. But it would be a lie !

Submitted by Sir Kevin Parr Bt (not verified) on Fri, 04/03/2020 - 02:58

Permalink

My need is to see Wyatt Earp as a hero. After much research I conclude he was a man of his times and guilty of murder

Add new comment

About text formats

Plain text

  • No HTML tags allowed.
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.