Jim Kershner’s This day in history

From our archives, 100 years ago

A breathless little boy flagged down some posse members near Mica Peak and blurted, “The murderer is at our house, eating breakfast!”

Desperado William Byrd had been eluding capture for four days. The little boy led the posse around to the milk house, where they could watch Byrd eating in the main house. Byrd’s rifle was leaning outside the front door. One deputy made a run across the yard to grab the gun. As soon as he laid hands on it, Byrd appeared in the doorway.

“Hands up,” shouted posse member George Burley, training his rifle on Byrd’s forehead. Byrd hesitated.

“Hands up now or I’ll shoot your black heart full of holes!” yelled Burley.

Byrd complied and the man who had terrorized the Dishman-Mica Peak area was led off in handcuffs. When the prisoner rolled through Dishman in a wagon, an angry crowd gathered, shouting, “Lynch the murderer!” “Kill him!” and “Drag him out!”

“Just unhandcuff me and hand me my old gun,” Byrd advised the deputies – that would get the crowd to disperse. The deputies declined.

In a jailhouse interview that afternoon, Byrd said that his first two victims had “threatened to kill me on sight, so I went out and beat them to it.” He was later convicted of second-degree murder.

Also on this date

(From the Associated Press)

1966: The Supreme Court ruled in Miranda v. Arizona that criminal suspects had to be informed of their right to an attorney and to remain silent.