Byron (Low Tax) Looper: Killing The Competition

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Uncontested races for the state legislature were a common sight in Tennessee in the 1998 election. In nine of the 18 races for the state senate, candidates were running unopposed. Fifty-six people running for the state house had the luxury of being the only name up for consideration in their district, meaning more than half of the 99 seats in the chamber would go to people who had not been challenged in their election.

Tommy Burks, the longtime state senator for Tennessee's 15th District, was widely considered a lock for his seat even though he had an opponent. Burks had been in the legislature for nearly three decades. The Democratic candidate had built up a reputation as an honest, hardworking, "salt of the earth" kind of fellow.

His challenger, by contrast, had done little to endear himself to voters. Although Byron Looper had managed to get elected tax assessor for Putnam County two years earlier, his tenure in the office had been marked by chaos, litigation, paranoia, and incompetence. Looper had also been indicted on several counts of official misconduct, and was scheduled to go to trial a month after Election Day. Although he appeared on the Republican ticket simply by signing up for the race, the local GOP apparatus (which had opted not to field a candidate against Burks) had no desire to endorse him.

As such, Burks had spent little if any time campaigning to keep his seat. He didn't take out any political advertisements, and no debates with Looper were scheduled. Burks' friends weren't even sure if he had met his rival. Burks instead spent his time working on his 1,000-acre hog and tobacco farm near the town of Monterey.

On the morning of October 19, 1998, Burks began preparing the farm for a visit from local schoolchildren later in the day. It was an annual ritual, with youngsters getting a chance to enjoy a hayride and take home a pumpkin from Burks' pumpkin patch.

A farmhand working on a trailer would recall that the attack on Burks had happened quickly. A black car drove up to the side of Burks' pickup truck, at which point the farmhand heard a loud "pop" sound. The car then sped off, leaving the farm.

When the farmhand went over to the truck, he found Burks sitting in the driver's seat, dead. The 54-year-old state senator had been shot just above his left eye and killed instantly.

Police investigating the murder soon ruled out a number of possible motives. The farmhand and Burks' wife were quickly discounted as potential suspects. There was no indication that anything in Burks' private life, or any of his sometimes controversial political stances, had prompted someone to kill him out of revenge or anger.

A few days later, police asked for the public's help in locating Burks' opponent in the state senate race. The implication was clear: Looper had the most to gain from Burks' demise, and  may have taken matters into his own hands to ensure that his race would be an uncontested one.

Early life

Byron Anthony Looper was born in Cookeville, Tennessee, on September 15, 1964. He spent only a brief amount of time in the area. The family moved to Georgia when he was still a child after his father, a school superintendent, took a job there. Looper's parents divorced soon after.

Looper began attending West Point in 1983, but had to withdraw from the service academy after he fell from a horse and injured his knee. He was honorably discharged and finished his studies at the University of Georgia.

Soon after returning to Georgia, Looper became politically active. He joined the Young Democrats and was elected president of the group but, in an early sign of Looper's abrasive personality, he was later urged to resign. He made his first electoral attempt in 1988, running unsuccessfully for the state legislature at the age of 23. He then worked as a legislative aide for three years.

Looper's resume becomes somewhat muddled at this point. He reportedly enrolled in the Stetson School of Business and Economics at Mercer University. He spent some time in Puerto Rico, and one former member of the Georgia house of representatives recalled that Looper called him up in the early morning hours one day, saying he intended to sue a law school on the island because it refused to teach one of his classes in English. He settled the matter for a small sum. Looper would also claim that he worked for a Bear Stearns affiliate on Puerto Rico and as an assistant to the president of a university, although the latter institution proved nonexistent.

While Looper's political activities were more limited during these years, he still managed to work on the 1988 presidential campaign of Al Gore, then a senator from Tennessee. Four years later, he also worked on the successful campaign of Bill Clinton where Gore was the vice presidential pick. Looper's associates would later say that he was disappointed that he hadn't been rewarded for his work with a job in the administration.

Putnam County assessor

In the early 1990s, Looper reappeared in Cookeville, switched to the Republican Party, and immediately threw himself into local politics. In the 1994 election, he challenged incumbent state representative Jere Hargrove for his seat. Looper's campaigns would be characterized by blunt attacks and negativity; he frequently vowed to break up what he saw as a "good ole boy" clique of politicians, and publicly accused his opponents of crime and corruption.

At the same time, Looper made some efforts to try to ingratiate himself with these politicians. Hargrove claimed that despite Looper's "undignified" campaign, he later contacted the state representative asking for his help securing a job in the Farmers Home Administration or some federal agency in Puerto Rico.

Two years later, Looper set his sights on the assessor's office for Putnam County. At first, it seemed like another quixotic effort. The incumbent assessor, Bill Rippetoe, had been in office for 14 years. But Rippetoe was facing criticism for recent property reappraisals, and Looper's campaign efforts added raised further recriminations. Although the campaign did not include any public appearances or debates, Looper loudly accused Rippetoe of cutting deals for friends and vowed that he would lower taxes in the county. On Election Day, he earned about 800 more votes than his opponent to secure a narrow victory.

The voters soon discovered that not only was Looper unable to keep his campaign promises, he was also unable to effectively manage the office to which he had been elected. Despite his promise to lower taxes, he had little ability to affect voters' bills since he had no control over the tax rate. One former campaign worker recalled that Looper rarely showed up for work, and that he jetted off to Puerto Rico for a three-week jaunt shortly after taking office.

Others recalled that Looper was a biased, unlikable person in his official role. They said he talked down to Democrats, promised favors to Republicans, and treated the people of eastern Tennessee with a general condescension, acting like he had been sent there to save them from themselves. Employees in the assessor's office fared little better; Looper was prone to insulting them or terminating their employment if he suspected that they were disloyal to him. At one point, Looper became involved in a fistfight between a county taxpayer and one of the workers in the assessor's office.

Early in his term, Looper announced that he had uncovered $100 million in property that wasn't on the tax rolls. The county commission responded that this kind of backlog was not unusual and that the assessor should focus on doing his job instead of finding controversies.

Such grandiose announcements were not unusual for Looper. He had drawn up a list of hundreds of media outlets across Tennessee, and constantly fired off press releases to highlight the work of his office. These communications frequently railed against the alleged "good ole boy" network in the county and bragged that he was the "most educated" assessor in the state.

Looper also began to show signs of rampant paranoia. His employees recalled that he had a video camera installed to record visitors, and hired a security consultant to scour the premises for hidden microphones or listening devices. He also set up a barrier at the back of his office because he was worried that political enemies were recording his conversations. Forty employees were reportedly fired after Looper accused them of spying on him.

In his official capacity, Looper filed several lawsuits against other county agencies. He charged the Putnam County election commission with voting machine irregularities, a curious attack given his own electoral victory. He also sued to demand access to the phone records of the sheriff's office. Not surprisingly, Looper found himself targeted by litigation as well, including former employees suing for wrongful termination and an attorney who accused the assessor of libel.

Looper was also named in a paternity suit by a former girlfriend, who accused him of raping her and illegally transferring ownership of her home to his name by faking the deed. Looper responded with a statement deriding the woman, saying she "left me with heart palpitations, a small box of memorabilia, and a red G-string." When she threatened him with a $1.2 million lawsuit, however, Looper admitted that he was the father of her child.

In March 1998, an indictment charged Looper with 14 criminal charges including theft of services, official oppression for theft, official misconduct, misuse of county property, and misuse of county employees. Among other things, Looper was accused of arbitrarily reassessing the property of a person who refused to contribute to his campaign, soliciting campaign donations from developers in exchange for lower tax assessments, using county funds and workers for his incessant faxing of press releases, failing to assess some land parcels, and removing one taxpayer's property from the rolls in an attempt to make them ineligible for public office.

A trial was scheduled for December. Henry Fincher, a local attorney, immediately began an effort to remove Looper from office, charging him with neglecting his duties while pursuing a personal political agenda.

Murder of Tommy Burks

Tommy Burks had been in the Tennessee state senate for 28 years when he came up for re-election in 1998. He had long balanced his farming duties with his elected ones, waking up before sunrise to tend to his animals and crops before driving about 100 miles along Interstate 40 to the state capitol in Nashville. At the end of the day, he made the same trip home.

Fellow legislators remembered that Burks never missed a day in the senate, even when he had to navigate through treacherous snowstorms. The weather only prevented him from returning home on one occasion. After Burks' death, a stretch of I-40 would be renamed in his honor.

