Stephen Richards was executed on the courthouse square at Minden, in Kearney County, Nebraska, on April 26, 1879. He was a young man who had come to the state only two years earlier. In late 1878 two crimes in central Nebraska, the deaths of a household of four and the death of a neighbor, were traced to him. In January 1879, held in the state penitentiary at Lincoln, he confessed to nine killings in all, most of them, according to the University of Nebraska at Kearney, in Buffalo and Kearney counties. He was tried and convicted for one of them, the murder of Peter Anderson. The others rest on his confession.
Richards was a man in his early twenties. Johnson's History of Nebraska, a county-by-county account, says he was 23 when he was executed, that he stood six feet two inches tall, and that he first came to Nebraska in early 1877. That account calls him Samuel D. Richards; the 1882 county history, the History Nebraska collection records and the University of Nebraska at Kearney all give the name as Stephen. The second name is given as Dee in the university's lecture notice and as D. in the older books.
His birthplace is not on record. The 1882 county history says that when he fled central Nebraska he went to his parents' home in Ohio, which is where he was later found. Nothing on record describes his schooling, his work in Nebraska or his earlier life, and no motive is on record.
The first of the two crimes concerned a family he knew. The 1882 history of Kearney County, written by William Cutler and printed in Andreas's History of the State of Nebraska, says that in December 1878 Richards murdered "in cold blood" the Harlison family. Johnson's history spells the name Harolson, dates the killings to November 2, 1878, and says the victims were a woman and her three small children, with whom Richards had been living. The two books disagree on the month and on the spelling of the family's name. The names of the woman and the children are not on record.
Richards did not stand trial for the household's deaths. They are known from his own accounts: the lecture on his case given in 2025 by Nathan Tye, a historian at the University of Nebraska at Kearney, described two written confessions in which Richards said he had killed his victims. For legal purposes the deaths of the woman and her children are confessed, not adjudicated.
The second crime is the one for which he was convicted. Peter Anderson, a man born in Sweden, lived alone in Kearney County. The 1882 history says that shortly after the household's deaths Richards killed him. Johnson places the killing in December 1878.
Johnson's account and the 1882 history both treat the Anderson killing as separate from the household's deaths, with a gap of some weeks between the two. That makes at least two separate events: the first took four lives, the second one.
After Anderson's death Richards left the county. The 1882 history lists his route: the Republican Valley, Hastings, Chicago, and finally his parents' home in Ohio. He was arrested in Ohio and brought back to Nebraska. The date of the arrest and the name of the arresting officer are not on record.
The Minden Courier's report on the 2025 lecture says the killings began in Hastings and continued to Kearney and Minden. No court ever made that finding.
Richards was held in Kearney while the case was prepared and was tried at Minden, the Kearney County seat.
Residents wanted to lynch him, the Minden Courier reported in 2025, but the sheriff insisted on a fair and orderly trial. The trial ended in a guilty verdict and a sentence of death.
According to the 1882 county history, he was tried for the murder of Anderson, and the judge, William Gaslin, sentenced him to death, with the date fixed as April 16, 1879. The jurors, the lawyers and the witnesses are not on record, and neither is any plea. No trial for the deaths of the woman and the children is on record.
In January 1879, after sentence, Richards was held in the Nebraska State Penitentiary at Lincoln. There, according to the University of Nebraska at Kearney, he confessed to the murder of nine people. The confession, according to Visit Kearney, was made over two days to Dillon Prosser Ashburn, a former state legislator from Gibbon, who was also in the penitentiary. Tye's lecture, as reported in 2025, described two written confessions.
Nine killings is the number Richards gave. It is not a number any court found. Of the nine, the record identifies four by description (the woman and her three children) and one by name (Anderson). The other four are not on record, and no investigation or charge on them is on record.
Most of these killings, the university says, were in Buffalo and Kearney counties. No other state appears in the record, and no killing outside Nebraska is attributed to him.
The execution was set for April 1879. The 1882 county history gives April 16 as the date fixed at sentencing; every later account gives April 26, 1879, as the day he was executed. The reason for the ten days between the two dates is not on record.
According to the 1882 history, Richards was brought to Minden the day before and held overnight in the county clerk's office, because the county had no jail. The execution took place on the courthouse square. Tickets of admittance were issued, and History Nebraska holds one for the Minden execution of April 26, 1879. The Minden Courier's report on the 2025 lecture, which showed a preserved ticket, puts the crowd at more than 1,500 people. According to James E. Potter, writing in Nebraska History in 2012, the crowd at Minden tore down the privacy enclosure that had been built around the execution site, and the 1882 history reports the same.
Johnson's history says only that Richards was executed at Minden, the county seat, for the murder. The Minden Courier's report quotes him as saying before he died that he regretted he could not have killed two more people before leaving the world. The quotation survives only in that modern report; no 1879 printing of it is on record.
Several points are unsettled.
The first is the family's name and the date of their deaths. The two books give Harlison and Harolson, and December 1878 and November 2, 1878.
The second is the first name. Johnson's history prints Samuel; every other account says Stephen.
The third is the number nine. It is Richards's own count, and most of the people it refers to are not on record.
The fourth is the place the killings began. The 2025 lecture report says Hastings; the older books place the household's deaths in Nebraska without naming a town.
The fifth is the gap between the sentence date and the execution date, for which no reason is on record.
None of these affects the one finding of a court: a court at Minden found him guilty of murdering Peter Anderson, and he was sentenced to death for it.
The county history, writing three years later, said there had been few murders in Kearney County since its organization and that only two murderers had been convicted, the other being a man named Williams, who was convicted in Adams County for a killing in 1875 and sentenced to ten years in the state penitentiary. Richards's name entered the state's list of legal executions: Potter's article lists "1879 (April 26) Stephen D. Richards, Minden, Kearney County" among the executions carried out in Nebraska between 1863 and 1997.
The state historical society keeps his name in its collections: a ticket of admittance to the Minden execution, and a photograph collection catalogued under his name. In 2024 the University of Nebraska at Kearney's history department sponsored a public lecture on his case by Nathan Tye, who argued that it shows the state of law, law enforcement and crime in central Nebraska in the 1870s. Tye gave a version of the lecture to the Kearney County Historical Society in June 2025.
Early 1877: Richards first comes to Nebraska.
November or December 1878: a woman and her three young children die in Kearney County; Richards later confesses to these deaths (dates differ between the two county histories).
December 1878: Peter Anderson dies; Richards is convicted of his murder.
Winter 1878 to 1879: Richards leaves Nebraska for Ohio, where he is arrested (date unknown).
Before January 1879 (date unknown): tried at Minden, found guilty and sentenced to death by Judge William Gaslin; the date is first set for April 16, 1879.
January 1879: in the state penitentiary at Lincoln, Richards confesses to nine killings.
The day before the execution: brought to Minden and held overnight in the county clerk's office.
April 26, 1879: Stephen Richards is executed on the courthouse square at Minden, before a crowd reported at more than 1,500.
2012: Nebraska History lists his execution among the state's legal executions.
2024 and 2025: public lectures on his case at the University of Nebraska at Kearney, at the Kearney Public Library and for the Kearney County Historical Society.