USA > California > Contra Costa County > The history of Contra Costa County, California > Part 17
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walked back to where they were. Deceased again walked up against Taylor, who said, "Go away from me. I don't know who you are, and don't want you to follow me. Go about your business." At this Taylor gave him a shove and he fell backward. After he got up Naghel told him he had better go away, but he would not, and persistently thrust his society upon them. Naghel then asked him where his wagon was. He . pointed to where it stood, and he was told to go to it. He started in that direction, Taylor, Higgins, and Naghel walking after him toward the residence of the first named, deceased walking on the sidewalk and they in the middle of the street. When deceased reached Wittenmyer's corner he halted and turned back, still walking on the sidewalk, and went around the corner towards Sturges' Hotel. The three then remained talking for a short time in the middle of the street and opposite the thoroughfare leading to Brent's warehouse. While standing there, Fergusson came back from the direction of the Alham- bra Hotel, and approached in the middle of the street to within about fifteen steps, when he dropped on one knee, with a gun pointed in the direction in which they stood. Naghel remarked to his companions, "He has a gun; look out !" They all thereupon concealed themselves in separate places of safety, and the deceased got up to follow. Naghel ran again in the direction of Brent's warehouse, but did not notice where the other two went. He saw, however, deceased drop on one knee as be- fore and saw the flash of a gun. A few seconds later he heard Taylor call for Brown. Naghel then went back to Brown's porch. He (Sheriff Warren Brown) brought out a carbine and gave it to Taylor, caution- ing him to be "very careful, for it would go off easy," and, "not to shoot if he could help it" or words to that effect. In the meantime Naghel was dispatched for Gift, to arrest the man. Taylor then took up his position by the railing near the end of the bridge. He now saw de- ceased approaching, holding his gun as if ready to fire, and searching about him for someone. Seeing Higgins, he pointed the weapon toward him. At this moment Taylor stepped to the end of the bridge and or- dered him to hold up his gun. He immediately wheeled around and pointed it at Taylor, when he (Taylor) fired and killed him. Taylor then handed himself over to the sheriff, who had now come up. The jury found a verdict that deceased was killed by K. W. Taylor, the shot be- ing in self-defense.
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KILLING OF SILVERIO MONJAS .- Of this affair the Contra Costa Ga- zette of July 8, 1871, has the following: "During the past week the peo- ple of the central portion of the county have been intensely excited by occurrences growing out of the disputed ownership and possession of a certain portion of the Moraga grant, about which there has been much litigation and contention for several years. The land in question is claimed on one side by Isaac Yoakum and on the other by members of the Moraga family. Some two months or more ago the sheriff, by writ of the District Court, was directed to put Yoakum in possession of the lands, then occupied by a portion of the Moraga family, but he had, as is claimed, no authority in executing the writ to remove and dispossess such of the Moraga children as were not named in the instrument, and he refused to do so, Yoakum, or his agent, as is said, refusing at the time to accept possession unless all the Moragas and their personal ef- fects were removed. Yoakum subsequently, however, went into occu- pancy of the portion of the premises to which the writ entitled him, and the Moragas remained in possession, as the sheriff had left them, of a portion of the land claimed by Yoakum, and to which, as we under- stand, he would have been entitled under the judgment of the court but for an error of omission in the complaint in action, upon which the judgment was rendered in his favor. From this situation of affairs, both parties claiming and believing they had legal and equitable rights which they were justified in asserting and defending, much heat and bitterness has arisen, and several serious collisions have occurred to the imminent peril of life on both sides. Some time early in May several rifle-shots were fired at one of the Moragas, and the horse he was riding was killed by a man in the employ of Yoakum named William Steele, who was at that time, together with one of the Yoakum boys, under one- thousand-dollar bonds to answer before the grand jury of the county. Since that time the temper of the hostile parties has not improved, and threatening demonstrations and preparations have been made on both sides, with no very serious results, however, until last Sunday (July Ist), when Silverio Monjas, one of the Moraga party, was shot by Wil- liam Steele, as he affirms, in self-defense. On the previous day there had been a collision between the parties and a good deal of shooting. In the melée one of the Moraga girls was struck with a gun and severely hurt by Yoakum, and the horse he was riding was fatally shot. Reports of
