Shades of the Old Wild West

The weather was chilly in remote Okanogan County, Washington on November 17, 1936, with nighttime temperatures below freezing in the high country. Trouble that had been brewing for quite some time came to a head in the afternoon. Stockman Bob Neil had discovered a number of his steers mingled with those of his son-in-law, Robert Minton. Bad blood had developed between Neil and the Mintons soon after Robert had married Bob’s daughter Margaret. Much of that seemed to have been fomented by Robert’s father, Charles Robert, often referred to as “C.R.”

No one could tell if Bob’s stock had been “encouraged” to wander, but now he asked a neighbor to help him “cut the critters out of the herd.” The neighbor did not have a horse right then, but said he’d come along on foot to drift animals back towards Bob’s range.

Not long after Bob rode on ahead, the neighbor heard a flurry of gunshots. Moments later, the cattleman came back. He stated that C.R. had apparently been waiting for him, and ordered Bob off “his” land. Bob complied, but either didn’t move fast enough or perhaps took the wrong route. Thus, C.R. cut him off along the trail and started at him, brandishing a large butcher knife. Bob produced a revolver and, when C.R. refused to back down, shot him four times. The wounded man died shortly after medical help arrived.

Robert H. Neil was born March 26, 1873, somewhere in Texas. He thus grew to manhood during the period when the so-called “Wild West” era flourished and then faded. (Historians consider 1895 as roughly the end of that era.) Thus, this affray on the range quite likely evoked a sense of tragic déjà vu. 

Tunk Creek Scenery. Real Estate photo.

Bob Neil first appeared in public records in 1909, when he filed on a homestead in Okanogan County, near Tunk Creek. Tiny Riverside was about five miles to the southwest, but the nearest city of any size, Spokane, was over 110 miles away. The holding included Bob Neal Lake as a water source and proved suitable for stock raising. (Over the years, different reports would alternative between the two spellings of the last name.)

Neil married and began raising a family in 1916, when he was over forty years old. Daughter Margaret married Robert Minton in April 1935; she was 18 years old, he was 21.

Robert (actually “Charles Robert,” like his father) was born near Los Angeles. His father had been born in Salem, Oregon, in 1894. He studied briefly at Willamette University, but married Ada Leggett in 1913. They moved to Los Angeles within a few years. There, C.R. tried his hand as a blacksmith, salesman, waiter, restaurant operator, and wholesale flower raiser. By 1930, C.R. and Ada had four sons, including Robert, Jr.

The Minton family moved to Washington after 1930, but it’s unclear exactly when. Nor do we know how Margaret and Robert met. Soon after Margaret and Robert got married, Bob Neil had turned over a small herd of cattle to the couple. Details of the accompanying contract are unknown, but they were to share costs and profits from the venture. The deal became a bone of contention almost immediately. Reports note that C.R. and Robert filed “numerous” lawsuits against Bob, and even started proceedings to have him declared insane.

All of that failed, but Margaret told her father that they still had plans “to drive him off his Tunk Creek homestead.” In fact, in January 1936, after less than nine months of marriage, Margaret filed for divorce. However, the couple somehow patched things up and she did not follow through at that time.

The harassment continued, C.R. taking the lead. In fact, the elder Minton proved himself to be a contentious fellow all around. That fall, a few weeks before the situation exploded, a neighbor gave C.R. a ride, headed into Riverside. Then, for reasons known only to himself, C.R. began to bad-mouth the driver’s son-in-law. The diatribe escalated to the point that the driver finally told C.R. to get out and walk.

Now, of course, his argumentative nature had gotten him shot and killed. A hearing quickly freed Bob on his plea of self-defense. However, a second hearing was called when C.R.’s widow made the claim that the cattleman had planted the knife at the scene. That assertion could not be verified, so authorities again dropped the murder charge. However, evidence did show that C.R. had been shot with a revolver, not a rifle, as Bob had initially stated. This information was surely provided by criminologist Luke S. May, who logged this case as a firearms investigation.

Bob admitted that he had indeed used a handgun. Oddly enough, although Bob served at times as a deputy sheriff, he did not have a weapons permit for the revolver. In fact, testimony would confirm that it was only a coincidence that Bob had the gun with him. Earlier on the day of the shooting, he had basically confiscated the revolver from his oldest son, who worked for a nearby cattleman. The son didn’t have a permit either, but liked to carry the gun out on the range, apparently just for the glamor of the thing. Bob spent five months in jail on the weapons charge. And that seemed to be the end of it.

