Johnny Ringo was born May 3rd of 1850, and he died in July of 1882 in Arizona. So he died at 32, much like Jesus. Okay. Did he have 12 close friends? Yeah. Yes, he did. Welcome to Nice Ashes. Join hosts Mike and Nate for cigars and culture. Let's go beyond the smoke. What are we smoking today, Mike? We are smoking a Don Rafael, and the cap is not tasty at all. Okay. It's not offensive, but... Yeah, not bad. Not, uh, I don't know, kind of middle of the road, I guess, I would
say. I don't know, not overly exciting, but not mouth -puckeringly bad. What are you pairing your cigar with today? I am pairing my cigar with... A brew from a local brewery, and it is from Falling Knife, and it is called Verbal Tip. Oh, there we are. What about you? I am pairing mine with ice water and 10 -year Henry McKenna single barrel. Nice. Special occasion or just podcast day? It's just podcast day. Hell yeah, it is. I opened this bottle about three, four
weeks ago. And so it doesn't have very much left or very much gone. And I was like, well, I'll try it now and see. No time like the present. Yeah, first few puffs are fine. Kind of a weird overtone or undertone or something. I'm still getting that aspirin flavor off of it, but it's not. Yeah, maybe it's the cap. It's not terrible. We're doing our best to just explain as we go along. It's certainly not as bad as that other
one we had a couple episodes back. Not as bad as the other one, but this one so far, I'm not excited. Well, it's long. It's another long one. It's long, and it's not tasty so far. Not yet. It's got time. It's got time to grow. What are we talking about, Mike? Well, we have a theme here this season with me. And we're going to talk about something that I did not know was a conspiracy until recently. I actually read an article, oh, I would say four months ago,
about a gentleman named Johnny Ringo. And apparently Johnny Ringo's death is controversial. I did not know that, as many of these characters are. I suppose, since I knew you were going to ask. I will first tell the listeners who Johnny Ringo is. I obviously know who Johnny Ringo is. You know who Johnny Ringo is. Actually, I don't know. I don't know who Johnny Ringo is. You're fucking lying. You know who he is. Every American. More or less knows who Johnny Ringo is. Okay. Do you
seriously not know who Johnny Ringo is? Well, not by name. I don't know. What is he, some famous porn star or something? I am judging you so, so hard. So we will start off with this. Johnny Ringo was born May 3rd of 1850. And here's a hint. He died in July of 1882 in Arizona. So he died at 32, much like Jesus. His father died. This was a pivotal moment. Did he have 12 close friends? Yeah. Yes, he did. So he was born, I think, in Indiana. He was born in the eastern
United States somewhere. And moved west, as so many people did, after the Civil War. And he saw his father blow his own head off with a shotgun at 14. Accidentally, he fell off a wagon traveling west, like Oregon Trail -style accident. That might be a contributing factor of what happened for the rest of his life. Notable mentions before the time period that we're concerned with. He was involved in the Mason County War, which was one of the dozens of little skirmishes that went
on in the western United States. This particular one was cattle rustlers and the Texas Rangers versus German immigrants who were trying to ranch in Texas. So Johnny Ringo was buddies with one of the Rangers. in his 20s, and he was a cattle wrestler, and he, of course, fought on the side of the wrestlers. And then what we know is that in 1877, right before he moved to Arizona, he was a lawman in Texas, and he was in and out
of jail. So Johnny Ringo was a member of the Cochise County Cowboys, and the Cochise County Cowboys were notable because they were one of the first instances of legit organized crime in the West. So they would systematically steal cattle, bring them across the border, steal cattle in Mexico, bring them across the border into the United States and sell them illegally. They also held up stagecoaches and all the traditional
Western fare. And most notably, and I figured the Cochise County Cowboys would have been the trigger word for you, he was one of the antagonists of the Earp Gang in Tombstone, Arizona. Okay. Yeah. So that is Johnny Ringo's fame. He was notorious for being a gunfighter and a murderer and a womanizer. Sure. And a little quick story, and this is going to be like a setup. Okay. So in 1879, Ringo... Had been in Tombstone for a year or two. He shot a man named Lewis Hancock
in the middle of a bar. Okay. Did not go to jail for some reason. Well, we know why. If you know anything about the Earp gang and the Sheriff Behan and all the Tombstone politics of that era, we know why he didn't go to jail. But he shot a gentleman named Lewis Hancock in a bar. Why, Nate, did he shoot this gentleman? Who survived? Well, it was likely an issue of states' rights. No. Probably. Johnny Ringo. They were probably playing cards and he was accused of being a cheat.