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these occurrences spread rapidly about the county, and created a degree of excitement and manifestations of indignation seldom produced in our usually quiet and moderate community ; and the excitement and indig- nation reached a higher pitch on Saturday, after the shooting of Mon- jas, threatening to culminate in a vengeful outbreak against the Yoakum party. In the heat of the excitement many intemperate and improper charges and threats were made, which a cooler judgment and fuller knowledge of facts would not justify. Sheriff Brown was on the ground shortly after the shooting of Monjas on Saturday, and, on the informa- tion of Yoakum, found and arrested Steele. Yoakum voluntarily offered to surrender himself to the sheriff for examination before any compe- tent magistrate upon any charge that might be preferred against him, and accompanied the sheriff to Walnut Creek, where, on finding Justice Slitz was absent, they proceeded to Pacheco, and on reaching that place found that Justice Ashbrook was also from home. Yoakum here de- clined to accompany the officer further, though he offered to give his word or bond for appearance whenever and for whatever purpose re- quired. As the sheriff had no warrant or authority whatever for detain- ing him, he was allowed to go; and the sheriff has been highly censured therefor, but, so far as we can see, without the slightest reason."
Monjas, who was shot by Steele, died about three o'clock on Saturday morning, and a jury of inquest, summoned and sworn on Sunday by Justice Allen, continued their inquiries until Monday evening, when the inquest was adjourned to ten o'clock Saturday morning at Walnut Creek. Steele was brought before Justice Ashbrook for examination on Thursday ; the people in the conduct of the case were represented by District Attorney Mills, and the defendant by Judge Blake, of Oakland. The examination was concluded on Friday afternoon, and Steele was held to answer for murder without admission to bail. The jury of in- quest found Isaac Yoakum to be accessory to the killing of said Sil- verio Monjas. He was brought before Justice Ashbrook, of Pacheco, on July 10th, to answer to the charge of assault with a deadly weapon, with intent to commit bodily injury upon the person of Gunecinda Moraga, in Moraga Valley, on June 30, 1871. On motion of Judge Warmcastle, acting for District Attorney Mills, the charge was modified to one of assault and battery. The defendant, contrary to the express desire of the court, and the prosecution, objected to trial of the charge by jury, and
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in deference to his objection the case was tried without a jury. The trial occupied the greater part of the Ioth and IIth of July. The defendant conducted the case in his own behalf, assisted by a young lady, his daughter, who wrote out the testimony as given in by the witnesses. The evidence produced clearly sustained the charge, and established that the defendant had proved an aggravated assault upon the Moraga girl, striking her twice with his gun and inflicting severe hurts upon her person, while, at the request of his herder, she and her sister were as- sisting him to drive the defendant's sheep away from the inclosure held by the Moraga family. Yoakum was found guilty and fined five hundred dollars, but gave notice of appeal. On the charge of being accessory with William Steele in the killing of Silverio Monjas, Isaac Yoakum was brought before Justice Wood, of Danville, on July 24th, examina- tion being continued till the 27th, and at its conclusion he was held upon bail of three thousand dollars to answer to the charge.
The case of George Steele was tried in Alameda County, before the Third District Court, whose term commenced February 19, 1872. The case was transferred for trial on the motion and affidavits of the pris- oner's counsel to the effect that existing prejudice would prevent an impartial trial in Contra Costa County. The case was set for March 4, 1872, and on that date he was acquitted. He was then held on the charge of an assault to murder, with bail bonds fixed at two thousand dollars.
