It was the morning of February 1, 1895. A Mexican boy who was out hunting was traveling along the Copper Basin road when he came upon a ghastly scene. The night before, a man was brutally murdered.
“His appearance was a frightful one, the right side of his head being smashed so that the bones protruded, while all over his body and on his hands were many knife wounds to be seen,” the Arizona Weekly Journal-Miner described. “The ground too, gave evidence of a struggle, and though losing his life, made a desperate fight to the last.”
“Sheriff Ruffner went to the scene and found some unmistakable evidence, in an instrument found, that carries strong circumstantial evidence to trace the murderer,” the paper continued. “The sheriff is also said to possess many links in the long chain of the deed, which will be welded together in one bond and the courts [allowed] to deal with the tragedy thereby in justice.”
The dead man was identified as GKW McNary, owner of the Quick Silver mine in Copper Basin. “McNary left his cabin at the mine Wednesday night at [8 or] 9 o’clock on foot with a lantern bound for Prescott. He chose nighttime to travel because his life had been threatened by Loske and others previously,” the Miner reported. He traveled only about a mile when he was jumped and murdered.
“The cowardly and inhuman method with which the murder [was committed], makes the scene one of horror and disgust,” the paper declared. “The murder of Mr. McNary, which occurred on [January 31] at Copper Basin, is another instance in which human vengeance seems to have been thoroughly satisfied."
“His head and face [were] beaten and battered out of all semblance to a human face or head. The ground near where his body was found was torn up and showed evidence of a severe struggle having taken place,” the Miner explained. Several burned matches were found about the scene, leading law enforcement to believe that the perpetrator was vigorously searching for something. Indeed, “a short distance away was found the forearm of the stock of a double-barreled shotgun on which "Schultz" was written in Loske’s handwriting. Additionally, the day before, Sheriff Ruffner happened to see Schultz in the area “with a double-barreled shotgun, and he was unable to give any satisfactory explanation of [why he was] there.”
“His death, in short, may be put down to the legal dispute that prevailed over a piece of ground near Copper Basin,” the paper continued. Indeed, Paul Loske sued McNary in 1894 over a mining claim.
“Yesterday Sheriff Ruffner...arrested a man named [R William] Schultz, [whose] face and hands show[ed] marks and bruises that he had but recently sustained,” the Miner told. Later Loske was arrested too, “the course of the officers being guided in this arrest by a knowledge of the threats that had passed between the slain and Mr. Loske.” Loske denied the charge, but the paper cited: “There is strong evidence…that the real murderer, Schultz, was but the willing tool of [Loske],"
Upon their arrests, Schultz was held without bail, while Loske was placed under a $1000 bond.
The trial was short with Ruffner and an undersheriff testifying for the Territory. The jury took just two ballots. The first found only one in favor of acquittal. ”When the verdict was announced, Schultz maintained the stoical appearance which has characterized him all through the trial, the result apparently being no surprise to him,” the Miner observed. “Not so, however, with Loske. While he acted somewhat nervously during the progress of the trial, he seemed to be buoyed up with the hope that his proof of an alibi was sufficient to clear him of the crime, and when the verdict was announced he broke completely down. His head drooped down over his chest, and he sobbed and cried bitterly.” Schultz kept cool in the courtroom, but his fellow prisoners told "that he constantly pace[d] back and forth in his cell and [was] frequently startled in his sleep, jumping from his cot.”
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After the convictions, a doctor was called after Schultz ate all the matches he could find—for what reason, no one could be sure, but the only effect achieved was Schultz’s vomiting. Loske was also “considerably worked up over the matter and [found] it difficult to maintain his composure,” the Miner related. When his wife visited, they “both wept bitterly, Mrs. Loske finally fainting.”
Sentence would be passed on June 21. “Long before the hour for opening court [and the sentencing], a throng of people could be seen winding its way to the courthouse and by 10 [AM] every bench in the courtroom was filled while scores of people stood in the aisles eager to hear the sentence that was to decide the fate of two men who have been convicted of one of the most diabolical murders ever committed in this section,” the paper related. First, the defense moved for “arrest of judgment” which was followed by one for a new trial. Both were overruled.
