People living in the Bumble Bee district were concerned when Thomas Glasgow, a 60-year-old prospector, missed some appointments.
“Glasgow…was arrested about two weeks [previous] on a charge filed by [Charles] Wagoner, who claimed [Glasgow] jumped his claims,” the Prescott Evening Courier explained. The case was dismissed, “but bad blood is said to have developed between the two men as a result.” Following the dismissal, Glasgow “told neighbors that if he ever was missing, to arrest Wagoner for murder.”
The sheriff’s office was called to investigate his disappearance. It was Christmas Day, 1925.
When Deputy Sheriff Ryan of Meyer arrived to inspect Glasgow’s cabin, he found Wagoner loading the missing man’s “meager” possessions into his car. Ryan arrested him immediately. Looking inside the cabin, the deputy found a disconcerting sight that was initially withheld from the public—Glasgow’s cabin was peppered with blood stains nearly everywhere. Deputy Ryan then took Wagoner to Prescott, where he was jailed. After reporting what he found, several deputies left for the area to search for Glasgow, but no sign was found. After several more days, fifteen of Glasgow’s neighbors, members of the Mayer Community Club, joined the search, but to no avail.
Although there was no real sign that a body had been thrown into the well near Glasgow’s cabin, the sheriff procured a gasoline-powered pump to drain the 80 feet of water just to be sure.
A bloody fingerprint was found in the doorway of the cabin, and fingerprint experts were called upon to compare it with the prisoner, but the findings were inconclusive. Additionally, the spattered blood on the walls yielded samples that were sent off to be tested.
After the surroundings of Glasgow’s cabin were searched, attention turned to Wagoner’s cabin. In the brush nearby, a bloodstained coat, thought to be Wagoner’s, was discovered. And although no sign of Glasgow was forthcoming, other evidence of his demise was uncovered.
Another item found near Wagoner’s cabin was a barrel of mash—illegal in the days of prohibition, but initially this charge “was held in abeyance,” according to the Coconino Sun.
After the first round of blood samples was sent away for testing, a more intense search of Glasgow’s cabin revealed “strands of human hair, blotted with dry blood and adhering to the boards of the kitchen floor,” the Evening Courier chronicled. Examination of the floor showed that pools of blood had been there, but an attempt was made to clean them up, and dust and ashes were spread on top of them. When deputies took up some of these floor boards, “it was found that he blood had run down between the boards, staining them on the underside for a considerable distance and that pools of it had formed under the floor.”
Surprisingly, the tests of the blood from the wall splatterings revealed it was not of a human, but of an unknown animal. So, after three weeks in jail under suspicion, and with the whereabouts of Glasgow unknown, Wagoner was released.
Some began to openly wonder if Glasgow staged all of this to retaliate for Wagoner’s swearing out the warrant against him.
Just over three months after his disappearance, Glasgow was declared deceased despite that his body had not been found. In the meantime, authorities decided to arrest Wagoner for the mash, and he was held in lieu of a $1000 bond. While he was incarcerated, heavy, late-winter rainstorms scoured the area.
The story of some memorable, illicit stills in Yavapai County, AZ during prohibition.
Then, in late March 1926, a cowpuncher was riding in the Canon country and found the gruesome discovery of a disturbed and opened shallow grave. It was thought that the body of Glasgow had been found, but it was in a bad state of decomposition and “the head had been beaten almost to a pulp,” the Evening Courier reported. The grave was discovered within 100 yards, and in sight of Wagoner's cabin. “It evidently had been hidden carefully,” the paper explained, “but recent storms have served to wash off the dirt and brush to reveal that a body had been buried there... A pair of shoes left on the feet and a watch found inside the grave are all that can be used for purposes of identification.”
Acquaintances were brought in, and the body was identified as Glasgow. It was determined that an axe was used to bash-in his head. “[Wagoner] did not know of the gruesome discovery until he was taken to view the remains of the alleged victim,” the Evening Courier reported. “Until that time, [he] had acted as a rational man, but since [that time], he has refused to speak, only muttering…”
On March 27, Wagoner was formally charged with murder, and “maintained a stoical silence,” the Arizona Republican wrote, “living on tea, coffee, tobacco, and almost no food.”
In addition to the Glasgow murder, Wagoner was suspected in the disappearance of a Turkey Creek resident several years before. The Yavapai County Sheriff ordered further searches, but nothing came of it.