KILLING OF PATRICK SULLIVAN .- On the afternoon of October 28, 1871, Justice Ashbrook, of Pacheco, was notified of the death of Pat- rick Sullivan at the residence of James Sullivan, his brother, near Bay Point, from a gun discharged at his head by Mrs. Catherine Sullivan, the wife of James. Of the untoward affair we find from the testimony adduced that James Sullivan was absent from home for several days, and had returned only on the 24th of October, but heard nothing from his wife that anything unpleasant had transpired, but observed that she did not speak to his brother, nor he to her, and on the 27th his brother told him that he must look out for another man, as he was going to leave. On the day of the killing they had been sowing wheat in the fore- noon and all were at the dinner-table as usual, but his wife did not eat, a circumstance that Sullivan attributed to her being unwell. After eat- ing he (the husband)! moved back his chair and was reading a newspa-
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per, when he was startled by the discharge of a gun in the room, and, on looking up, saw Mrs. Sullivan standing in the pantry door with a gun, and saw his brother fall forward on the table. Shocked and alarmed, he sprang up and rushed out of the door, his wife following with the gun in her hands, and the children clinging to her skirts. In his excitement and agony of mind, he exclaimed, "My God, what have you done? Was it an accident?" To which his wife replied: "No; I shot him. He deserved it. He was a villain. He attempted a vile outrage on me!" She then told him that the deceased, on the night of the 23d had forced open the window, entered her bedroom, and attempted to out- rage her, but she had fought him off, and on her declaring that she would take the children and go to Cunningham's (one of the neighbors) for protection, he threatened if she did so, or if she reported a word of the matter to her husband, he would kill her. On the following morning, after she had passed a sleepless night, while she was preparing kindling wood to light a fire, he came in, threw his arms around her and at- tempted to force her into his room, but she fought him off with the butcher knife she was using to split the kindling, and her little boy, who had been awakened by the noise, coming into the kitchen, he retired; but during the morning, and before the return of her husband, the de- ceased found an opportunity to renew his threat to kill her if she re- ported a word of what had occurred. All the testimony and collateral circumstances seemed to sustain Mrs. Sullivan's statement of the mat- ter to her husband, and the statement she made upon the inquest and the examination is the same. She was apprehended and held on five thousand dollars bail to answer to the charge before the grand jury. Mrs. Sullivan was duly arraigned and the case set for November 24, 1871, when she was very properly acquitted.
KILLING OF PETER PETERS .- On March 14, 1872, a Welshman named Peter Peters was shot and mortally wounded by a fellow-countryman named Job Heycock. From the testimony given before the coroner's jury, it appears that Heycock was aroused from his sleep on Thursday morning between the hours of four and five o'clock by a great noise in the room adjoining his bedroom. He got up, went into the next room, taking with him a loaded double-barreled shot-gun. It was quite dark there, but he thought he noticed somebody going upstairs. He called out
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to him to stop, but receiving no answer he fired. The deceased fell down to the bottom of the stairs. Heycock approached him, found him to be Peter Peters, a very particular friend of his. It also appeared from the testimony that William Rees, a person living with Heycock, was about lighting a fire in the kitchen when the deceased approached the win- dow from the outside, broke a pane of glass, raised the window and came in. Rees did not know who the person was, his light having gone out, and was frightened so that he ran upstairs, causing thereby a great noise, which woke everybody in the house. The jury of inquest returned a verdict of justifiable homicide.
In regard to the principal of this affair, the following "strange story" appeared above the signature "W" in the Alameda Advocate of May II, 1872: "In 1837, on the 26th of November, the cosmopolitan com- munity of Crumlin, a small village in Monmouthshire, in the western part of England, were aroused and somewhat bewildered by the com- mission of a foul crime, the perpetrators of which did not only escape, but so skillfully covered their tracks that discovery seemed impossible. A recent disclosure made under very singular circumstances, as will be seen from this brief narrative, has brought to light this once-thought impenetrable mystery. The circumstances may not be unfamiliar to many of the old residents of Monmouthshire. The victim was a young man by the name of Mason, who was found dead on the old Crumlin bridge with his body mangled in a fearful manner. A few weeks after this foul crime had been committed, three men disappeared from the village very mysteriously to parts unknown. There has been strong sus- picion that these were the guilty parties. One of the three was named Peter Peters, better known in this country as 'Welsh Pete.' For fifteen years he had been rambling through the different mining districts of California ; the last few years he has been laboring in the Mount Diablo coal mines. His voyage through life had been anything but pleasant. Given very much to dissipation, under the effects of which he was labor- ing on the morning of the 12th of February last, when he, at about five o'clock leaped from his bed, imagining that he was surrounded by a host of enemies with various kinds of weapons in their hands, with the in- tention of taking his life. He ran into an adjoining house for protec- tion, and jumped through the window of a back kitchen. Heycock, the proprietor, heard the noise and went to the kitchen door with his gun in
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his hand, and, as he says, called three times. Hearing no reply, he dis- charged the contents of his gun into Welsh Pete's body, when he fell to the floor. In a few moments he seemed quite conscious, and Heycock promptly dispatched a messenger for medical assistance, acknowledg- ing that he had made a mistake. The utmost attention was paid to the wounded man, yet he gradually became more feeble; but his strength and voice were spared to make a clear confession of being accessory to the murder of Mason on the old Crumlin bridge thirty-five years before. At ten o'clock the same day his symptoms became worse and in a few moments after he breathed his last."