Isn't that the most. That's like number one. Number two is like over a woman. No, that would be also in his character. And we'll talk about that later, but no. I don't know. I guess he's really thinking outside the box of why he needs to shoot this guy. Johnny Ringo was very drunk at the bar and he bought a round of shots for everybody. And Lewis Hancock turned down the shot saying that he preferred beer. And Ringo
was so insulted that he shot him. I mean, there's an adage, and I don't think it's even that old of an adage, but maybe it is, is you go to somebody's house and they offer you a beer. Don't complain about the type of beer. Your number one favorite drink is free, and then your second favorite can be whatever your actual favorite is, right? Right. You're saying that Lewis deserved his fate because he turned down a shot of whiskey. I think so. I think so. I mean, you know what?
Somebody buys me a Jell -O shot or, you know, something that I'm not particularly fond of. Am I going to bitch and moan or am I just going to drink it? Mama didn't raise no quitter. I'm just going to drink it. It's the thought that counts. It is the thought that counts. It is. So. I mean, being shot might be a stretch, but it was a different time back then, so. Right, right, right. I'll allow it. So now do you recall who Johnny Ringo is? No. He must not be down
with the OK Corral, the OK Corral lore. Yeah, I'm not hugely down with the OK Corral lore. I'm not hugely down with actual real cowboys. I mean, I'm down with them. I love cowboys and I love westerns and all that, but I haven't done much reading or history learning of actual cowboys. You know, I thought for a while you were because I don't know. Wild Bill. Wild Bill. Because he's the one that went around to the different fairs and stuff and put on the cowboy shows, right?
Like the world fairs and stuff. And Annie Oakley. They're more performers. Yeah, that was... I'm going to check. I think that was Wild Bill. Because there's Bill Hickok. Yeah, Bill Hickok. And Bill Hickok. And then there's like Buffalo Bill Cody or something, right? Buffalo Bill Cody is the guy who was the traveling performer. Yes. Wild Bill Hickok is the guy who got shot playing poker. Oh, yes. Yes. So I haven't done extensive research on actual real cowboys, more of the fictional
cowboys. I like cowboys. It was such a short window of history, but I know some of them had other names. And so I was waiting for you to tell me that, you know, Johnny Ringo's more famously known as. Jesse James or somebody else, right? No, no, no. He does have ties to the Jesse James gang because apparently some of his relatives
were robbed by the James gang. Sure. And I know more about them because by where my grandpa used to have a cabin, it was, I don't know, like an hour drive from Little Bohemia where I think the James gang holed up and got shot up at by the feds. And so you can go there and have dinner and it's a restaurant and everything. So I know a little bit more about that because it's more
regionally appropriate to. northern wisconsin right and similar to like arizona gang got decimated by a bunch of farmers in minnesota when they tried to rob what the hell was it north branch or something like that yeah something like that yeah yeah they came up to minnesota and thought they were going to get away with it and a bunch of they thought they were hot shit and they found out they weren't yeah like they found out that they're very popular where they're from but not
where i'm from yes like they were just Viewed as criminal scum, which is what they were, but that is not related to this. They weren't pretty boy Floyd who would destroy mortgage documents at the bank so that everybody loved him because he got a lot of people out of debt just because he decided to burn mortgage documents at banks he robbed. Yeah, different era, but yeah. Yeah, different era for sure. A lot of those guys were beloved and protected because they weren't robbing
anybody. They weren't robbing normal people. Yeah. But anyway. Yeah, the carry on the American outlaw theme, but yes. Keep going, Mike. Back to the Wild West. Back to the Wild West. But yeah, Johnny Ringo was a member of the Cowboys gang who was one of the antagonists of the Earps during the OK Corral era of the Earp regime. So it's like the famous Tombstone, Arizona boom town shit. Yeah. And I've been to Tombstone,
Arizona, but I don't, it's been many years. So I don't know if they have much about Johnny Ringo. I'm sure they did. They still have his grave in that area. But anyway, in 1882, July, they have an exact date, but it's not known exactly when he died. They found him next to a large oak tree on the banks of the Upper Turkey Creek.
