Lawman Tom Horn was born in Missouri in 1860. He was a Bounty Hunter, Apache Scout, Pinkerton Detective, and worked for cattlemen as range detective and during many of the range wars. He was also in the Spanish American War with the Rough Riders, and played a large role in the capture of the Indian Chief Geronimo, because he spoke fluent Spanish and Apache, he also had some success as a rodeo cowboy.
He was hired by the various Cattle interests to kill rustlers. In 1901 he was hired by a rancher John Coble and a sometimes girlfriend Glendolene Kimmel family feud with a homesteader Kels Nickells, and by the accounts of the time, someone shot Nickells’ 13-year old son probably by mistake, thinking it was his father.
A deputy U.S. Marshall Joe LeFors supposedly heard Tom Horn confess in a drunken stupor, and then set up a hidden stenographer and drew the story from Tom Horn, which convicted him for the killing. While awaiting exaction, he wrote his autobiography, and also he and another prisoner made a jail break but he was recognized by a whorehouse owner, and recaptured. Tom Horn was hung in Cheyenne Wyoming in 1903, and some people think it was for a killing that he didn’t do, although he did plenty of others.