However, a year after the shooting, newspapers reported that the Washington state attorney general had opened his own investigation. That action was quickly identified as a test of a statute recently passed by the state legislature. The new law allowed the state office to proceed when they thought local authorities had made an error. Reporters soon learned that officials in Olympia had received several anonymous letters, purporting to offer “new evidence” about the case.

Finally, in late March 1938, the AG demanded that local officials file a first degree murder charge against Robert H. Neil. The county prosecutor said, basically, “Sure … after you show us this new evidence.” Taking full advantage of the new law, the state filed the charge themselves. So far as one can tell now, state officials never did share the information that led to their preemptive action. In fact, there seems have been no effort made to identify the source(s) of the letters.

At the subsequent trial, witnesses split on whether or not Bob Neil had actually threatened to “get” C.R. Minton. One or two said he did. More said he expressed anger and frustration about Minton’s harassment, but made no threats of bodily harm. Of course, Bob had already admitted to shooting the victim. It does not appear that the defense raised the issue of how Neil could get a fair trial, given the huge publicity generated by the state’s actions.

In any case, the jury issued a guilty verdict – perhaps deciding that four gunshots were just too many for a case of simple self-defense. Neil was sentenced to life in prison. A week later, Bob said he would not have his lawyers contest the verdict, although he was sure they’d win an appeal. He told a reporter, “I am an old man, and I’m tired.” He was, of course, 65 years old at that point. Moreover, three years of almost nonstop litigation, first against the Mintons and then in criminal court, had left him flat broke. He died five years later.

The result devastated the Neil family. Less than two weeks after Bob’s no-appeal declaration, Margaret was granted a divorce from her husband. Where she went after that can not be determined. At the 1940 census, Bob’s wife was listed as an “inmate” at the Okanogan County Poor House. The oldest son, working as a poorly-paid cowboy and farm hand, could do nothing to help her. She died in 1947. The youngest son simple disappeared from available public records.

The Minton family gained nothing from the dispute either. All but the youngest son returned to Los Angeles to eke out meager livings during and after the war. The youngest apparently went to live with relatives in Oregon or southwestern Washington.
                                                                                

References: Luke S. May, Luke S. May Papers, Special Collections, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington (1969).

“[Neil-Minton Shooting News],” Seattle Times, Bellingham Herald, Spokesman-Review, Spokane, Washington (January 1936 – July 1938).

David Wilma, “Okanogan County — Thumbnail History,” Online Encyclopedia of Washington State History, HistoryLink.org, Seattle, Washington (January 21, 2006).

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Puzzling Countryside Murders

Double-killer Paul Staren was a deadly enigma. He was apparently born around 1885, in a part of Poland then controlled by Russia. If his later statements can be believed, he came to the U.S. in 1914. That was perhaps to avoid being mobilized to fight for Russia in World War I. However, immigration records for that general period do not list any matches to “Paul Staren,” “Paul Staroń,” or any reasonable variant. (“Staroń,” is a known Polish surname, while “Staren” is not.) Thus, one may infer that Staren might not have been his real name.

Staren’s first five years in the U.S. are another mystery. In fact, nothing about his life before the summer of 1919 can be verified. We do know he was a fervent Anarchist with Bolshevik leanings. He also became a strong supporter of the International Workers of the World union, the “Wobblies,” an organization with deep Anarchist roots. And, at some point, he made his way to the Pacific Northwest. There, his only known employment was as a transient laborer. He blamed a skewed foot on an injury incurred preparing grade for a new stretch of railroad.

Paul Staren. Seattle Star News Photo.

Staren also did farm work near places like Othello, Washington. In 1920, Othello existed mainly because the railroad needed a watering stop. The nearest town of any size was Yakima, about 66 miles to the west-southwest. The Harry Gregg ranch, east of Othello, was even more remote. Yet on the evening of September 29, a masked stranger appeared at their door. He brandished an automatic pistol, tied Harry to a chair, and ordered Mrs. Gregg about in what sounded like a Germanic accent.

When Harry squirmed to loosen his bonds, the intruder shot him three times, then stabbed him. Mrs. Gregg tried to protect her husband, so the assailant shot her too. Still, she managed to attack him with a chair. Then, when he turned to flee, she marked the back of the head with a chunk of concrete. Despite her wounds, Mrs. Gregg got the word out and, by the next morning, bands of armed men were combing the hills for the shooter. Despite all that, the fugitive vanished.