and this is an idyllic shaded spot it's right off a main thoroughfare and it's about a quarter mile from one of his buddy's ranches so he knew where he was he was in a well -traveled area he was within walking distance of a safe haven so to speak but also off of a highway uh and he was seen resting let's call it by several people who were traveling by a uh teamster actually is the one who found him dead so okay he could have been there for who knows how long yeah he
was he was resting deeply Yeah, he was resting deeply. Right. He was Pepsi'd. The general idea is that he was riding a horse. He was on a drinking binge. He had been seen the day previous with two bottles of whiskey, and undoubtedly he was either still drinking or hungover. He stopped, watered his horse, took his boots off, walked and cooled his feet. The horse got spooked and
ran off. And by the time that people found Ringo, he had taken his under... shirt off, had wrapped his feet with it, had put his gun belts back
on. upside down one of them so hastily put his gun belts back on and then he was no longer alive so interestingly enough he was 700 feet from a person's house and they did not report anything going on interestingly these are people he didn't know oh didn't know okay because you said he was close ish to he was a quarter mile away from his house he was 700 feet away from somebody else's little cat it was well known at the time that he was often depressed and he had fears
of being gunned down he had talked about being paranoid and how he kind of understood that he was going to get shot to death eventually someday yep And his friend knew that he was there. It wasn't a secret where he was. Let's put it that way. Yeah. So we have the official story of Johnny Ringo's death. And this is what everybody says happened, minus some characters that we're going to talk about later. Sure. Not the Earps, I hope.
Not the Earps. We'll get there. Okay. So the official story is that Johnny Ringo got... either being hung over or drunk and shot himself, you know, in despair over his horse running away, even though he was a quarter mile away from his friend's house. Yeah. And the horse was later found with his boots on it and all that shit. So we know that that kind of happened. So where was the horse? And I'm going to just assume that you were there and you were the one that, you
know, investigated the scene. Were the boots in the horse like stuck in the stirrups or were the boots on the horse like he took his boots off to go wade in the water and tucked them in the saddle? The boots were tied over the horn of the saddle. Sure. Okay. So, I mean, it was pretty clear that he walked the horse into the stream. Okay. And he was in the, he took his belts off. So he was in the water. Yep. I just wanted to make sure it wasn't like he got thrown
off the horse for some reason. No, no, no, no. Maybe he was concussed and drunk and depressed. He was probably drunk and depressed. Well, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then was cooling off in the stream, and then the horse ran for some reason, and he had to put his shit back on. Sure. And that's why his gun belts were upside down. Or did the horse run because there was a stranger in the bush? Well, man, we're going to get to that. You said conspiracy theories, so, you know,
let the imagination run a little bit. Oh, yeah. So, anyway, he was found with a revolver. Oh, go ahead. Well, I was going to say, he was seen napping by several people. But when you say napping, it wasn't that he was actually napping, was it? No, they saw him sitting beneath this tree off of the highway. Yeah, but was he alive at that time? When the Teamster found him, was he sitting the same way? You know what I mean? The Teamster
walked up and found him dead. And I think that he was probably dead the entire time that people saw him. Sure. I mean, that was my question is like, was he already dead? And people were just like, oh, hey, there's, you know, like Weekend at Bernie's style, right? Like, oh, there's wild gunman Johnny Ringo. He's napping, okay. Well -known cattle rustler outlaw. But anyway, his revolver was in his right hand. He got shot in the head. Of course. And he was drinking heavily
and had depression. What we would call depression now. Yeah. There's some issues with this story. Some people, the people who found the body made a coroner's investigation. So they call them a coroner's jury at the time. And so they got 11 people or 12 people together and they looked at the body and then they buried it and they made a report. And in the report, it was noted. that his body was not in a natural position.
