Was Tom Horn really guilty or was he just drunk at the time of the shooting?
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By most accounts, people believe he is innocent, although there is no way of knowing 100%. The case was retried in 1993 (unofficially), and he was found not guilty.
shareDid he have any reason at all to kill a young boy??? Or could he have, like some people, been just plain mean. I like to think it was a frame up by some enemy.
shareHe was employed by the cattle barons to murder anybody they did not like. They did not like Kels Nickell (my grandfather's grandfather). The cattle barons wanted Kels murdered. I doubt if Tom Horn intentionally went out to shoot 14-year-old Willie in the back. Tom Horn was a good shot & could murder from an ambush far enough away that the identity of his victim was not certain. At a distance, a boy wearing a raincoat & hat probably looked no different than a man wearing the same outfit. Those bullets were probably meant for Kels Nickell.
shareIt's pretty obvious that Marshall Belle did the shooting. Did you forget his line "What you were in the Southwest I was in the Northwest". Also how did the Marshall know that the shot was exactly 213 yards??
sharewikipedia has a ton of info on tom horn, very interesting, it is up in the air whether he was guilty or not, he was probably sick of life anyway and not too sad that his was coming to an end....but i speculate.
shareThe History channel just did a WONDERFUL story on Tom Horn. I mean really good. They did a retrial in Cheyenne, and the jury aquited Tom Horn.
Seems he was abinge drinker. Not when on the job or out on range.
Didhavesome quirks.
Really
I think he may be the first serial killer and ob a soci path.
That is the image Igot.
Rotten family life, father beats him freq and bloddy, he takes off to cowboy at early age. Seemed a good man until Pinkertons got him. then he went "dark".
I would love to see a good honest movie about this man
Yes, I love Steve M but a movie aboutthe real man, not a hollywood story version.
caydj
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Good info
Thank you
Sorry about horrible typing. my computer keys are sticking. Wont tell you why> but just plugged on keyboard and did not look at poor spelling, grammer.
Sorry board.
I really do have a brain
caydj
I am sure the family member of the murdered boy probably has it as close as possible. From what I have read and remember about the movie, the boy was wearing his father's coat and hat which happened often when one goes outside in cold weather. Whoever did the shooting from that far away probably would not have been able to tell the difference. Horn probably would have been able to tell the difference but not many others could have.
shareIn real life, who knows? But in the movie there is no evidence of Horn's guilt. As he says, if he had done it, it would have been the greatest shot ever. The boy was guarding sheep and they certainly were not rustled so what is Horn's motive?. The gun that was used would not be the one to use over that distance and Horn knew that. He explained the reason he chose to use a rifle that was less accurate over distance, so were he to use that weapon there was no apparent reason to shoot from so far away. In any case, in the movie Joe Belle deliberately set Horn up to hang him with his own words, but as we see the words quoted at trial were not those spoken by Horn. Horn was too drunk at the time to remember exactly what he said so he could not say if the quotes were accurate, but we know they were not.
shareI agree from what's on the screen, Horn probably was not guilty, but simply tired of fighting everyone and every thing. When the teacher dumps him, it seems the last of his motives to live evaporated. I noticed she did keep the horse, though.
The implied motive for killing a sheep man was the earlier statement as to how the sheep were "eatin' our grass." So I took it the sheep men were another target identified by the cattle association.