MURDER OF VALENTINE EISCHLER .- On November 16, 1872, one Val- entine Eischler, a German, was killed on Marsh Creek, about eight miles southeast of Antioch, near what is called the "Chamisal." He was liv- ing with his wife upon a small farm, and had in his employ one Marshal Martin. During the stay of Martin, Mrs. Eischler formed a determina- tion to get rid of her husband, and several plans were formed by her and Martin for carrying into effect her deadly purpose. In pursuance of the plan, Martin went to Antioch one day and purchased a quantity of arsenic, and when he came home she mixed some of it with stewed pumpkin and put it on the table for supper. But it so happened that Eischler did not partake of any of it. The next morning it was thrown down the privy vault. A few days after she repeated the dish, but Mar- tin claimed that he persuaded her to throw it away. She then wanted Martin to tell Eischler that there were some pigs for sale at Point of Timber, and to go along with him in the wagon, get him to drinking, and then buy a bottle of whiskey and put arsenic into it. Martin went along with Eischler, but for some reason the plan did not succeed. Another plan was then formed by which Martin was to knock Eischler off the wagon on the way home from Antioch and run the wagon over his head. A neighbor riding home with them prevented this plan. Then she sug- gested that Martin should shoot him. Martin had a revolver which he had purchased from a man who got it in Vallejo, and it would be neces- sary to go there to get cartridges to fit it. She gave him the money to go there, and he got the cartridges and returned. The day upon which the murder was committed, Eischler went to Antioch for a load of flour ; Martin accompanied him, according to instructions. Before starting Mrs.
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Eischler placed an old blanket in the wagon so that Martin, after kill- ing Eischler, could wrap the body in it, and when he returned she would go with him to an old well near by, throw the body down the well, pour coal oil upon it and burn it up. Martin's heart failed him, and he did not shoot Eischler. When they returned she was very angry with Martin for not carrying out her plan, and told him that he did not love her, or he would do as she wished him to. After unloading the flour and putting the horses in the stable (it being about 4 P. M.), as Martin testified, he went about doing the chores, and Eischler com- menced making a doubletree. He had a piece of coupling, an axe, saw, hatchet, and jack-knife, and was using the wagon-tongue as a work- bench. Martin says that while he was watering a cow, which had to be led to water by a rope, Mrs. Eischler came out and commenced talking to her husband. They had some very high words. He heard Eischler say to his wife, "Woman, take your clothes and go back to the w- house where you came from." Then Mrs. Eischler stepped back and, picking up the axe, said, "I'll give you w- house," and struck her husband on the back of the head, knocking him over the wagon-tongue so that his body doubled over it; then she straddled the tongue and struck him two more blows on the front part of the head. Then she called Martin to come and help her drag the body into the stable. After placing it in the stable Martin went to saddle his horse for the purpose of going to the Good Templar's lodge at Eden Plains schoolhouse, about two miles away. While fixing his horse, he said that she went into the stable and struck the victim two more blows with the axe, and that when she came out she said that she had found him sitting up, but that she had fixed him now. When Martin returned from the lodge she told him to go and arouse the neighbors and tell them that Eischler was dead in the stable, and that the horses had kicked him to death. He obeyed her instruc- tions. When the neighbors came some of them suspected that he had been murdered. The next day, when they went to examine the body, they found a great many horehound burrs on the woolen shirt of the de- ceased, and by this means they found where the body had been dragged to the stable. Afterward they noticed the flies gathering upon Martin's shoes and pants, and this fact, together with the burrs upon the woolen shirt, led them to make search for the place where the murder had been committed. During this search Martin was very active in leading them
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off in different directions, but finally they came to the wagon and ex- amined the sandy soil around it. They soon found a damp place, and putting some of the sand in a basin of water it exhibited a bloody color, and a greasy scum arose to the surface. Martin and the woman were then arrested and taken to Antioch, where they both made confession, each charging the other, however, with having directly done the mur- der. Martin's testimony under cross-examination on the trial substan- tially agreed with this summary of the facts of the case. Martin was duly executed January 23, 1874, having previously made a full confes- sion of his share in the dreadful crime. On the scaffold he said, "Gentle- men, I am here on this platform to die an innocent man. That woman deserves ten times as much to die." It is not meet that we should here note the details of his execution ; these will remain in the minds of many of our readers. The wife of the victim of the barbarous drama has been ever since an inmate of the lunatic asylum at Stockton.