They also noted that he had no black powder marks on his skin, which, if you've ever shot a black powder firearm, significant amounts of fire come out the end. They are an absolute bitch to clean. Yes. If you were to shoot a black powder pistol at short range, you would definitely have some burns, right? Well, and presumably if he were wet from the stream, that black powder would accumulate on the water. You know, like if you have wet hands and you're like sawing wood, right?
The sawdust accumulates and gets kind of sludgy, whatever. So the black powder would do something similar because it's very acrid and very intense. Like there's a lot of powder. You know, you watch these, you watch these Civil War movies and you're like, oh yeah, I can totally see across the field. Well, after like two rifles fire black powder, you can't see shit. Oh, for sure. Yeah. And he had a, he had a rifle with him also. He had,
well, he had two cartridge belts. One was for the rifle, one was for the pistol, but his pistol belt didn't have a holster. So the holster was left on the horse. Okay. Somehow. That ran away. That's why he was upset. That's why he was upset, according to this theory. Right. Of course. Why not? Well, I mean, you know, you find somebody dead, you know that they're. Have what? Bouts of malady or whatever they called it back then. And you have to invent a reason why. It could
be any number of reasons. Who knows why? But, you know, it could be depression for sure. Right. He could have been upset about the horse. But anyway, yeah, I don't, you know, I'm not trying to step on your thing. Well, no. Yeah, these aren't the only issues. I'll save the juiciest part for last. So his boots were left on the horse. Yeah, his boots were left on the horse, which shows that he was at least trying to take care of not ruining his footwear, which is strange
if you're going to commit suicide. Also, he wasn't starving to death. He wasn't going to die of thirst. And he knew where he was. And he was only a quarter mile away from his buddy's house. Well, and he was by a stream. So, yeah, there's sustenance right there. Yeah, exactly. Like, if he wanted to find his horse, he could walk to his friend's place down the road, get a horse, and go find his fucking horse. And they did find his horse later. Hey, Jimbo, help me find my
horse. It ran off. Exactly. Exactly. And this is kind of like the smoking gun. Ha ha ha. Literally. Ha ha ha. The part of his head that came off with the blast, part of it had been cut off with a knife and was missing. So he was partially scalped before they got there. By someone. So either somebody found his corpse and scalped him for some reason, or somebody else did it. Yeah, as one does. As one does. Well, this is Wild West days. Like, there's going to be some
antics, these characters. We're going to get into it. These guys are not normal by modern standards. Well, though. They could never have been, Mike. They could never have been. No, no, no. So. We're going to go to conspiracy theory number one. This is the one that's very popular. Okay, this is the most popular one. This is the
most popular one. Okay, my question, before you start going, Mike, I want you to know at the very end, I'm going to ask you which one you think is true, whether it be the official story or one of the conspiracy stories. There we go. Okay, theory number one. Theory number one, Wyatt Earp did it. Wyatt Earp, of course, was on his vendetta ride during this time period. Very famous.