Schultz required an interpreter, and when asked to give a reason the sentence should not be pronounced, he objected to the Sheriff and Undersheriff testifying against him. Judge Hawkins gave both of them the death penalty “for the murder of the harmless old man,” the Miner declared. “The sentence of the court was that he be remanded to the custody of the Sheriff and kept by him until Friday, August 9, and that he be taken to the Sheriff to some convenient and private place and be there hanged by the neck until dead. Schultz sank back into his seat with no emotion perceptible whatever.” The same sentence was pronounced on Loske, and as the words “may God have mercy on your soul” crossed the Judge’s lips, he buried his face in his hands with his elbows on his knees and remained that way until he was escorted to the jail downstairs.
An appeal was immediately made to the Arizona Supreme Court.
Coincidentally, the Plaza gazebo (aka the bandstand) was being constructed right in plain sight of the jail, and the other prisoners convinced the two that it was the construction of their gallows. “[This] has not had a very quieting effect on the nerves of Loske and Schultz,” the Miner quipped.
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Meanwhile, the civil case of Loske v McNary was dismissed in November.
Upon review, the Arizona Supreme Court sustained the indictment from the bench, and took the question of whether the testimony justified the verdict under advisement. Their consideration extended for an extraordinary length of time for the 19th century when capital cases were dealt with far more swiftly.
When the Territorial Grand Jury concluded its service in the Summer of 1896, they added an admonishment to the Supreme Court. “We respectfully draw the attention of the…Territorial Supreme Court to the fact that in the case of [Schultz and Loske]…over one year ago…remains undecided [and] such delay in rendering a decision in such cases becomes both an injustice to the prisoners and a continuing burden to the county” (having to jail them). Still, the Supreme Court took another three months before remanding the case back to the lower court for retrial.
But before the case was retried, the Arizona Territorial Legislature passed, and the governor signed the befuddling “Norton Act,” which “repeal[ed] the law concerning murder, [so] no conviction can be had for a greater crime than manslaughter in cases committed prior to its passage,” the Arizona Republican explained. And since “Loske was never charged with actively participating in the murder, but was charged as an accessory before the fact, and the [new] law does not recognize [an accessory] in cases of manslaughter, [Loske] was released. Schultz will be [re]tried for manslaughter,” the paper explained. Loske had served 28 months in jail.
At Schultz’s second trial, the German government hired Judge WH Barnes of Tucson to defend him because he was a German veteran. Still, Schultz was convicted of manslaughter. Barnes motioned for a new trial, and a stay was granted. However, Schultz could not produce the $2000 bond (over $80,000 today) and was held in jail.
He was sentenced to the longest term allowable for manslaughter—ten years. When Sheriff Ruffner came to take Schultz to the Yuma prison, the latter fought him vigorously. “It required the combined efforts of four men to place the irons on him,” and during the struggle, he succeeded in kicking the undersheriff in the face. Schultz shouted “vile epithets at the top of his voice.” He also “openly stated that he would kill himself rather than go to the penitentiary.”
“He is now an old man,” the Republican noted, “so that the 10-year sentence, if served, will be nearly equivalent to a life term.”
However, the manslaughter conviction was appealed to the Arizona Supreme Court, which ruled that erroneous instructions were given to the jury and Schultz was granted a new, and now third, trial. It was described as “quite a lengthened trial” by a Republican reporter.
In an anticlimactic conclusion, Schultz was found not guilty. And after spending four and a half years in confinement, he walked out of the courtroom a free man.
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SOURCES:
Arizona Weekly Journal-Miner:
11/28/1894; Pg. 3, Col. 4.
2/6/1895; Pg. 3, Col. 6.
2/13/1895; Pg. 2, Col. 2.
6/12/1895; Pg. 5, Col. 2.
6/19/1895; Pg. 5.
6/26/1895; Pg. 1, Col. 7; Pg. 5, Cols. 1-2.
2/12/1896; Pg. 3, Col. 4.
7/8/1896; Pg. 1, Col. 2.
10/3/1896; Pg. 5, Col. 1.
9/221897; Pg. 2, Col. 4.
7/13/1898; Pg. 3, Col. 6.
8/23/1899; Pg. 3, Col. 4.
Arizona Republican:
2/3/1895; Pg. 1, Col. 2.
6/11/1897; Pg. 4, Cols. 1_2.
7/15/1897; Pg. 1, Col. 5.
9/22/1897; Pg. 5, Col. 3.
8/20/1899; Pg. 8, Col. 2
Arizona Daily Star:
6/13/1897; Pg. 1, Col. 3.
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