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Although he was a Democrat, Burks had adopted a number of conservative positions which frequently put him at odds with his own party. He was opposed to gambling and the state lottery, and in 1991 sponsored a bill to criminalize abortion in cases where the mother's life was not in danger. He also sponsored a widely derided bill to dismiss Tennessee teachers who taught evolution as fact. Burks' less controversial stances included support for anti-drug programs, public television, and crime victims' rights.

Burks had also sponsored a bill which would publicly shame first-time offenders convicted of driving under the influence, requiring them to pick up roadside trash while wearing orange vests emblazoned with the message "I am a drunk driver." This may have rankled Looper, who had been convicted of DUI in Georgia in 1986 and 1987 and unsuccessfully tried to have the charges expunged from his record.

There was little reason to view Looper's challenge to the popular state senator as anything other than a farce. He had even taken the bizarre step of legally changing his middle name to (Low Tax), parentheses included, and proudly included this moniker on all of his advertising materials. Though he had filed to run against Burks, he had simultaneously joined the race to challenge Representative Bart Gordon, a Democrat, for his House of Representatives seat; Looper abandoned this race after finishing third in the Republican primary. He declared public service to be "the most noble of all pursuits" and voiced his opposition for "big government, high taxes, fast spending, and mollycoddling criminals."

Following Burks' murder, public attention quickly turned to Looper. As the case gained national attention, residents in eastern Tennessee questioned why he seemed to have gone into hiding. It was also considered highly suspicious that Looper hadn't bothered to call Burks' widow, Charlotte, to offer his condolences. The state senator's death had not only left Burks' three daughters without a father, it had also occurred on the birthday of his middle child.

State law spelled out a clear motive for the crime. If a candidate for office died within 40 days of the election, their name could not appear on the ballot. Since Burks had been killed within this window, his name would be removed and Looper's would be the only one legally eligible in the state senate race for the 15th District.

Soon after Burks' murder, local Democrats encouraged Charlotte to mount a write-in campaign to succeed her husband and ensure that Looper wouldn't win by default. Although Republicans needed to flip just two Democratic seats to take control of the state legislature, they backed Charlotte's candidacy and disavowed Looper. Brad Todd, executive director of the Tennessee Republican Party, declared, "We did not recruit Mr. Looper to run for state senate or any other office. We have not assisted his campaign in any material way, nor will we."

On October 24, after a four-day absence, Looper returned to his home. He was promptly arrested, charged with first-degree murder, and held on a $1.5 million bond.

Byron Looper's mugshot following his arrest (Source)

The arrest did not disqualify Looper from the race since he had only been charged with a felony, not convicted. To further complicate matters, he was still the Putnam County tax assessor. From his jail cell, he fired his deputy tax assessor, leaving the office with no one in charge. Two more ouster petitions were filed against him, and the state finally stepped in to remove him in January 1999 after he attempted to keep doing his job while incarcerated.

The strange circumstances of the election generated strong turnout on Election Day. When the ballots were counted, Charlotte had won in an overwhelming landslide: 30,252 votes, or about 93 percent of the ballots cast in the district. It was said to be the first successful write-in campaign in Tennessee.

Charlotte Burks speaking at a legislative breakfast in 2012. (Source)

Looper still managed to collect 1,531 votes, although some of these were no doubt early votes that had been filed before his arrest. However, some of Looper's supporters questioned the motives of investigators, noting that Looper had publicly attacked them in the past. The police were also releasing little information on how they had tied Looper to Burks' murder; this evidence would be presented two years later, when Looper went to trial.

Trial


In the lead-up to the trial, Looper changed attorneys eight times. Although the murder charge was eligible for the death penalty, the Burks family declined to pursue it; they felt a life sentence would offer more closure than the ongoing appeals a death penalty case would generate.

The trial got underway on August 14, 2000. In the opening statement, District Attorney Bill Gibson declared, "Byron Looper is obsessed with the burning desire for power and public office. He is also a man who knew he didn't have a chance of beating Tommy Burks." The state argued that the murder had been motivated by Looper's desire to gain Burks' position and power, and that Looper was the only one with a motive for the killing. Prosecutor Tony Craighead deemed it an attempt to "win this election with a Smith & Wesson."

One witness recalled that Looper had mentioned the possibility of eliminating his opponent in order to win his election. William Lindsay Adams Jr. said he contacted Looper after spotting an advertisement for the position of his campaign manager. Adams said that Looper asserted that the campaign could be run at minimal expense, especially if his opponent wasn't in the race or if something happened to Burks before Election Day. He opted not to take the job.

But one of the state's most crucial witnesses was Joe Bond, a Marine recruiter and high school friend of Looper's. Bond testified that several months before Burks was murdered, Looper called him to say he was running for office. He also said that he planned to kill his opponent so he could be the only person on the ballot.

Bond said that he passed the remark off as a joke, but became more concerned after Looper began asking him about firearms, including recommendations for guns with reliable accuracy that could be easily concealed. A few months before the murder, Looper visited Bond at his home in Hot Springs, Arkansas, saying it was imperative that he acquire a weapon since the election was fast approaching. Bond said he would do so, even though he had no intention of getting his friend a gun. Looper persisted, repeatedly calling Bond and even sending a $150 money order to cover the cost of the firearm.

On the evening of the murder, Bond testified, Looper had shown up at his home and confessed to killing his opponent. "I did it man, I did it," Bond recalled Looper saying. "I killed that dude." When Bond asked who he was referring to, Looper responded, "That guy I was running against. I busted a cap in that dude's head." Looper told Bond that he had purchased a gun in a private sale, and thrown it out the window of his car after driving for about 10 or 15 minutes.

In March 1999, a man working with a construction company along I-40 had discovered a 9-millimeter Smith & Wesson handgun and turned it in to police. A firearms expert later gave his opinion that this was the weapon used in Burks' murder.

Byron Looper during his trial (Source)

Other testimony focused on the car that had been spotted on Burks' farm. Wesley Rex, the farmhand who had seen the car drive up alongside Burks' truck, recalled that it was a black car with circles on the back. He had also identified Looper as the driver after seeing one of his political advertisements on TV on the evening of the murder. A worker at a local fast food restaurant said Looper had shown up at the drive-thru in a dark car on the morning of the murder, nervous and in a rush, and had become extremely upset about a mistake with his order.

Investigators had managed to track down the vehicle Looper had briefly owned around the time of the murder. Two days before Burks was shot, he had purchased a used 1987 Audi sedan from a private seller in Lilburn, Georgia. The vehicle make matched Rex's description, since the Audi symbol featured interlocking circles. A mechanic in Tucker, Georgia, a community about five miles from Lilburn, said a customer who signed his name as "Anthony Looper" had brought the car in for repairs, estimating that it was sometime between October 11 and 20, 1998, and asked to leave it at the shop for a few weeks. Looper later called to say that he no longer wanted the vehicle, and it was resold.

The Audi's tires raised one point of contention. Once the car was discovered, an analysis of its tires found that they did not match the tracks left at the Burks farm. A test of the tires on the Chevrolet Beretta that Looper had been driving when he returned to Tennessee also failed to yield a match. But the man who sold the Audi to Looper still had the receipt for its tires; once these were mounted on the Audi, they left tracks that matched those at the crime scene. Prosecutors posited that Looper had simply changed the tires after killing Burks; Bond said Looper had told him he planned to do so.

A good portion of the defense strategy focused on an attempt to discredit the story put forward by Bond. Looper's attorneys, former Georgia state legislator McCracken Poston and former California legislator Ron Cordova, tried unsuccessfully to impeach Bond as a witness. They instead accused him of seeking revenge against Looper since the defendant had made advances against his girlfriend (later wife) when they were teenagers. One witness said Bond didn't have a reputation for truthfulness. The defense also called Bond's mother-in-law to the stand to suggest that Bond didn't have a good enough relationship with Looper to host him in the fall of 1998, since he had asked Looper to leave his residence during a visit in the summer after learning that his wife was uncomfortable with the defendant.

Several years later, Cordova would suggest that Looper may have helped set up Burks' murder, but didn't carry out the crime. He said he did not think that Looper was capable of killing Burks on his own, but may have recruited Bond to do so; however, he stressed that it was only a theory and he didn't have any evidence to back it up. The defense never presented an alternate suspect at the trial, and the prosecution pointed out that Rex had seen only one person in the car fleeing the scene.

Both Cordova and Poston believed that there was reasonable doubt that Looper had killed Burks. They had Looper's mother present an alibi, testifying that her son had been staying with her at the time of the murder; however, she had last seen him on the evening before the murder and had not seen Looper during the morning.