If people don't know it, look it up. But long story short, Johnny Ringo was part of the gang that killed one of his brothers and basically crippled the other one. And he went on a tirade and very interesting Wild West stuff. I enjoy it. Well, and the Earps weren't... Fully acting in good faith, from what I recall. Were they? Well, that's why I refer to them as the Earp gang. Yeah, I call them the Earp gang because Johnny Ringo was a deputy and was part of the
Rangers. It's not like he wasn't a lawman also at some points in time. So these guys were in and out of being law enforcement. Yeah, everything was fairly fluid. Yeah, Wyatt Earp had four wives, and they were all prostitutes. He was running whores and gambling dens and all sorts of shit. He has been accused reputably of a lot of crimes. If they're good at what they do, I mean, you know. Well, Wyatt Earp is the good guy because he lived long enough to be a Hollywood guy, and
he helped in the early filming of Westerns. So, of course, you know. And he famously settled Dodge City and Tombstone. So he was a well -known lawman. Yeah, he had a good reputation in terms of, settling things in the same sense, I suppose. I don't know exactly the same sense, but very similar to Elon Musk, where if you don't dig too deeply, Elon Musk seems to be like a billionaire genius and people like him because he's a little
irreverent. But if you start digging deeper, you're kind of like, hmm, you know, Wyatt, I don't know, man. This was a little questionable. That was a little questionable. But, you know, you live long enough, you get to write history. So there you go. That's one of these things where... He lived long enough to be the victor for sure. Yep. Do you think Wyatt Earp shot Mussolini? Possibly. If he wasn't dead, you know, 20 years earlier. So there's some claims that support
this. First of all, Ringo was a member of the Cowboys and Wyatt Earp systemically slaughtered all of the members of the Cowboys. Yep. Not just the men, but the women and the children too. But the women and the children too. At multiple points, claimed that he killed Ringo. Yep. He also denied it at different points. Sure. White Earp was pretty fast and loose with what was true and not true. Let's put it that way. And he was pretty loose with the truth in a literal
sense. So he is denied and claimed that he did it at different times. Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Now, there's two problems with this. White Earp was not in Arizona at the time of Ringo's death. And that is documented. And yeah, that's what that is. That's all it is. Like he was elsewhere. We know he was elsewhere unless he forged those documents. Okay. Where was he? He just wasn't there. Either in Colorado or in California, depending on the source. Either in Colorado or California,
but not in Arizona. Sure. Because his family lived in California and Doc Holliday was in Colorado at the time. Okay. So, yeah, yeah. Now, theory number, you know, two here, conspiracy theory number two. And this is a variant. Yeah. A variant of the first one. And that is that Doc Holliday killed Ringo. And, of course, Doc Holliday was good bros with White Earp and the Earp gang. He was a well -known. character of those era.
This story did not originate from the era. It was originated later in the Hollywood era because Doc Holliday was a known killer, kind of. His reputation. There is some supporting evidence that Johnny Ringo hated Doc Holliday because Johnny Ringo was sleeping with Big Nose Kate. who was famously Doc Holliday's spouse. Don't we all fucking love Big Nose Kate? Yeah, don't we all? And Doc Holliday threatened to kill Johnny Ringo multiple times as a result of him banging
his prostitute girlfriend's spouse's wife. This might go on the Spice Rack, but holy shit. Is Big Nose Kate Jewish? She is a Hungarian Jewish woman, yes. Fuck. Lived outside. She also survived. She actually lived in the Arizona home for settlers. So she was one of the women that lived on the public dole in Arizona in her old age. What a goddamn fucking nickname, man. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, she left Doc Holliday to go prostituting. And then, of course, the Earps abandoned her.
So all the money the Earps made, she could have had part of that being part of their gang. Sure. And then she left. So, yeah. Fuck. There we go. Yeah. Let's fucking big nose Kate, Jesus Christ. Big nose Kate. That's the funniest thing I've heard in a long time. Yeah, she was a Jewish woman of Hungarian descent. Okay. And her nose wasn't that big. Well, I'm sure. It was big, but it wasn't like. Cyrano de Borgiac. Well, you know what? In the 1800s, they didn't pull
many punches out there. So a cigar check, Mike. I'm a little over halfway, I think. Oh, God. I'm not even a quarter. You're not even a quarter? We're half an hour into this thing. I know. I know. I'm being a naughty boy. I'm not. How do you like it? It's fine. It's not offensive, I guess. I'll say that. It's not offensive. It's not to my taste preferences. I'll also add. So it's fine. It's actually not offensive at all.
