While the Wild West wasn’t quite the world of gunslingers and desperadoes portrayed in movies, it was still a dangerous place. With law enforcement often miles away, criminals flourished, and people were left to take matters into their own hands—often with terrifying results.
10 The People Under The Floor
In 1870, a traveler found himself trekking through the desolate New Mexico mountains when he stumbled upon a sturdy wooden cabin at the base of the Palo Flechado pass. The proprietor, introducing himself as Charles Kennedy, welcomed the stranger inside for a meal.
As Kennedy’s Ute wife served the dinner, the visitor sat beside the couple’s young son and inquired whether any other Native Americans were nearby. The boy glanced back momentarily and replied, “Can’t you smell the one Papa put under the floor?”
The unwary wanderer had walked straight into the den of one of the West’s most infamous killers. Charles Kennedy is credited with murdering at least fourteen travelers who paused at his secluded homestead. After shooting the newcomer, Kennedy brutally beat his own son to death for nearly sounding the alarm.
The tragedy proved too much for Kennedy’s wife, who slipped away while her husband was intoxicated and made her way to Elizabethtown, where she confessed everything. After the grisly evidence emerged, townsfolk dragged Kennedy behind a horse until he perished, then mounted his severed head on a stake outside the local inn.
9 Clay Allison’s War Dance
The mob that ultimately butchered Charles Kennedy was led by Clay Allison, a violent local vigilante whose body count may have eclipsed that of the serial killer he helped execute. In one notorious incident, Allison attempted to settle a petty dispute by digging a grave and suggesting a knife fight inside it—saving himself the trouble of moving a defeated opponent’s corpse.
Allison earned a fearsome reputation as a central figure in the Colfax County War, a massive land conflict that resulted in up to two hundred murders. Early in the war, he organized the lynching of a constable he suspected of moonlighting as an assassin. When that constable’s uncle sought vengeance, Allison ambushed and shot him dead inside a local saloon. Legend has it that after the deed, he stripped naked, tied a red ribbon around his genitals, and performed a macabre “war dance” around the scene.
8 The Going Snake Fight
The precise trigger for the bloodbath that left eleven men dead in Judge Blackhawk Sixkiller’s courtroom at Going Snake remains unclear. Whatever ignited the conflict, it erupted in 1872 when Zeke Proctor rode up to Jim Kesterton’s mill and opened fire. The miller survived his wounds, but his wife, Polly Beck, was struck by a stray bullet and killed.
The murder occurred within the Cherokee Nation, and both Proctor and Beck were Cherokee. It seemed logical that the Cherokee courts would handle the case. However, Proctor hailed from a well‑connected family and belonged to the powerful Keetoowah Society. Consequently, the Becks argued they could not obtain a fair hearing in Indian Territory and petitioned to have the case transferred to the federal court at Fort Smith. When that request was denied, a group of Becks stormed the courtroom and opened fire.
The assault quickly turned disastrous for the Becks, who found themselves trapped in the doorway of the windowless courtroom. Zeke Porter somehow produced a firearm and returned fire, as did several guards. What began as a planned massacre devolved into a nightmarish close‑range battle. In total, eleven men perished: seven Becks, two Proctors, a lawyer, and a U.S. marshal. The participants scattered, and no one was ever convicted for the incident.
7 The Crusade Of Felipe Espinosa
Felipe Espinosa was a petty criminal who harbored deep resentment toward the influx of Anglo‑American settlers into 19th‑century Colorado. He also belonged to the Penitentes, a local Catholic brotherhood notorious for self‑whipping and other forms of self‑mutilation. When American troops attempted to arrest him for banditry, Felipe declared a personal war on the Protestant interlopers.
Accompanied first by his brother Vivian and later by his nephew José, Felipe roamed the Colorado mountains, slaughtering every Anglo he encountered. Some of the victims were discovered with a cross carved into their chests. Felipe sent taunting letters to the governor, urging him to inquire whether anyone had ever “killed as many men as the Espinosas. We have killed thirty‑two.” Despite a massive manhunt that resulted in Vivian’s death, Felipe remained elusive. In a letter to his wife, he boasted:
They have hands and cannot touch me;
They have feet and cannot catch me;
They have eyes and cannot hear me;
They have ears and cannot hear me.
The desperate government finally hired famed mountain man Tom Tobin, who tracked Felipe and José through the Sangre de Cristos and personally killed both in a bloody clash near the summit of Mount Mestas. Tobin then returned to Fort Garland and collected his bounty by dumping Felipe Espinosa’s severed head before the shocked colonel who had hired him.
6 The Cowboy Cop Of El Paso
In 1881, El Paso, Texas, appointed the legendary gunfighter Dallas Stoudenmire as its new marshal. He swiftly cleaned up the town, but his methods involved a reign of terror in which he killed numerous locals in shoot‑outs. Rumor had it that he used the church bell for target practice and was often visibly drunk. When the town council attempted to dismiss him, Stoudenmire stormed in and dared them to try taking his guns.
Stoudenmire’s most famous gunfight occurred just three days after assuming his post. The “Four Dead in Five Seconds” showdown began when a local ruffian named John Hale grabbed a gun from his friend George Campbell and killed one of Stoudenmire’s constables. Stoudenmire instantly drew his pistols and gunned down Hale, a random bystander, and Campbell (who was loudly proclaiming he wanted nothing to do with the fight).