KILLING OF JAMIENS .- What is known as "Sidney Flat," about half a mile below Somersville, was the scene of a most wanton murder, com- mitted about one o'clock in the morning of January 27, 1873. Two wretched and disorderly brothels, to the annoyance and mortification of the respectable residents of Somersville, had been for some time shame- lessly maintained on Sidney Flat. At the hour named, as is gathered from the evidence, a drunken inmate of one of the establishments, named Hattie Davis, in company with an American, was on the way from one of these houses to the other, which are separated by a dis- tance of two or three hundred yards, followed by a Mexican named Jamiens and a Mexican boy about seventeen years of age. Jamiens was playing upon a toy musical instrument, and the boy was carrying a bot- tle of whiskey. The woman's drunken brawling attracted the attention of some of the visitors at the brothel she was approaching, and several of the men, among whom was James Carroll, started from the house toward them. On meeting, one of the number named Green said the woman asked him to take her home but on his attempting to do so the man who was with her tried to detain her, and he knocked him down. At this moment the two Mexicans joined the group, Jamiens playing up- on his harmonica, the toy instrument before mentioned. Carroll asked the Mexican boy what he had in his hand, and upon being answered
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that it was whisky he snatched the bottle from the boy and knocked him down, either with the bottle or his pistol, and turning on Jamiens, fired. Jamiens fell, exclaiming, "I am shot through the head," which were his last words, though he did not cease to breathe for some three or four hours afterward. The deceased had been employed for some time at the Somersville mines, where he bore a good character and was generally known by the name of "Frank." On April 18th Carroll was convicted of murder in the second degree, and was sentenced to twenty years' im- prisonment in the State prison.
KILLING OF MICHAEL DUFFY .- Thomas Redfern was arrested on the afternoon of June 21, 1873, at his residence, about a mile south of Mar- tinez, for having shot and dangerously wounded Michael Duffy. The wounded man was removed from Redfern's place, where the shooting occurred, to the county hospital, and his right arm from the elbow to the shoulder was found shockingly shattered and mangled by the shot, which had entered the side of the neck, shattering the bones about the head of the spinal column and the base of the skull. He died July 4th. Redfern, it seems, had taken Duffy out to his house some days before and had been spending most of the time there in convivial indulgences, until a quarrel arose between them which culminated in the shooting. May 14, 1874, Redfern was declared by a jury not guilty.
MURDER OF MARTIN GERSBACH .- The locality known as the Hertsel place, on San Pablo Creek, some three miles below what is called Tele- graph Road crossing, was the scene of a murder on the evening of Au- gust 1, 1873, almost precisely parallel in cause and circumstances with the Eischler murder mentioned above. If there be any difference at all, it is that in the last deed both the implicated parties were apparently persons of competent mental capacity and responsibility, while in the other case neither of them, perhaps, were up to the common measure of mental competency and sense of responsibility. In both cases the wife and the paramour plotted the death of the husband, attempted it re- peatedly by means of poison, and finally compassed it by a direct as- sault with murderous weapons-in the former case with an axe, and in the latter with pistol-shot, hammer, and axe.
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