Poston later said that Looper had helped to sabotage his own case by withholding information from his attorneys. But Cordova and Poston felt that Looper did not have a legitimate motive for killing Burks, since they believed he would have known he would be caught and that Charlotte would likely be recruited to run in her husband's place. "The evidence is going to show that Byron Looper knows how to win an election," Poston said in his opening statement. "The evidence also is going to show that he knows how to lose one and move on. Mr. Looper's weapon has always been words, and that's never changed."

The defense positions failed to impress the jury. After deliberating for just over two hours, they returned a guilty verdict. On August 23, 2000, Looper was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Aftermath

Looper was held in the Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary until this prison closed in 2009. He was then transferred to the nearby Morgan County Correctional Complex. He never went to trial on the official misconduct charges, which the state opted not to pursue since Looper had already been condemned to a life behind bars.

Throughout his sentence, Looper maintained his innocence and occasionally tried to appeal his guilty verdict. His cell was strewn with legal papers, and he targeted a variety of entities with civil suits. He sued a TV station, saying they had misrepresented their intentions when interviewing him and aired a program that portrayed him in a negative light, as well as the Tennessee Department of Corrections, which he said had failed to adequately treat him and other prisoners for health problems.

On June 26, 2013, Looper reportedly struck a pregnant prison counselor on both sides of her head, knocking off her glasses. The incident occurred during a discussion between the counselor and a prison unit manager about a request Looper had made; he apparently became upset after learning that he would be transferred from solitary confinement into the general population, since he was worried that he was a high-profile prisoner and would be hurt by other inmates.

Prison authorities said that Looper was restrained with "the least amount of force necessary." Two hours later, he was found dead in his cell.

An autopsy determined that cardiac issues were the primary cause of Looper's death, as he had experienced high blood pressure and the hardening of his arteries. This health issue was compounded by toxic levels of antidepressants he had been taking.

Looper's family and attorneys were suspicious of this conclusion. Poston declared the circumstances of Looper's death to be "extremely suspicious," saying he had seen Looper's body and thought it looked like he had been severely beaten while hogtied. There were abrasions and contusions around his head, arms, and legs, some of which were consistent with injuries that would be caused by shackles and handcuffs. Another prisoner had written to his girlfriend on the day of Looper's death and mentioned that guards had beaten "some chubby white guy" to death while he was restrained.

Poston also alleged that authorities from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation contacted Charlotte to let her know about Looper's death, while Looper's mother did not find out until she saw a news report on her son's demise. He said Looper's mother was initially told that her son would be charged with assault after touching a counselor on her arm, but that prison authorities later changed their story to say Looper had slapped the counselor. Poston said a nurse had treated Looper for a head wound about an hour before he was found dead.

The Tennessee Department of Correction responded to the allegations by simply referring to the conclusions of the autopsy. Looper's family commissioned a second autopsy, which determined that Looper's heart was not abnormally large at the time of his death. Poston and Looper's family never issued a follow-up on any other findings.

Charlotte, meanwhile, had proved popular in her own right. She continued to serve in the state senate until opting not to run for re-election in 2014.

Sources

Tennessee Secretary of State, "In Tennessee, A Lawmaker Dies and His Rival Vanishes" in the Washington Post on Oct. 23 1998, "Tennessee Senator's Killing and Opponent's Arrest Upend Small Town" in the New York Times on Oct. 24 1998, "Tennessee Lawmaker Killed; Election Opponent Arrested" in the Los Angeles Times on Oct. 24 1998, "Candidate Jailed in Foe's Slaying" in the Washington Post on Oct. 24 1998, "Suspect Relentlessly Ran For Office" in the Associated Press on Oct. 24 1998, "Suspect in Death of State Senator Obsessed by Foes" in the Chicago Tribune on Oct. 27 1998, "Ex-Tenn. Politician Begins Murder Trial" on CBS News on Aug. 15 2000, "Politician Goes On Trial For Opponent's Murder" in the Journal Times on Aug. 15 2000, "Guilty Verdict in Campaign Murder Trial" on ABC News on Aug. 23 2000, "Looper Found Guilty in Murder of Sen. Tommy Burks" in the Rome News-Tribune on Aug. 23 2000, "Convicted Murderer 'Low Tax' Looper Sues Prison Medical Manager Over Health Care" in the Nashville Post on Jan. 9 2002, "Prison Incident Report Shows Assault Before Byron Looper Found Dead" in the Times Free Press on Jun. 28 2013, "Byron Looper's Attorney Crying Foul in Death of Politician Turned Killer" in the Knoxville News Sentinel on Sep. 13 2013, "Byron Looper's Family Seeks Independent Autopsy After 'Heart Event' Death Report" in the Times Free Press on Jun. 29 2013, "The Death of Senator Tommy Burks and Byron (Low Tax) Looper" in the Nashville Scene on Aug. 16 2018, "Byron Looper" episode of Dying to Belong on Oxygen on Sep. 16 2018, "Way Back When: Looking Back in History" by Bob McMillan in the Herald Citizen compiled on ajlambert.com, State of Tennessee v. Byron Looper, State Jones v. Looper

William Taulbee: A Stain on the Capitol

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In most sex scandals involving elected officials, the damage is limited to a politician's career. The scandal is easy fodder for a political opponent to use in the next election. Some voters may be willing to forgive infidelity, but others see it as a sign that the official is untrustworthy, morally unsound, or just plain sleazy.

Occasionally, however, a sex scandal ends in bloodshed. One of the most famous examples is the case of Representative Daniel Sickles, a New York Democrat, who shot and killed his wife's lover within sight of the White House. Arthur Brown, a Republican and one of the first two U.S. senators from Utah, was murdered by his mistress about nine years after he left office.

William Preston Taulbee is another federal politician who wound up meeting his end as a result of a sex scandal. It is unusual, however, in that he did not die at the hands of a jilted lover, cuckolded husband, or angry wife. Instead, he was gunned down by a reporter he had been routinely harassing for his coverage of the scandal.

Taulbee and Kincaid

Taulbee was born on October 22, 1851, near Mount Sterling in Morgan County, a mountainous area of eastern Kentucky. He attended the common schools and was also tutored by his father, who later served in the state's general assembly. In his youth, Taulbee also helped run the family farm.

Although he worked for a time shoveling coal, Taulbee soon left to become a teacher. He married Lou Emma Oney in 1871, and would have five sons with her. Taulbee continued teaching until 1877, when he began to study theology. He became an ordained minister and was admitted to the Kentucky conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church South. Taulbee also studied law and opened a practice after he was admitted to the bar in 1881.

Taulbee's first foray into politics occurred in 1878, when he was elected clerk of the Magoffin County Court. He was re-elected in 1882. Two years later, he became the Democratic candidate for the House of Representatives and handily defeated his Republican opponent, William L. Hurst. He faced a tougher re-election fight in 1886, even though he was battling the same opponent. Both Taulbee and Hurst traveled extensively through their district prior to the election, engaging in fiery debates on 27 occasions. Although it was a tighter race, Taulbee was returned to the House.

There is little information about Taulbee's service in the nation's capital. He was known as a gifted speaker, described as having a dignified bearing despite his rather young age. He was also popular enough in his district that one phrase suggested, "As goes Taulbee, so goes the mountains." His supporters nicknamed him "Our Pres" or "Pres Taulbee."

Soon after winning his second term, rumors began to circulate that Taulbee would not run again in 1888. He essentially confirmed these suspicions when he said he had purchased a house in Washington, D.C. and planned to live there after retiring from Congress.

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Charles Euston Kincaid was slightly younger than Taulbee. He had been born on May 18, 1855, and spent much of his early life around Lexington. Kincaid graduated from Centre College and began working in journalism, editing a newspaper in Lawrenceburg for two years. He then worked as a correspondent for the Lexington Courier-Journal, covering state politics and later matters related to the South and Cuba.

Kincaid also dabbled in politics. He picked up the nickname "Judge Kincaid" after he was elected a municipal judge in Lawrenceburg in 1879, and a year later he was appointed a state railroad commissioner. Kincaid also spent a good deal of time abroad, serving as a consular agent to England under President Grover Cleveland. In 1884, he was one of the emissaries appointed by the state legislature to travel to Italy and persuade the authorities there to repatriate the body of Kentucky sculptor Joel T. Hart. Kincaid also served as the private secretary to Governor Proctor Knott and later to Senator John Williams.