Campbell had been friends with the wealthy Manning brothers, who hired a man named Bill Johnson to assassinate Stoudenmire in revenge. Unfortunately for Johnson, he discharged his shotgun prematurely, allowing Stoudenmire to whirl around and shoot his testicles off. Johnson bled to death, and Stoudenmire remained in El Paso until he died in a shoot‑out with the Manning brothers eighteen months later.
5 The Horrible Horrells
The Horrell Brothers were a nightmarish family of cowboys who committed some of the Old West’s most heinous atrocities. In 1873 they murdered five policemen in a Texas bar and fled to Lincoln County, New Mexico. Shortly after arriving, Ben Horrell drunkenly gunned down another lawman, only to be killed in turn by a local posse. Ben’s killers were mostly of Mexican descent, and the remaining Horrells decided to exact revenge on the entire Hispanic community.
The ensuing race war began with the murder of two Mexican Americans on the Horrell ranch. A few weeks later, the Horrells burst into a wedding reception and slaughtered four guests. Local Hispanics armed themselves and seized the hills surrounding the Horrell property, but the Horrells withstood a brief siege and escaped before the ranch was burned to the ground. Recruiting a gang of Texans, they rode through the countryside massacring random Mexicans (and at least one Anglo married to a Mexican woman).
The killings ceased when local authorities requested military assistance, prompting the Horrells to flee back to Texas. Official estimates place the death toll at least twenty‑nine people in the “war.”
4 The Horrell‑Higgins Feud
After returning to Lampasas, Texas, the Horrells secured a jury of their old cronies and were promptly acquitted of the New Mexico murders. However, the crimes would catch up with them in a different way. In 1877, Merritt Horrell died in a bar fight with rancher “Pink” Higgins. Since everyone remembered the massacres triggered by Ben Horrell’s death, the terrified Higgins family decided they had no choice but to strike first.
In March, the Higgins clan ambushed Tom and Mart Horrell on their way to court. But they were no match for a hardened killer like Mart Horrell, who stood over his wounded brother and single‑handedly drove off the attackers. By June, Lampasas had become a miniature war zone as the feuding families battled each other throughout the town.
The Texas Rangers ended the feud by forcing the clans to sign a “peace treaty.” Astonishingly, the Horrells were allowed to continue their criminal ways for another year, until Mart and Tom were murdered by an enraged mob, apparently incited by Pink Higgins.
3 The Bascom Incident
In 1860, the inexperienced Lieutenant George Bascom was ordered to retrieve a young boy who had been kidnapped in a Native American raid. Bascom mistakenly believed the Chiricahua Apache were responsible and rode off to find their leader, Cochise. Meanwhile, Cochise had no idea he was being hunted and simply rode into Bascom’s camp for a visit one day, accompanied by his wife and son.
A ridiculous conversation ensued, with Bascom making all sorts of threats unless the boy was returned immediately, and a frustrated Cochise insisting that he didn’t have the boy and therefore couldn’t return him. Bascom then announced that he was taking Cochise and his family prisoner, at which point Cochise whipped out a knife, sliced through the side of the tent, and sprinted out of the camp with bullets whizzing around him.
Bascom still had Cochise’s wife and son hostage, so the Apaches attacked a wagon train, tortured eight Mexicans to death, and kidnapped four Americans as bargaining chips. However, Bascom stubbornly refused to make the trade unless the kidnapped boy was included. In a fury, Cochise slaughtered his hostages and retreated. After some consultation, the Americans hanged most of their own hostages and likewise retreated. The ensuing war lasted a decade and killed thousands.
2 The Death Of Mangas Coloradas
The brutality of the war sparked by the Bascom Incident can be seen in the death of Mangas Coloradas. While the American Civil War raged, the Apaches drove white settlers out of most of southern Arizona. However, reinforcements began arriving as the war in the east wound down and it became clear that the Apaches couldn’t hold out forever. Cochise’s father‑in‑law, the great chief Mangas Coloradas, decided to try to negotiate peace.
When the chief rode up with a flag of truce, General Joseph West immediately had him arrested. He then took the guards aside and told them that the “old murderer … has left a trail of blood for 500 miles on the old stage line. I want him dead or alive tomorrow morning, do you understand? I want him dead.”
That night, the guards entered the room where the chief was being held, tortured him with red‑hot bayonets, scalped him with a cooking knife, and then shot him dead “while trying to escape.” The war would rage for several more years.
1 Papa Nicetas
In 1870, four individuals settled in Labette County, Kansas, not far from where a young Laura Ingalls Wilder lived with her parents. They called themselves the Benders and claimed to be a family, although the exact nature of their relationship would later be questioned. Ma and Pa Bender spoke only German, but their children were fluent in English, and the family soon turned their one‑bedroom shack into a small inn. They were rumored to practice magic, and Kate Bender became popular locally as a fortune‑teller and spiritualist.
In the years that followed, settlers began to vanish while traveling through Labette County. Body parts started turning up in the countryside, but nobody knew who was responsible. Eventually, locals held a meeting and agreed to form a party to search every house in the area, but this was delayed by bad weather. When the party finally reached the Bender place, the family were long gone.
Underneath the bed, a trapdoor led to a secret basement, where the floor was stained with blood. Eight bodies were found buried in the garden, each with a cut throat and a smashed skull. The Benders were never found, and it’s unknown how many more victims they claimed over the years.