Born in Missouri, in 1880, Harry Gregg moved to Washington some time after 1900. He was appointed postmaster of the Othello post office in 1906, the same year he married Essie May Chavis. It’s not clear how long he remained postmaster, but in 1910 he was buyer for a grain company. By 1920, the couple owned the ranch outside of Othello and had two sons and two daughters. Sadly, the children lost their father on October 2, 1920. Luckily, Essie Gregg recovered from her wounds. A total of $3,000 in rewards was offered for leads, but nothing came of that.

A strange event in late October offered short-lived hope. Authorities discovered the body of a man who had shot himself floating in the Columbia River just 20 miles from Othello. His clothing, general appearance, and age matched the killer “in every detail.” However, he had shot himself with a cheap .38-caliber revolver. By now, criminologist Luke S. May had identified the Gregg death weapon as a .25-20 automatic pistol. A couple weeks after the body was found, the suicide victim was proved to not be the shooter. The case went cold at that point.

The breakthrough began two years later, at the Joseph Bongiorni ranch near Wilson Creek. About 40 miles due north of the Gregg tragedy, the Wilson Creek place was even further from any large town. Spokane, the closest, was about 80 miles away.

Originally from Italy, the Bongiorni family immigrated to the U.S. in 1900-1903, settling first in Connecticut. August Bongiorni, fourth child of Antonio and Teresa, was born there in April 1905. Five years later, the couple – with a brood that had grown to seven – were living on a farm about 14 miles northeast of Everett, Washington. The household included Antonio’s brothers, Joseph and John.

Joseph, Antonio, Teresa, and the children moved to Wilson Creek within a year or so. But Antonio died in early 1915. Joseph must have married his brother’s widow soon after that, because they had two children in the three years following. By 1920, they would have had quite a large family at home.

Paul Staren worked for Joe Bongiorni during the haying season of 1919, and may have done so again in 1921. For 1922, we know that he had a job in August and early September at a ranch about 25 miles southwest Spokane. The rancher’s teenage daughter told a reporter that she had talked to him a number of times. She found him rather scary: “The mere mention of government or religion would send him into a fury.”

In any case, on the evening of September 19, a man wearing a rudimentary mask strode into the yard of the Bongiorni ranch. He never explained why he shot and instantly killed seventeen-year-old August. Perhaps he was simply keyed up. When Joseph rushed out to see what was going on, the intruder shot him three times. He emptied his automatic into the ranch house door, then tried to drag a daughter outside. But, as in the Gregg instance, the mother drove him off with an impromptu club. The ranch had no phone, so one of the sons rode for help.

Again, armed men went out in force to track the shooter. Finally, a railroad conductor spotted him near a train stop about ten miles east of the ranch. Taken into custody, Paul Staren freely admitted that he had shot August Bongiorni. He said he actually meant to kill Joe, although he expressed no particular regret that he’d got the wrong victim. Under state law, a confessed murderer had to undergo a trial, allowing a jury to assess the evidence and decide between a prison sentence or death.

The only real surprise came when widow Essie Gregg appeared to finger Staren as the man who killed her husband two years before. She apparently saw press photos and recognized him from the exposed upper part of his face. One clincher was a scar on the back his head, which she had inflicted with the thrown chunk of concrete. Also, although authorities apparently did not have Luke May do a microscopic bullet comparison, the make and model of the .25-20 death weapon matched that of the Gregg shooting. Staren conceded nothing, but did not deny the shooting either.

The jury chose the death penalty, but Staren cheated the public hangman. A few weeks before his scheduled execution, he hanged himself with a strip from his bed sheet.

His death left two mysteries unsolved. He did seem to have a set modus operandi (MO). Both locations were far from large towns, where there might be professional law enforcement. The target ranches were isolated and neither had telephone service. Yet both were within two or three miles of a rail line. That was how Staren tried to get away after the Bongiorni hit, and almost certainly how he escaped after the Gregg murder.

In any case, the most obvious puzzle was his motive. Why did he kill? He said nothing about the Gregg murder, of course. He claimed Joe Bongiorni had shorted him on his pay back in 1919 … all of $5-6 out of a few hundred dollars. Who would commit murder over that? Besides that, Joe’s wife remembered Staren, but could not recall any dispute over wages.