By the late 1880s, Kincaid was working as the Washington, D.C. correspondent for the Louisville Times. He was a social friend of several congressmen, but also known for unflinching accounts challenging those in power. Most targets simply shrugged off the attacks, however. Senator James B. Beck, a Kentucky Democrat, commented, "He's one of those small, buzzing bees. He won't hurt anybody, and he's too little to take hold of."

It is unclear how well Taulbee and Kincaid were acquainted during the former's last years in the House. Kincaid undoubtedly had contact with the congressman while covering the actions of Kentucky's congressmen and senators. But any hope of a cordial relationship disappeared after Taulbee became involved in a salacious scandal in December 1887.

"Brown-Haired Miss Dodge"

The first report that Taulbee was having an extramarital affair didn't even include the congressman's name. The Washington Post issued a brief article saying a Patent Office employee had caught a Kentucky representative "in a very compromising position" with one of the office's clerks. This wasn't exactly an uncommon occurrence. The model room of the Patent Office, where the miniature versions of various inventions submitted with patent applications were stored, was nicknamed the "Lovers' Retreat" because it was a popular place for flirtatious clerks and their wooing suitors to meet during lunch breaks. The thick cases holding the models offered plenty of hiding places for discreet trysts.

The Patent Office's model room as it appeared in the mid-1860s (Source)

Kincaid pursued the matter further, publishing an article in the Louisville Times with a rambling headline: "Kentucky's Silver-Tongued Taulbee Caught in Flagrante, or Thereabouts, with Brown-Haired Miss Dodge, Also of Kentucky." The headline also declared that the duo had been "lunching on forbidden fruit and hidden waters" and asked, "What's the world coming to?"

Kincaid's reports gave more details than the Washington Post brief, but still erred on the side of Victorian modesty. Taulbee and the clerk had been discovered "in a compromising way," "held sweet communion for half an hour before going to plebeian Monday lunch," and were "rather warmer than they were proper." Kincaid also detailed the circuitous routes Taulbee took to rendezvous with his mistress as well as other maneuvers he employed to try to keep the affair hidden, and determined that the congressman had helped the clerk get her job so they could arrange their meetings more easily. He would later maintain that he had told Taulbee he would be glad to interview him to get his side of the story, but that the congressman had not accepted the offer.

The clerk, Laura L. Dodge, was more accommodating. She sat down for an interview with Kincaid, who described the 17-year-old as beautiful, petite, "plump as a partridge," and "bright as sunshine and saucy as a bowl of jelly." Dodge admitted that she was not from Kentucky, as she had told the Patent Office. She refused to answer Kincaid's question about where she was actually from, saying she didn't want to get Taulbee in trouble. The congressman was a gentleman, Dodge said, and she was supposed to be a lady. "We will both swear on a stack of Bibles that we have not done anything," she declared.

Kincaid wasn't convinced. "What a mess this is for an ex-Methodist minister and a Congressman from the grand old Commonwealth of Kentucky," he ended the article.

Abuse of Kincaid

While newspapers in Kentucky picked up the tale of infidelity, the scandal aroused little interest in the nation's capital. The Washington Post didn't even follow up on its brief to identify the congressman. Patent Commissioner Benton J. Hall said he would investigate the matter, but the outcome was never reported. It seemed one likely result was the dismissal of Dodge, who left the Patent Office in the wake of Kincaid's articles but was soon able to find work in the Pension Office.

Taulbee did not seek the Democratic nomination in 1888, but it seemed clear that he had already made this decision soon after starting his second term, not because he had been exposed as an adulterer. He had also irritated his party a few years earlier. At the 1887 state convention, he proposed censuring President Grover Cleveland. The suggestion which was greeted by hisses and easily voted down.

After leaving office at the beginning of 1889, Taulbee stayed in Washington, D.C. to work as a lobbyist. He was successful in this role, earning a great deal of money. He lost some of these assets in the same year he left office, when House cashier Craven Silcott absconded with $75,000 in congressional payroll funds. The vanished funds included some savings Taulbee had had with the Sergeant at Arms, but he remained comfortably wealthy. His reputation in Kentucky also seemed to be intact. Kentucky's Semi-Weekly Interior Journal suggested that he was still "the most popular man in the district," and that his endorsement would all but guarantee victory for any congressional hopeful from eastern Kentucky.

Kincaid was still working as a correspondent covering Congress, so he ended up frequently crossing paths with Taulbee. Even though Taulbee had weathered the scandal fairly well, he was apparently none too fond of how the reporter had portrayed him. There were suggestions that Kincaid's articles had helped destroy Taulbee's marriage to Eliza, although the matrimony seems to have survived as well; the two would ultimately be buried together. Perhaps Taulbee simply held a grudge against Kincaid for the tenor of his articles.

Whatever the reason for Taulbee's enduring hatred for Kincaid, he rarely if ever encountered the reporter without bullying him. On several occasions, Taulbee insulted Kincaid or warned that he would someday kill him. Sometimes the harassment carried over into physical abuse. Kincaid recalled separate incidents where Taulbee had shoved him against an iron railing, slammed him into the door of a streetcar, and crushed his foot under his heel while the two men were in an elevator. Taulbee also got into the habit of tweaking Kincaid's nose or ear to indicate that he didn't consider the reporter to be worth fighting.

A brawl between Taulbee and Kincaid would have been extremely one-sided. The former congressman was described as "tall and sinewy," having retained the muscular physique built up in his youth of hard labor. Kincaid, by contrast, was "a little pint of cider fellow," barely five feet tall and weighing less than 100 pounds. He also had a range of health problems, including astigmatism which limited his vision as well as liver and digestive problems. On two occasions in the previous five years, he had nearly died of typhoid fever.

Kincaid never responded to Taulbee's insults, threats, or abuses. He did not want to worry his sick mother, he later said; he also told Taulbee that he did not want any trouble. He hoped that Taulbee would simply tire of this behavior and leave him alone.

Instead, the bullying continued unabated for a full year. It finally culminated in a confrontation on a House stairwell on a winter afternoon.

The final confrontations

On the morning of February 28, 1890, Taulbee spotted Kincaid near the entrance to the House of Representatives chamber. He called out that he wanted to see him. Kincaid responded that he couldn't, since he was "waiting for a gentleman."

Perhaps taking this as an insult, Taulbee responded by grabbing Kincaid by the collar, throwing him about, and giving his ear a violent twist. The House doorkeepers, who controlled access to the chamber, separated the two men.

The exact verbal exchange that followed between Taulbee and Kincaid is uncertain, but the intent of the words is clear. Kincaid protested, "I am not prepared to cope with you physically," to which Taulbee replied, "Well, you had better be." Another version had Kincaid saying, "I am a small man and unarmed," with Taulbee responding, "You had better be armed, or go arm yourself."

Both Taulbee and Kincaid were able to enter the House soon after the scuffle. Word of the altercation spread through the press gallery and among the members of Congress. Some had long expected that the feud between the two men would only end when one of them killed the other. Taulbee's words suggested that the fatal showdown was imminent.

About two hours after the initial confrontation, Kincaid and Taulbee met again on the eastern side of the House wing of the Capitol Building. A Y-shaped staircase descends toward a basement restaurant, and the encounter occurred near where the twin sets of marble stairs meet.

Kincaid had gone home in the interim and retrieved a revolver. Referencing Taulbee's earlier request, Kincaid allegedly declared, "Taulbee, you can see me now." He then raised the gun and shot Taulbee in the face.

An illustration of the incident, inaccurately showing Kincaid shooting Taulbee in the back of the head (Source)

The shot was audible in many parts of the building, including the House chamber. The bullet just missed Taulbee's eye, piercing his cheek. Bleeding profusely, Taulbee managed to stagger away from the scene. Kincaid promptly surrendered to a police officer who rushed to the scene, confessing that he was the shooter.

Although he had suffered a serious wound, Taulbee managed to stay conscious and conversant. He spoke with Senator John Griffin Carlisle, a Kentucky Democrat and former colleague; Carlisle had served in Congress since 1876, including three terms as Speaker of the House. Taulbee admitted to the earlier altercation with Kincaid, but told his friend, "He ought not to have done it. Why did he do so?"

Kincaid, speaking from his jail cell, claimed that he only shot Taulbee after he approached him in a threatening matter. Although the former congressman was said to be unarmed, contemporary articles noted that there were rumors that Taulbee's friends had made sure to relieve him of an "ugly-looking pistol" after the incident. Kincaid told reporters how Taulbee had told several people, including a judge, that he would have Kincaid's blood yet.