“Upon his arraignment in Superior Court, [Wagoner was] muttering unintelligible words about his horses,” the Tucson Citizen reported, and “refused to answer any of the queries of the court.”
So instead of a murder trial beginning the summer session of the superior court, a jury was selected to decide if Wagoner was insane. After witnesses described the complete transformation of Wagoner’s mentality only after seeing the dead body, the jury quickly decided he was sane, and the court set a date for his murder trial.
The trial started June 10, 1926, and despite having just been found sane by a jury, Wagoner would still plead insanity. The first witness for the prosecution was the cowpuncher who found the body, David Eckel. He was followed by three acquaintances of Glasgow, who testified to the identification of the body.
The next day, the victim's possessions were entered into evidence. Glasgow’s hat and tarpaulin were found in Wagoner’s cabin.
The prosecution closed its case by calling neighbors who testified that Glasgow feared for his life from Wagoner.
“When the defense opened…an attempt was made to prove that the accused man was not sane at the time of the alleged crime occurred, although the only witnesses available were prisoners in the county jail who have been companions of Wagoner’s since the date of Glasgow’s death,” the Evening Courier explained, “and who testified concerning the man’s peculiar and unsanitary habits in the prison.”
The last witness for the defense was to be the accused man himself, “but he failed to reply to repeated summons from the clerk, maintaining his insane attitude,” the same paper told. “No physical effort to put him on the stand was made, and the defense rested.”
In rebuttal, the prosecution called several witnesses who stated that Wagoner was quite sane until three months after the disappearance, when Wagoner was shown the body.
The jury took less than an hour to find Wagoner guilty of murder in the first degree with a sentence of life in prison. “While definite proof of the murder was lacking, circumstantial evidence wove such a highly meshed web around the man that there was little doubt of his guilt,” the Evening Courier concluded.
Ten days after being found guilty, “Wagoner apparently regained his senses, for he asked for his counsel and demanded a new trial. Funds being lacking for his defense and for an appeal, the life sentence stood,” the same paper explained.
He arrived at the penitentiary on June 26, 1926, and his stay there produced a rapid, rehabilitative effect on his wits. On March 13, 1927, he escaped on a Sunday afternoon. Despite a reward offer of $25 for his re-arrest (about $460 today), no other sign of him was ever uncovered.
He spent a mere nine months of his life sentence in prison.
Author’s note: Initial reports spelled the murderer’s name “Wagner”, but since the court spelled it Wagoner, it is assumed that that was his legal name.
True Crime story of a shootout between TF Averill and Charles Wells in Mayer, AZ in 1910.
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SOURCES:
Prescott Evening Courier, 12/28/1925; Pg. 1.
Arizona Daily Star, 1/7/1926; Pg. 1, Col. 5.
Prescott Evening Courier, 12/30/1925; Pg. 4, Col. 4
Prescott Evening Courier, 12/30/1925; Pg. 1, Col. 5
Prescott Evening Courier, 12/29/1925; Pg. 1, Col. 3
Prescott Evening Courier, 12/31/1925; Pg. 1, Col. 7
Prescott Evening Courier, 1/7/1926; Pg. 4, Col. 5
Prescott Evening Courier, 12/29/1925; Pg. 8, Col. 4
Coconino Sun, 1/15/1926; Pg. 13, Col. 4.
Douglas Daily Dispatch, 3/6/1926; Pg. 4, Col. 3.
Prescott Evening Courier, 3/24/1926; Pg. 1, Col. 3
Prescott Evening Courier, 3/24/1926; Pg. 3, Col. 5
Douglas Daily Dispatch, 3/28/1926; Pg. 5, Col. 3.
Arizona Daily Star, 3/28/1926; Pg. 1, Col. 7.
Arizona Republican, 4/3/1926; Pg. 1, Col. 6.
Tucson Citizen, 4/21/1926; Pg. 2, Col. 5.
Prescott Evening Courier, 6/7/1926; Pg. 1, Col. 3
Arizona Daily Star, 6/2/1926; Pg. 1, Col. 4.
Arizona Republican, 6/11/1926; Pg. 1_c7.
Prescott Evening Courier, 6/10/1926; Pg. 8, Cols. 3-4.
Prescott Evening Courier, 6/11/1926; Pg. 3, Col. 2
Prescott Evening Courier, 6/12/1926; Pg. 1, Col. 7
Prescott Evening Courier, 6/14/1926; Pg. 1, Col. 6
Prescott Evening Courier, 3/19/1927; Pg. 1, Col. 2
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