Perhaps Staren saw Harry and Joe as personifications of hated religion and oppressive authority. Joe was the patriarch of a large family, and committed to the Roman Catholic church. The Gregg family was smaller, but still included a wife and four minor children. And the Greggs were apparently strong adherents of the Churches of Christ. In 1906, they had traveled over 60 miles to be married by an Elder in Ritzville … no small matter since Othello had no railroad service at that time.

Such a “psychological” motive is only speculation. But at least it offers a reason, however warped, for murders that otherwise make no sense.

The second mystery has to do with Staren’s financial situation. He carried bank books that showed at least two fairly recent deposits of over a thousand dollars each. After his death, authorities were able to locate and verify an estate of around $1,116. In terms of today’s pay scales, that’s equivalent to over $65,000 … roughly four times what a minimum-wage employee now earns annually. Even after Staren became known to authorities, he was never implicated in any major hold-ups or burglaries. How could a man typically earning just $2-4 a day at short-duration jobs accumulate so much money?

A year after the Bongiorni murder, an arsonist set fire to five huge stacks of alfalfa at the ranch. The entire season’s production went up in smoke, leaving the family practically destitute. The close timing – “almost to the hour” when August was shot the year before – made people wonder if the two events were somehow connected. Staren might have been part of some dark conspiracy, which paid him for sabotage or murder. Was this their revenge?

In the end, we have no answers to any of these questions.
                                                                                

References: Census and immigration records, city directory listings, and other genealogical sources were consulted extensively. Online sources included Ancestry.com and others.

“[Bongiorni Murder News],” Seattle Star, Seattle Times, Spokane Chronicle, Spokesman-Review, Spokane, Washington; The Oregonian, Portland, Oregon (September 1922 – September 1923).

“[Gregg Murder News],” Seattle Star, Tacoma Ledger, Spokane Chronicle, Washington (October 4 – November 8, 1920).

Luke S. May, Luke S. May Papers, Special Collections, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington (1969).

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Murder On A Train

Friday, September 19, 1930. The evening weather was chilly in Shelby, Montana, located almost 75 miles north and slightly west of Great Falls. Nighttime temperatures would drop to a few degrees above freezing. A couple dozen transient workers and casual drifters huddled around a bonfire near the Great Northern Railway yard. Among them were three men whose future would soon be tragically intertwined.

Shelby was a junction town, and “travelers” could snag a freight car going north, south, east, or west. Rail companies around the country differed in how they approached such freeloaders. On some, railroad “bulls” – company policemen – enforced strict “no ride” policies. But here, on the sparsely populated high plains, it was in the company’s interest to allow these men to ride. Most were following the harvest, which required a major influx of seasonal workers. No harvest meant no business for the railroad … hauling products out and bringing supplies in.

John Joseph Wright sought a ride south. His sister later said he might go to Canada, but perhaps he had missed the harvest peak there. A transplanted Englishman, Wright had served with the Royal Engineers in France during the Great War, attaining the rank of sergeant. He earned the Military Medal for gallantry, as well as two other lesser awards. After the war, he lived in a distant suburb of Manchester. (A full biography of Sergeant Wright can be found here.) Wright moved to the U.S. in 1921 and found work as a mechanic with a Packard automobile dealership in Chicago.

However, two years later, he was felled by an illness that rendered him unconscious for 54 days. Although doctors in Chicago did not identify the malady, his symptoms point to a case of Encephalitis lethargica. A substantial epidemic occurred during and after World War I, and Manchester, England was one of the harder hit areas. Estimates suggest that up to a third of all known cases ended in death.

While some made a full recovery, many ended up like Wright, with symptoms much like Parkinson’s Disease. He could no longer work as a mechanic, probably due to tremors, halting mobility, unusual fatigue, and memory problems. He also had speech difficulties and impaired hearing, and was very sensitive to artificial light. A sad come-down for a man of such valor and promise.

The men who preyed on him were at the opposite end of the spectrum. Thomas H. Groves, a native of Maryland, lied about his age and joined the U.S. Marines in early 1912, when he was seventeen years old. There, he had discipline problems and left the service after two years. Then he used a false name to join the Texas National Guard, but lasted only about five months in that organization. He later claimed that his crippled left hand was caused by an injury during the Great War, but there is no evidence to support that assertion.