"Mr. Taulbee had been dogging me for more than a year. I am almost ashamed to admit it, but he has assaulted me six times," Kincaid said. He added, "No man has suffered more at the hands of another than I have from him. Mr. Taulbee has haunted me like a ghost. He has heaped insult after insult on me, and three different times threatened to kill me."

Reactions to the shooting were split between congressmen and reporters. Elected officials did not always have the best relationships with the press, and some thought that Kincaid and other reporters had dedicated too much attention to the Patent Office scandal. The press corps expressed regret for the incident, but was more likely to sympathize with Kincaid; his fellow reporters described him as an agreeable, fair person who wouldn't have harmed Taulbee unless provoked.

Several newspapermen were aware of the contentious relationship between Taulbee and Kincaid. Jay Durham, a former D.C. reporter, said, "He alway manifested the most intense hatred toward Kincaid. He was voluminous in vile epithets toward the correspondent."

Some accounts suggested that this was simply how Kentuckians settled their disagreements. The infamous feud between the Hatfields and McCoys had been raging for 10 years in the eastern part of the state, and it was only one of several deadly rivalries in the area. A little more than a decade earlier, a judge and former congressman had been gunned down outside his Owingsville hotel by a defendant dissatisfied with his ruling. Ten years after Kincaid shot Taulbee, an unknown assailant would assassinate Kentucky's governor after a contested election. The Courier-Journal of Louisville commented, "that which may regarded in Kentucky and other states of the Union as a matter of self-defense is treated here in Washington as murder in the first degree."

As Taulbee recovered in Providence Hospital, it seemed probable that he would survive. The bullet had lodged somewhere in his skull, and the physicians decided not to try to remove it.

More than a week after the shooting, however, his condition worsened. The bullet had come to rest just inside the skull, and an abscess had formed around the projectile and put pressure on the brain. On March 11, Taulbee died.

Kincaid's trial

Kincaid had been released on $2,000 bail, and turned himself in to face the upgraded charge of murder after Taulbee's death. He was released again due to poor health, and because his friends had helped him raise the $20,000 needed for the new bail, and allowed to return to Kentucky to recuperate.

In the spring of 1891, Kincaid returned to the nation's capital to stand trial on the charge of killing Taulbee. The proceedings had been delayed until after Congress adjourned on March 3, since Kincaid's defense attorneys included Senator Daniel Voorhees, a Democrat from Indiana. Kincaid was also represented by Washington advocate C. Maurice Smith, circuit court judge and former Republican congressman Jeremiah Wilson of Indiana, and Charles Grosvenor, a Republican congressman from Ohio who had left the House after losing his party's nomination in the previous year. U.S. Attorney Charles C. Cole, newly appointed by President Benjamin Harrison, would lead the prosecution.

An attempt to delay the trial a second time occurred after Voorhees came down with rheumatism. However, this request was denied after the court concluded that Kincaid was adequately represented by the remainder of his legal team. Testimony began on March 23.

Over the course of the two-week trial, eight sitting or former members of Congress were called to the stand. A number of Washington reporters also attended the trial as witnesses. The testimony outlined the animosity Taulbee felt toward Kincaid, establishing how the former congressman had tormented the reporter for months. One correspondent quoted Taulbee as saying, "He ought to be killed. By God, I'll kill him." Another said Taulbee had threatened to kick Kincaid's head off if he ever got within 10 feet of him. Many of the reporters said they had relayed these threats to Kincaid, and that he grew increasingly worried about his personal safety.

Two House doorkeepers, William McCormick and Robert Woodbridge, testified that they had witnessed the first confrontation between Taulbee and Kincaid. Woodbridge said he saw Taulbee pull on Kincaid's ear, while McCormick said he'd heard Taulbee call Kincaid a liar. About an hour later, McCormick said, Kincaid returned to the Capitol and spoke with him. He was in an anxious state, wondering what to do since he was a sick man and had been unable to cope with Taulbee while unarmed. McCormick told the reporter he had no advice to give.

The defense expanded on Kincaid's assertion that he had been in fear for his life when he shot Taulbee. Witnesses described Taulbee's long campaign of harassment against the reporter. Kincaid took the stand in his own defense, recounting how Taulbee had once threatened to cut his throat. He also said Taulbee had called him "a damn little coward and monkey" at their first confrontation on the fateful morning of February 28, 1890. The warning to arm himself had been enough to convince him to take up the revolver he never took outside his room.

Kincaid said that he had not been trying to seek out Taulbee, but had simply had another chance encounter with the former congressman. He had been taking one set of stairs down the Y-shaped staircase, intending to go to lunch and meet someone in the basement restaurant, when he unexpectedly came upon Taulbee and a companion on the platform. He said Taulbee immediately reacted by striding toward him, declaring, "I'll show you!"

Taulbee had a hand in his pocket, Kincaid testified. He said he began to retreat, and declared, "You're going to kill me, are you?" Kincaid also remembered that he had drawn his weapon and warned Taulbee several times to stand back. Taulbee had been undeterred, growling, "I'll show you." It was only when Taulbee was within reaching distance of him that he pulled the trigger, deciding that it was a choice between killing or being killed.

The prosecution suggested that Kincaid should have fled before opening fire for it to be a true case of self-defense; they also framed the matter as one of revenge. Kincaid, angered and humiliated by Taulbee's provocations, had finally decided to ambush him and end the harassment once and for all. One of their key witnesses was Samuel Donelson, a House doorkeeper who was the only witness of the shooting besides Kincaid and the deceased Taulbee. Donelson said Kincaid had waited until he and Taulbee were walking down the stairs before shouting, "Taulbee, you can see me now" and firing the single shot.

Taulbee's brother was also called to the stand. He said that three days before his death, Taulbee told him, "I did not know Kincaid was near and did not know who it was who shot me until I was told." Taulbee had also reportedly said he bore "no resentment" toward Kincaid, although he considered the shooting to be cowardly. The defense scrutinized the statements, pointing out discrepancies between the testimony of Donelson and Taulbee's brother.

The trial ended on April 8. After just a few hours of deliberation, the jury returned with a verdict. They determined that the matter had been one of self-defense; Kincaid was not guilty.

Aftermath and legacy

The shooting of Taulbee helped fuel a flurry of reform efforts on Capitol Hill. Constituents demanded for rules that could improve congressional conduct and morals while limiting corruption.

Kincaid returned to Kentucky and continued to work in politics and diplomacy alongside his journalistic endeavors. He also remained in poor health. He died in 1906, only 51 years old, while working for the Cincinnati Enquirer.

Dodge worked at the Pension Office until 1895, when she was fired. Five years later, she married a Pension Office reviewer named William Albert Paul; after his death in 1927, she was re-married to prominent attorney Tracy L. Jeffords and became well-known on the D.C. social scene. She died on Christmas Day in 1959 at the age of 89.

Taulbee's descendants showed little willingness to forgive Kincaid or accept the verdict that he was acting in self-defense. Six decades after the trial, one of his sons, John Taulbee, denounced the trial as "a farce." Not only had the defense bought off witnesses, he accused, but the shooting had nothing to do with Taulbee's hostility toward the reporter; instead, Kincaid had murdered his father because Taulbee had not named him to a political position. Virginia Hinds-Burton, a great-granddaughter of Taulbee's, said in 2007, "My great-grandfather was murdered. And his murderer got away with murder. And five boys were left without a father. A wife was left without a husband to support her."

A contemporary account of the shooting notes how House janitors started scrubbing away the bloodstains as soon as possible. Even so, much of the blood had soaked into the porous marble. "Some of the stains will remain there for all time," the article suggested.

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The observation proved prescient. Visitors to the staircase today can still see dark splotches on the stone. These are said to be Taulbee's bloodstains, still evident after more than 125 years. Those with a belief in the paranormal say the ex-congressman continues to haunt the site of his killing to this day. Reporters who stumble on the stairs aren't just miscalculating a step, they say; rather, Taulbee trips members of the media to show his continuing disdain toward the field of journalism.

