For instance, Billy’s younger siblings swore he was home all afternoon on the day of the murder. The defense sought to establish an alibi for Martin to undercut the prosecution’s circumstantial case. Martin’s trial began on February 7, 1880, in the Laclede County Circuit Court, and a long line of witnesses paraded to the stand during the proceedings. The authorities also arrested his mother for supposedly encouraging him in the crime, but she was released on bond and later found not guilty. He was arrested in July and formally indicted during the August term of the circuit court. After weeks of inquiry into the case a coroner’s jury finally charged Billy Martin with murder, based largely on the threats he had made. George fell mortally wounded and died as soon as Tom reached him. On June 9 George Mizer was plowing a field near his house with brother Tom when a shot rang out from a nearby patch of woods. The feud caused a rift between George and his sister, Sarah Jane Martin, who naturally took her son’s side in the argument. (This was presumably a reference to the Prewitt case.) Billy denied talking about Anna, and the argument grew so heated the two men had to be restrained.Ī few days later Martin reportedly told a neighbor that if Mizer didn’t leave him alone and stop mistreating Anna, he would hurt George “the worst he was ever hurt.” Martin added he had lain in jail before and could do it again. Billy himself had reportedly boasted he could do anything he wanted with Anna.Ĭonfronting his nephew on June 4 at the Mizer farm north of Lebanon, George warned Billy he knew enough to hang him, and if Billy didn’t stop spreading rumors about Anna, he would tell authorities what he knew. George and his wife, Anna (also called Ann), both in their mid-20s, had, according to her later testimony, experienced “several little difficulties.” In truth, George had threatened to divorce Anna and take their kids because he suspected her of being intimate with several young men. Martin had scarcely gotten clear of the Prewitt scrape before he got into a quarrel with his uncle, George Mizer. The authorities arrested Martin and charged him with murder, but a court acquitted him in February 1879. In the row that followed, Billy killed Charles and wounded Jesse. One of the Prewitts grabbed a pitchfork, and Martin pulled a pistol. He was working on a farm northwest of Lebanon, Mo., when he renewed an old argument with brothers Jesse and Charles Prewitt. ![]() Martin’s misadventures began in the summer of 1878 when he was 18. Louis newspaper called the sensational romance “stranger than fiction.” More than 130 years later Harlequin might still find it hard to top. In September 1881, after 21-year-old fugitive William Franklin Martin was captured in Tennessee and returned to Missouri to face a murder charge, the startling story of his escape with the help of the Laclede County sheriff’s 16-year-old niece, and the love-struck pair’s hasty marriage while on the run together, made headlines across the country. Thanks to his sweetheart, the sheriff’s niece, he strolled out of jail. Desperado Billy Martin Grew Desperate Indeed When Sentenced to the Gallows | HistoryNet Close
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