His activities after about 1917 cannot be reliably traced. However, when he was captured in Montana, he at first gave authorities a fake name. An exhaustive newspaper search, using various aliases, suggests that Groves compiled quite a record in the interim: Petty theft in North Dakota; liquor and morals charges in Anaconda, Montana; and dealing drugs in Washington. He may have spent time in federal prison on a narcotics charges. All that was probably just the proverbial “tip of the iceberg.”

Harry E. Miller. Montana Prison Records.

 Groves’ accomplice, Harry E. Miller, was born in Illinois, in 1909. His divorced or widowed mother apparently couldn’t, or wouldn’t, handle him. Thus, he spent time in an Illinois orphanage and then an Iowa reform school before he was fifteen years old. By the time he was twenty, he had made his way to Seattle, where he was jailed on a disorderly conduct charge. He had a California license as a truck driver when he was captured in Montana. However, the most recent employment he could recall was as a waiter, for nine days, in Los Angeles.

The two said they had met around 1927, but they apparently did not team up until later. In 1930, they got together in North Dakota and began to make their way west. Thus, they too boarded the freight headed to Great Falls. Soon after the train left Shelby, Groves and Miller moved ahead over the cars and and began robbing other riders. One man hesitated when told to jump off, so Groves fired a shot from an automatic pistol to hurry him along.

The crooks continued forward and found Wright in another car. With his disabilities, the Englishman was probably slow to respond. Thus, the impatient Groves fired three shots, at least two of which hit their victim, killing him almost instantly. Wright had no money on him whatsoever.

The killers left the train at the first stop. Wright’s body was discovered shortly after that and an alert was transmitted to authorities from the next stop. His medals were found among his personal effects, so the front page headline in the Great Falls Tribune read, “Train Bandits Slay English Hero.”

The two crooks headed for Fort Benton on foot, getting car rides when they could. They were captured about twenty miles from their goal. As noted earlier, Groves first gave officials an alias. However, he soon admitted to his real name. Most importantly, he still had the automatic pistol in his possession, and said he had owned it for at least two years.

The Great Falls posts of the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) conducted the funeral service for Wright. He was buried in the soldiers’ plot in the local Highland Cemetery. His medals were returned to his mother back in England.

The murder trials of Groves and Miller were held in December. Victims of the robberies identified the two from their clothing, build, and glimpses of their features. But the firearms work of private criminologist Luke S. May provided the crucial link. The Luke May Papers did not contain a lot about this case, but his findings can be recreated from newspaper and court reports.

By this time, May had handled more than 140 death cases, over ninety of which involved firearms. He could use so-called “class characteristics” – visible marks left by rifling and other design features – to identify the make and model of every commonly used firearm in the world. The death weapon was a 7.65 mm pistol of Spanish or French make. Groves loaded it with .32-caliber ammunition made in the U.S., a close-enough fit.

“Individual characteristics” – microscopic scratches and impressions unique to a given firearm – verified that Groves’ pistol had fired the fatal shots. May then presented greatly enlarged photographic images to explain the matches to the jury.

May was also an expert in bullet trajectory and wound analysis. Evidence showed that Wright had his arms upright, or at least out, when he was shot – as expected for someone being robbed. By law, all perpetrators of a felony when a death occurs are equally culpable. Thus, both Groves, the shooter, and Miller, the accomplice, were convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to life in prison.
                                                                                

References: Dr. Ava Easton, Encephalitis Lethargica, Encephalitis Society, North Yorkshire, United Kingdom (April 2014).

Paul Bernard Foley, “Encephalitis lethargica … epidemiology and symptoms,” Journal of Neural Transmission, Vol. 116, No. 10, Springer Science, Switzerland (October 2009) p. 1295-1308.

Luke S. May, Luke S. May Papers, Special Collections, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington (1969).

Richard Nelson, Killed By Bandits: The Story of John Joseph Wright M. M., blog, gm1914.wordpress.com (January 26, 2017).

“[Possible Arrests of Groves Under Aliases],” Grand Forks Herald, North Dakota; Spokane Chronicle, Washington; Anaconda Standard, Montana Standard, Butte, Independent-Record, Helena, Montana (August 1920 – December 1928).

State v. Miller, 9 P.2d 474 Montana (March 21, 1932).

“[Wright Murder Case],” Independent-Record, Helena, Billings Gazette, Great Falls Tribune, Montana; Standard-Examiner, Ogden, Utah (September 1930 – March 1932).

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