Sources

Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, "The Shooting of Congressman William Taulbee on the Steps of the U.S. Capitol" at House.gov, "Charles Kincaid Trial: 1891" at law.jrank.org, "Settled a Grudge" in the Chicago Tribune on Mar. 1 1890, "The Taulbee Inquest" in The Day on Mar. 13 1890, "The Kincaid Case" in the Terre Haute Daily News on Mar. 27 1891, "Kincaid on the Stand" in the Galveston Daily News on Apr. 2 1891, "Are Blotches in Capitol Bloodstains?" in the Poughkeepsie Journal on Nov. 1 1978, "A Historic Killing in the Capitol Building" on NPR on Feb. 19 2007, Kentucky Politicians: Sketches of Representative Corn-Crackers and Other Miscellany by John J. McAfee, Wicked Capitol Hill: An Unruly History of Behaving Badly by Robert S. Pohl, True Tales of Old-Time Kentucky Politics: Bourbon, Bombast, and Burgoo by Bery, Genealogy of the Lewis Family in America, From the Middle of the Seventeenth Century Down to Present Time by William Terrell Lewis

William S. Taylor: A Killing in Kentucky

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Although he was accused of involvement in a heinous crime in his home state of Kentucky, William Sylvester Taylor was still welcomed to the 1900 Republican National Convention as a delegate-at-large. The meeting would see President William McKinley remain on the ballot for an attempt at a second term, with Governor Theodore Roosevelt of New York named as candidate for Vice President. Taylor joined the other delegates in the near-unanimous decision on this ticket; Roosevelt was the only one of the 926 delegates to not support his name for Vice President, considering it more fitting to abstain.

Taylor, who had been ousted as governor of Kentucky after serving for just a few weeks, had since moved to Indiana. He only agreed to attend the Republican National Convention after he was assured that the officials in Pennsylvania would make no attempt to extradite him to his home state. After the convention, there were rumors that he was traveling toward Niagara Falls, a popular place to cross the border into Canada. These reports proved to be unfounded.

Nevertheless, Taylor continued to be nervous about his surroundings. His immediate successor to the governor's office had been gunned down in front of the state capitol in Frankfort, in an incident which remains the only gubernatorial assassination in United States history. A court contended that Taylor had actively plotted to remove his rival after a bitterly contested race.

Early political career

Taylor was born on October 10, 1853, in Butler County, Kentucky. He grew up on a farm and didn't start his formal education until age 15. Despite this late start, he proved a fast learner and a gifted orator. He became a teacher in 1874, and remained in this profession until 1882. He also continued to work in farming, and later became a lawyer.

During his time as an educator, Taylor entered his first political contest. He ran for county clerk in 1878, but was unsuccessful. Four years later, he tried again and was victorious.

Taylor soon proved a popular Republican candidate in Butler County. He was elected to two terms as county judge, serving from 1886 to 1894, and was named as a delegate to the 1888 Republican National Convention. Between 1896 and 1899, he was Kentucky's attorney general.

The state was a fairly violent place to live during this time. While Kentucky had nominally remained loyal to the Union during the Civil War, sentiments within the state were more divided. The northern part of the state was more developed and industrialized, while the southern portion relied more on agrarian pursuits. During the war, northern Kentuckians had strongly supported the Union while residents living closer to the Tennessee border were more sympathetic to the Confederacy.

Since Kentucky was a slave state, it was subject to Reconstruction after the war. The ongoing tensions in the state contributed to a number of violent episodes, including duels, feuds, and murders. This atmosphere all but guaranteed that a close election result in the 1899 gubernatorial election would not be resolved without bloodshed.

Governor's race

The Republicans chose Taylor as their candidate without much fanfare. He would face off against William Goebel, whose ascension to the Democratic nominee had been much more chaotic.

William Goebel (Source)

Goebel was an attorney and state senator who had also become something of a political boss by the time of the election. He helped organize political efforts across the state, and worked to get his supporters in control of city and county governments. He supported civil rights for black residents and women, and often took on the big railroad companies in his legal work. In the state senate, he supported stronger regulations on the railroads; he often used profanity or insults to shore up his arguments.

Four years before the gubernatorial race, Goebel's crusade for fair transportation regulations had attracted the ire of businessman John Lawrence Sanford. The two men had been at odds over the removal of tolls from some Kentucky turnpikes, an action which cost Sanford money. On April 11, 1895, Goebel was walking with friends in downtown Covington when he spotted Sanford and confronted him. Witnesses said that Sanford ambushed Goebel, pulling a pistol and firing at close range.

The bullet passed through Goebel's coat, but didn't leave a scratch on him. He quickly reacted to the assault by pulling his own pistol and shooting Sanford in the head; the businessman died instantly. Goebel was later acquitted of murder, due to witness testimony that Sanford had previously threatened to kill Goebel and that the state senator had fired in self-defense.

In 1899, Goebel mounted an aggressive effort to win the Democratic Party's nomination for governor. At the state convention, he was one of four candidates vying for the job. He made a secret agreement with fellow candidate William J. Stone, a former Confederate soldier who lost a leg in the Civil War, to assure his favored choice for a temporary chairman over that of Parker Watkins Hardin, an ex-Confederate general backed by the railroads. From there, he was able to get control of the convention's committees and shape its platform.

When the convention's delegates failed to produce a gubernatorial candidate after 25 votes, Goebel proposed that the person receiving the fewest votes on the next ballot should drop out. He then betrayed Stone, having some of his own men throw their support behind Hardin to help put Stone at the bottom of the tally. He believed that Stone's delegates would be more likely to support him over Hardin after Stone was out of the picture. This tactic proved successful, and Goebel was ultimately picked as the Democratic nominee for governor.

A small contingent of Democrats, disgusted with the manipulative dealings at the convention, refused to support Goebel. They formed a group called the Honest Election League and named John Young Brown, who had served as governor between 1891 and 1895, as their nominee.

During his campaign, Goebel accused Taylor of having a cozy relationship with Kentucky's railroad interests. At his rallies, he frequently asked whether the attendees wanted the corporations to be "the master or the servant of the people." William Jennings Bryan, who had been the Democratic nominee in the 1896 presidential election, campaigned on Goebel's behalf.

Aside from his populist appeal, Goebel had another advantage going into the election. While in the state senate, he had overseen the passage of a controversial new election law. This act established a three-member board of commissioners, appointed by the state legislature, to determine the victor in contested elections. Since the Democrats were in power in the legislature, the commission established in 1899 would likely favor the Democratic candidate.

A contested result

When the votes were tallied after the general election on November 7, Taylor had eked out a razor-thin majority. The Republican candidate had earned 193,714 votes, while Goebel had mustered 191,331. The Democratic candidate's underhanded tactics had proved his undoing; the Honest Election League had convinced 12,040 voters to cast a ballot for Brown instead of Goebel.

At first, Goebel was content to accept the loss. However, his supporters convinced him that the election had been marred by corruption. He challenged the result and asked for the matter to be heard before the election commission. But in a move that surprised Kentucky's voters, the Democratic commissioners voted two to one that Taylor had won the election fairly. On December 12, the Republican candidate was sworn into office.

Their finding still had to be approved by the state legislature, but the Democrats in this body continued to suspect that Taylor had only won the election through fraud. The legislature opted to launch their own investigation into the issue, drawing a group of 11 legislators at random to look into the contest. In what was likely a premeditated maneuver, the selection picked 10 Democrats and only one Republican. Taylor and his allies feared that the committee was almost certain to invalidate the election results.

A political cartoon shows Goebel trying to dislodge Taylor from the "Governor's Chair" with the Kentucky legislature (Source)

On January 2, 1900, the Democratic legislature formally contested the election results. They charged that a wide range of corruption had taken place on Election Day, including voter intimidation, military interference, a conspiracy by the L&N Railroad and the Republican Party to bribe voters, and the acceptance of fraudulent returns and "thin" ballots (those where the paper was thin enough that it was possible to determine who a voter chose by looking at the back of the ballot).

To put pressure on the legislature, Taylor called for supporters from the strongly Republican regions of eastern Kentucky to come to Frankfort. A large number of these Appalachian "mountain men" answered his call, surging into the capital and bringing firearms in a show of force. Tensions and resentment over the election continued to worsen.

The death of Goebel

The stalemate continued until the end of the month, when a shocking turn of events threw the state into even greater turmoil. While walking with his comrades toward the state capitol on January 30, a shot rang out. The bullet pierced Goebel's chest, breaking through a rib and puncturing a lung. His friends rushed him to the Capital Hotel, where the Democrats had set up a base of operations. A doctor worked to stabilize the wound, but knew that it was almost certain to be fatal.

An illustration portraying the scene moments after Goebel was shot (Source)

In the wake of the attack on Goebel, Taylor called the militia to Frankfort to keep order. He also ordered the state legislature to disperse, calling on them to reconvene a week later. Suggesting that it would be "sheer madness" for the legislature to assemble in the capital in the current environment, he asked them to meet in the town of London - an eastern Kentucky community and Republican stronghold.

