Tom Horn was a range detective in Wyoming who was convicted of the murder of Willie Nickell, a boy who died in Laramie County on July 18, 1901. Horn was tried in Cheyenne in October 1902, found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to death. The Wyoming Supreme Court rejected his appeal in September 1903, and he was executed in Cheyenne on November 20, 1903.
Other killings were attributed to Horn, in the 1890s and in 1900, but he was never charged with or convicted of any of them. The case that ended his life rested largely on a statement he made to a deputy U.S. marshal in January 1902, which the prosecution presented as a confession. The defense contested it, and historians have argued over the verdict ever since. A mock retrial in 1993 returned a verdict of "Not guilty."
Horn was born in 1860. By the time he came before Wyoming's courts he had worked as a civilian scout for the U.S. Army in Arizona in the 1880s and as an agent of the Pinkerton Detective Agency, and Wyoming ranchers had hired him as a range detective.
His work belongs to a particular period. Through the 1880s and 1890s the large cattle operations of Wyoming were in conflict with smaller ranchers over land and livestock, and cattlemen's interests employed stock detectives and hired enforcers. That conflict included the armed expedition of April 1892, in which some fifty men traveled north from Cheyenne into Johnson County. It ended without convictions, because a jury could not be seated. In 1893 the Wyoming Stock Growers Association opened its membership to all Wyoming stock growers, and by the early twentieth century the state's armed economic disputes were drawing to a close. Chip Carlson, who has written on Horn's case, links the trial to that change, observing that the cattlemen's power, once substantial, was on the wane.
The boy died in Laramie County, Wyoming, on July 18, 1901, and the charge that followed was first-degree murder.
The Laramie County commissioners hired a stock detective and sometime deputy U.S. marshal to investigate. The inquiry moved toward Horn through correspondence that the deputy marshal forwarded to him and led to a meeting in Cheyenne in January 1902.
In January 1902 Horn traveled to Cheyenne. At the U.S. marshal's office, the deputy marshal questioned him for about two hours with a stenographer and a witness present. The stenographer's transcript became the central item of evidence at the trial. The prosecution treated the statement as an admission; the defense contested it, arguing that Horn had been drinking and that the exchange was not a serious one. The prosecution introduced only parts of the statement.
Horn was arrested in Cheyenne on January 13, 1902, by the Laramie County sheriff and a deputy sheriff. He did not resist.
The trial opened in Cheyenne on October 10, 1902, in the Laramie County District Court. The presiding judge and the county prosecutor were both due to face election within weeks, and press coverage was intense. Horn's alibi, which placed him about twenty miles from the scene, was weakened by his own testimony.
The jury received the case on October 23, 1902, and returned its verdict the next day: guilty of first-degree murder. The court sentenced Horn to death and set the date of execution for November 20, 1903. The long interval before that date was due to appeals and other attempts to spare him.
Horn's appeal went to the Wyoming Supreme Court as Horn v. State, reported at 12 Wyo. 80 and 73 P. 705. The court decided it on September 30, 1903, and the conviction stood. The trial papers, including inquest testimony, jury lists, affidavits, briefs, motions and jury instructions, are held among the Wyoming State Archives collections, together with the Supreme Court case file.
Horn was executed in Cheyenne on November 20, 1903, one day short of his forty-third birthday.
Whether Horn committed the offense for which he was convicted has remained an open question. Eric Jacobsen wrote that historians of the American West disagree to this day about Horn's guilt in that offense, and that "Horn's trial was tarnished from top to bottom by evidence manipulation and incompetence."
Chip Carlson concluded that Horn probably did not commit the offense. He pointed to the lack of direct material or testimonial evidence, to the drunken and boastful character of the statement made to the deputy marshal, and to the failure to investigate others. His assessment was: "Horn, it seems clear, was convicted because his reputation made him an easy target for the prosecution." Carlson also suggested that, given the press coverage and weak sequestration, the jurors may have decided before deliberations began.
A different reading holds that the jury convicted Horn because it believed he was an assassin, a killer for hire. Its author notes that the offense involved no theft and, on the evidence, no personal motive, and that Horn had little acquaintance with the family.
The other killings attributed to Horn rest on later accounts and suspicion. Many historians have concluded that he was responsible for two killings in 1900, an attribution that depends on an account written about twenty years later, and he was suspected in two further deaths in 1895. He was not charged in any of these, and none is a conviction.
In 1993 a mock retrial was held in Cheyenne, presided over by a retired Wyoming Supreme Court justice. The mock jury returned a verdict of "Not guilty." The governor of the time declined to consider a posthumous pardon.
1860: Tom Horn is born.
July 18, 1901: The boy dies in Laramie County, Wyoming.
January 1902: Horn travels to Cheyenne and is questioned at the U.S. marshal's office.
January 13, 1902: Horn is arrested in Cheyenne by the Laramie County sheriff and a deputy sheriff.
October 10, 1902: trial opens in Laramie County District Court, Cheyenne.
October 24, 1902: the jury returns a verdict of guilty of first-degree murder; Horn is sentenced to death.
September 30, 1903: the Wyoming Supreme Court decides Horn v. State, 12 Wyo. 80, 73 P. 705; the conviction stands.
November 20, 1903: Horn is executed in Cheyenne.
1993: a mock retrial in Cheyenne ends in a verdict of "Not guilty."