Outskirts Press, INC.

Was Justice Served?

This book was written to document stories of the early pioneers who settled in Yellow Medicine County, Minnesota during the late nineteenth century. The past comes back to life as you read about the struggles, hardships and adventures that many hearty souls endured along the way, as they made an untamed land their home. You’ll read about numerous crimes—including the first and only execution in the county; shootings, stabbings, bludgeonings, poisonings, suicides; and calamities—a mysterious death, a strange disappearance, a train wreck, a bank robbery, a raid on a saloon, and so much more. What went on back then is not much different than what happens today. Crime is still a big part of our society and will continue. The reader will be transported into the past—you will visit the bloody crime scene, you will stand at the gallows and listen to a condemned man’s last words before he drops to his death, you will witness courtroom proceedings and hear the verdict—guilty or not guilty. You will get a glimpse into the justice system of the early nineteenth century, where court conditions and the treatment of both the victim and the accused was quite different from what it is today. Justice existed but was not always served in many of these cases, as you will discover. This book uncovers some gruesome and dastardly deeds of the day and reveals intimate details of personal lives. Crime and calamity is never a pretty picture but it is what happened, and a very important part of the history of a place.

"The door between the kitchen and sitting room was shut but on the kitchen side of the door was a horrible pool of blood about three feet across. Ott opened the door. Louise was lying on the carpet, weltering in another pool of her own blood, while numerous spots of clotted blood, and what seemed to be brains were lying all about her. She was not dead but was breathing heavily and moving about some as if in pain..." from "Beaten With a Billy"