Taylor also issued a statement a day after the shooting, blaming the "unprecedented and unlawful" acts of the legislature for the incident. However, he also decried the attack on his opponent as unacceptable. "The dreadful tragedy which occurred yesterday shocked and startled all, and can be no more sincerely deplored by any one than myself," he said.

Given that their nominee for governor was slowly dying of a gunshot wound, the Democrats weren't in the mood to reconcile with Taylor. Instead, they looked at his actions as a blatant attempt to seize power by force. They charged that the call for armed men to occupy the capital and the subsequent shooting of Goebel demonstrated that Taylor was willing to rule through "force, fraud, and corruption." In defiance of Taylor's orders, the Democratic members of the legislature tried to assemble on their own. After the militia refused to let them meet at the capital, courthouse, and opera house, they finally came together at the Capital Hotel.

On January 31, the Democratic legislators declared that they had deemed enough of the ballots for Taylor to be invalid. As a result, they concluded that Goebel had won the highest number of "legal votes." A total of 76 members of the state house of representatives and senate signed a declaration naming Goebel as governor and John Crepps Wickliffe Beckham as lieutenant governor; the document also denounced Taylor for "filling the capital of the State with reckless armed men, who have assassinated an honored member of this general assembly, and in calling out the militia without cause, excluding the general assembly from the legislative halls and in preventing it from meeting to transact the business of the commonwealth."

Goebel was sworn in shortly before 9 p.m. In his only act as governor, he signed an order for the legislature to reconvene and the militia to disperse. The leader of the militia, sympathetic to the Republicans, refused to obey the order. Beckham responded by replacing the state's adjutant general with someone more in line with the Democrats, allowing him to call out a separate militia to reinforce Goebel's claim to the governor's office.

Now it was the Republicans' turn to cry foul, accusing the Democrats of trying to steal the election from the duly elected candidate. Some even suggested that Goebel was already dead, and that the legislators had given the oath of office to a corpse.

Militia members, with a Gatling gun, in front of the Kentucky state capitol (Source)

For a time, the state of Kentucky was essentially split between two state governments. Taylor held the Executive Building, refusing to concede the election. Goebel and Beckham held their own claims to the gubernatorial office. The Republican and Democratic legislators were meeting separately, within blocks of each other. Two separate militias faced each other. Observers in other parts of the United States wondered if the situation might devolve into a civil war within the state.

Three days after he was named governor of Kentucky, Goebel died. Beckham was promptly sworn in to take his place. The dispute continued, with Taylor asserting that he had been elected fairly and that Beckham was "claiming and pretending to be the governor of Kentucky."

On February 6, three days after Goebel's death, Democratic and Republican leaders met to try to resolve the question over who held the rightful claim to the governor's office. The stated purpose of the summit was to "end the unfortunate condition of political affairs now existent in Kentucky." At first, it seemed like the Democrats had triumphed; the parties agreed that Taylor and his lieutenant governor, John Marshall, would step down.

But on February 10, Taylor announced that he would not sign the agreement. The matter would have to be decided in the courts.

Life as a fugitive

The Louisville Circuit Court ruled that Goebel had been the victor in the 1899 election. The decision was sustained after the Republicans appealed it to the Court of Appeals. Taylor managed to have the case heard before the U.S. Supreme Court, but the justices decided on May 21 that the federal government had no jurisdiction in the dispute. As such, the lower court rulings would stand and Beckham would become governor.

Soon after this decision, Taylor left Kentucky for good. By this time, several people had been charged in the assassination of Goebel. Taylor feared that he would be accused of complicity in the murder.

The indictments had been handed down in April. Several witnesses had claimed that the fatal bullet was fired from annex of Kentucky secretary of state in the Executive Building. The grand jury named several of the "mountain men" as the principal conspirators in the murder: James and Berry Howard, Henry Youtsey, Harland Whitaker, and Dick Combs.

A number of other men were charged as accessories before the fact. This group included Caleb Powers, Taylor's secretary of state; Charles Finley, a former secretary of state; Captain John T. Powers, Caleb's brother; William H. Culton, a clerk in the state auditor's building; and F. Wharton Golden. The grand jury named Taylor as an indirect accessory to the crime, along with Green Golden and State House police captain John Davis, but did not indict them.

Democratic investigators charged that the decision to kill Goebel had been agreed upon by 25 men meeting in the Executive Building. The people named as principals or accessories, they alleged, had been the leaders of the plot.

Caleb Powers, who went to trial four times for Goebel's murder (Source)

Many of the men charged in the assassination had no intention of submitting to arrest. Caleb Powers and Davis reportedly disguised themselves as militiamen and boarded a train to Lexington, but their escape attempt was discovered and they were captured when they arrived in the city. Whitaker was arrested soon after Goebel was shot after he ran out of the governor's office, and was found to have several revolvers on him; he was later killed in a mine explosion in Idaho.

Taylor and Finley had fled north to Indianapolis. Here, they found themselves protected by a series of sympathetic Republican governors. James A. Mount, whose term began in January 1897, refused to let Kentucky officials take either man back across the state line. At one point, Finley was arrested and a Kentucky state police officer tried to take custody of him. He had to be released after Mount refused to approve the extradition.

Taylor also appealed to William McKinley for a pardon. The President said he sympathized with the ousted governor, but could not grant the request.

Kentucky returned to relative peace after Beckham was confirmed as governor, and he would stay in office until 1907. During that time, the courts would seek justice for Goebel's murderer. Caleb Powers was convicted, along with Howard. Youtsey confessed to being involved in the assassination and was sentenced to life in prison. However, the verdicts in Powers' and Howard's cases were later overturned.

Powers would be tried for Goebel's murder a total of four times. He was convicted three times, twice being sentenced to life in prison and once to death; in each case, the result of the trial was overturned.   Taylor refused to leave Indiana to testify on his former cabinet official's behalf, despite reassurances that he would have immunity from arrest, on the belief that it would be unwise to return to Kentucky.

In November 1907, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Samuel W. Hager had said he would not pardon Powers or commute his sentence if he was elected. Powers, preparing for his fourth trial, criticized Hager for making the decision before his case had even been resolved. He also asserted that the charges would have been thrown out long before if pro-Goebel Democrats hadn't comprised the juries, tried unsuccessfully to get his case transferred to federal court, and claimed he knew who had murdered Goebel and that it wasn't Howard.

Powers' fourth trial ended in a hung jury. Governor Augustus E. Willson, who became the first Republican to hold the office since Taylor after his election in 1907, pardoned Powers in 1908. Powers later wrote a book defending himself against lingering rumors that he had gotten away with murder.

After Mount left office in Indiana in 1901, his successor continued to shelter Taylor and Finley. Governor Winfield T. Durbin became a close friend of Taylor's, and later said he rejected an attempted $93,000 bribe to turn the former governor over to Kentucky authorities. Charles A. Bookwalter, the mayor of Indianapolis, claimed that the man who had been hired to prosecute the cases against Taylor and his co-defendants, Thomas A. Campbell, offered to give him $25,000 if he allowed Taylor to be kidnapped. Bookwalter said he refused, instead ordering the police to guard Taylor's home for 60 days. Campbell again approached him, offering a higher sum to remove the guard, and the mayor again refused.

There were worries that vigilantes would try to shanghai the ex-governor across state lines to face criminal charges. In November 1904, Durbin said he was not sure if incoming Governor J. Frank Hanly would continue to refuse requisitions to send Taylor back to Kentucky. Hanly, a Republican, had only said that he would consider the case on its merits before deciding what to do. In the end, he never gave Taylor up to the Kentucky authorities.

Later years

While living in Indiana, Taylor resumed his work as an attorney. He later became the vice president and general counsel of Empire Life Insurance.

Willson had been governor of Kentucky for about 16 months before he decided to end Taylor's exile. On April 23, 1909, he pardoned the former governor as well as Finley, John Powers, Whitaker, Davis, and defendant Zach Steele. The governor, who had previously pardoned Caleb Powers and James Howard, said he had looked into Goebel's assassination and come to the conclusion that Youtsey had acted alone. The only evidence that had come up against Taylor was testimony that he had written to Howard inviting him to come to Frankfort to kill Goebel. Since Howard had not been accused of shooting Goebel, Willson considered this accusation irrelevant.

The governor believed that the decision of Taylor and others to flee the state was not a sign of their guilt, but rather their fear that they would not be able to get a fair trial. Willson also moved to dismiss the charges against the other defendants, leaving Youtsey as the only one to be convicted in Goebel's death.

"From the fair, impartial study of the reports of all of the trials and from my knowledge of the condition of these times, I believe that Governor William S. Taylor had no guilty knowledge of the murder of William Goebel and that he would never have been indicted but for political excitement and passion," Willson said.

The identity of Goebel's assassin remains a mystery. Youtsey was the only one to serve a significant prison sentence for the crime, although he did not claim to be the gunman. He remained behind bars until December 1918, when he was paroled.

Three months after he was pardoned, Taylor made his first visit to Kentucky since Goebel's assassination. However, he said he did not intend to come back to live in the state permanently. He had experienced too much sorrow in the wake of the 1899 election, he said, including the death of his wife and daughter of "broken hearts."

Taylor returned to his career in Indianapolis and spent the rest of his days in this city. He died of heart disease on August 2, 1928, at the age of 74.

Sources

National Governors Association, Kentucky Historical Society, "The Four Days Governor" by Ellen Terrell on the Library of Congress website, "Kentucky Has Two Governors" in the Deseret News on Feb. 1 1900, "The Rival Governors" in the Daily Star on Feb. 16 1900, "Ten Kentucky Indictments" in the Boston Evening Transcript on Apr. 18 1900, "Taylor in Bad Health" in the Toledo Blade on Jun. 28 1900, "Governor Taylor in Danger of the Law" in the Nevada Daily Mail on Nov. 18 1904, "Taylor Will Not Testify" in the Boston Evening Transcript on Aug. 2 1907, "Caleb Powers' Strange Case" in the Evening News on Nov. 26 1907, "Pardons in the Goebel Case" in the Boston Evening Transcript on Apr. 24 1909, "Ex-Governor Taylor Returns to Kentucky" in The Daily Star on Aug. 30 1909, "Death Recalls Ancient Feuds of Governors" in the St. Petersburg Times on Aug. 4 1928, "The Late Governor Goebel" in Humanities in August 2013, Kentucky's Governors edited by Lowell H. Harrison, The Encyclopedia  of Northern Kentucky edited by Paul A. Tenkotte and James C. Claypool, A New History of Kentucky by Lowell H. Harrison and James C. Klotter, That Kentucky Campaign by R.E. Hughes, F.W. Schaefer, and E.L. Williams, The Independent Vol. 52, Powers v. Commonwealth, Official Proceedings of the Twelfth Republican National Convention

John Milton Elliott: the most ignominious game

Image from kaintuckeean.com

The fact that John Milton Elliott's defection from the United States during the Civil War did not negatively affect his life after the conflict shows just how common such actions were. Rather, Elliott is another politician best known for his dramatic and tragic end.

Elliott was born in Scott County, Virginia in May 1820. He moved to Morgan County (now renamed for Elliott) in Kentucky. He returned to Virginia to attend Emory and Henry College in Emory, graduating in 1841. From there, he studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1843, and began a practice in Prestonburg, Kentucky.

In 1847, Elliott became a member of the state's house of representatives. Five years later, he was elected as a Democrat to the House of Representatives. He was re-elected twice and chose not to run for re-election in 1858. Upon his departure, he returned to his legal practice and again joined the state house of representatives in 1861. Elliott initially favored neutrality in the split between the Union and Confederacy after several southern states seceded, but his sympathies were clearly with the states just south of Kentucky. He occasionally purchased a slave, denounced the abolitionist movement, and was a member of Kentucky's Southern Rights party.

After the close of the fall session of the house of representatives, Elliott began organizing support for the Confederacy in eastern Kentucky. The activity did not go unnoticed, and the U.S. District Court returned an indictment charging him with treason for "directly or indirectly giving aid and comfort to the enemy." In December of 1861, Elliott was one of eight members of the Kentucky General Assembly expelled for the same cause. He joined the convention at Russellville organizing the Kentucky representatives to the Confederate government, and was elected to both the First and Second Confederate Congresses.

After the war, the Fourteenth Amendment barred anyone who had previously sworn an oath to the United States Constitution and joined an insurrection or rebellion against it from holding office unless there was a two-thirds vote allowing it. The provision effectively ended Elliott's political career, but he was able to return to a successful legal career. He settled in Owingsville, and later Catlettsburg. From 1868 to 1874, he served as a circuit court judge. Starting in 1876, he was a judge of the court of appeals.

This line of work would effectively seal Elliott's fate. The sister of one Col. Thomas Buford had purchased a farm from a Mr. Guthrie, but managed to pay off only one of three notes. Guthrie began foreclosure proceedings against her in 1871. He won the suit, but Buford argued that the title was defective and the ruling was reversed on a technicality in the appeals court. Guthrie pressed the foreclosure and won again, meaning Buford's sister lost both her property and her $20,000 investment. In 1878, Elliott affirmed the decision after Buford again appealed.

By the time the final decision was made, Buford's sister had died. He directly blamed the court for her death, and bore a grudge against both Judge Pryor, who had made the initial decision against him, and Elliott. Buford later said he bore no personal grudge against Elliott, but rather had been enraged when the judge came over after Pryor's decision and said, "Colonel, I did the best I could for you." Buford considered this to be an insincere statement. "He had given the original decision against me; he had concurred in this one and although he did not pronounce it, I had means of knowing that he was the moving spirit and engineer of it all through," Buford accused. He frequently stopped by the Capitol Hotel, where both Pryor and Elliott boarded, to shout threats up to them. At one point, the sheriff tried to serve eviction papers on Buford but quickly withdrew when he found that the farm had been heavily fortified to ward off such attempts.

In March of 1879, Buford sought his revenge. His primary target was Pryor, but he said he decided against killing the judge because he had children. He would not have been able to find Pryor in any case, since he had accepted a friend's drink invitation and was not at the hotel; doubtful about Buford's proclamation that he had decided against killing him, Pryor would tell people for years afterward that the drink had saved his life. Buford went after another judge as well, but couldn't persuade him to leave his breakfast to see him.

Finally, Buford found Elliott in front of the Capitol Hotel with another judge. Buford had been wandering through the town carrying a shotgun loaded with buckshot, but this did not raise any concerns. In fact, Buford was wearing his hunting gear and asked Elliott if he wanted to go snipe hunting. Elliott declined, and Buford persisted by asking Elliott to go out for a drink with him. Elliott refused this offer as well. The other judge turned away for a moment and heard a gunshot. When he turned back, he saw that Elliott had collapsed. He died soon after.

Buford readily confessed that the shooting was no accident and showed no remorse, calling Elliott "the most ignominious game my gun ever killed." He added that he killed Elliott "to try my case, to show that they could not rob and assassinate with impunity." The murder itself shocked the state. Governor James B. McCreary declared that state offices would be closed at noon the day after Elliott's death as a token of respect, and ordered all state officers and clerks to attend the funeral. The New York Times wrote, "No man among all the popular elements of his district enjoyed such real and universal esteem." Later, Elliott would have a statue dedicated to his memory at the Boyd County Courthouse in Calettsburg.

Elliott went to trial in July of 1879. There was little chance of disproving that Buford had shot Elliott, and there was no attempt to do so by the defense. Rather, 45 witnesses took the stand to testify that Elliott was insane. The jury found Buford guilty and sentenced him to life in prison. A second trial took place on appeal in 1881, and on this occasion he was found not guilty by reason of insanity. Buford was sent to an asylum, although he soon escaped and made his way to Indiana. He stayed there for two years before voluntarily returning to the asylum, dying there in February of 1885.

Elliott's murder also helped contribute to the death of General Abe Buford II, Thomas's brother. Renowned as a horse breeder and veteran of the Mexican War and Civil War (on the Confederate side), Abe bankrupted himself paying for Thomas's defense. In 1884, he committed suicide, leaving behind a note that said in part, "My financial troubles have driven me to despair. Have lost my only chance to relieve my unfortunate brother and self, and the future is too dark for me to struggle against any further."

Sources: The Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, The Political Graveyard, "Members of the Legislature Expelled" in the New York Times on Dec. 24 1861, "The Record of Murder" in the New York Times on March 27 1879, "A Chivalrous Murderer" in the New York Times on Jul. 20 1879, "Abe Buford's Suicide" in the Reading Eagle on Jun. 10 1884, Lawyers and Lawmakers of Kentucky edited by H. Levin, American Law Review Vol. 54, Famous Kentucky Tragedies and Trials by Lewis Franklin Johnson, A New History of Kentucky by Lowell H. Harrison and James C. Klotter, The Kentucky Encyclopedia edited by John E. Kleber