It's okay. You know, it's not one that I would go out and be like, hey, I got to smoke a non -Raphael. But I'm not necessarily not going to smoke one if that's what's there. And if, you know, fucking Johnny Ringo offers me one, goddamn, I'm going to smoke it, of course. Fucking A. It does go well with bourbon. Well, anything does, really. That's also true. You know what else goes well with bourbon? Big nose cake. Better cigars. Big nose cake. Yeah, well, whiskey does
for sure. And tuberculosis. Tuberculosis and whiskey. Yeah, and the syphilis. Anyway. Sorry, big nose. I carry on. So this is a variant of the Wyatt Earp claim. Basically, the idea is that they were riding together and it just happened to be Doc Holliday that killed him and not Wyatt Earp. Sure, sure. They could have been riding with their cabin boy. Tommy, and it could have been Tommy. Yeah, it could have been Jack Johnson. It could have been any of these guys who were
part of the Earp crew. But specifically Doc Holliday because it's romantic because, like I said, he had personal beef. Now, there is a pretty serious issue with this, and that is that Doc Holliday was facing legal charges in Colorado at the time of Johnny Ringo's death, and we know he was in Colorado, and we know that Wyatt Earp visited him there. And we know Wyatt Earp wasn't even there. So Wyatt Earp wasn't there, Doc Holliday wasn't there, so it couldn't have been either.
Either of them, really. That is correct. Ooh, is there one? I hope the juicy one is Big Nose Kate did it. That would be fucking awesome, but I think that... Man, these conspiracy theorists need better imaginations. Yeah, yeah. Big Nose Kate should have done it to alleviate tensions with Doc. I don't know. Well, yeah, she got to get, you know, foresight being what it is. She needed that ERP money. I'm going to write my fanfic. I'm shipping hard. There we go. There
we go. So this one has more credence, this next theory. Okay. I didn't mean to throw you off your groove, Mike. No, no. No, no. Yeah, my groove. My groove. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, this next theory, the next couple ones have more weight. Okay. There's a theory that Doc Holliday was killed by a gentleman named Buckskin Frank Leslie. And Frank Leslie was a notorious gunman. He has a long checkered history. We'll go into some of
that. But he is a known casual murderer and scumbag who killed both men and women extremely casually. Okay. He was also known to be - Kind of like the United Healthcare CEO? Exactly. Exactly. Okay. He was also known to be in a beef with Ringo over a woman, which is a theme. Well, that was one of my guesses for why the other guy got shot in the bar. Yep, it is, it is. At least this time it's not Big Nose Kate, right? Right, right, right. It's Tight Box Kelly or something,
isn't it? Tight Box Kelly. Oh, my God. Anyway. I thought we were just making up nicknames now. I don't know. That's true. He actually did marry a woman named May, and he was caught sleeping with her, shot her husband, and then married her. Then they say romance is dead. Yeah, they say romance is dead. But yeah, Frank Leslie at least was in Tombstone at the time. He owned a ranch and he was involved in the town. He's one of these scumbags that were floating around
at the time. Doesn't have an alibi. He's there. Right. Also, he confessed to the murder when he was in jail for, guess what? Shooting somebody else? He murdered his stable hand and his wife and his mistress. Oh. I think that... Clean slate for that guy, right? Yeah, yeah. I think he killed the mistress and the stable boy and was caught after he killed his wife because his wife was jealous or something like that. She was jealous everyone else got killed and she didn't? Right,
exactly. Leave that guy alone. He's on a bender. He's going to get you. Just smile and nod and go to some other state because he'll never find you. Yeah, there's some issues with this, of course. This claim came many years after the fact, and it came when he was already in jail and he was being interviewed by a newspaper. Okay. There's no contemporary evidence that he was in the area. He was in Tombstone, like he was in Arizona in that area, but he wasn't spotted
like there, there. And also he was known to be a liar and kind of these tall tales, Western fable type characters, similar to wild. Yeah, I'm sure glad the tall tale telling politicians and things have kind of died out in our society. Yeah, yeah. He was similar to a Buffalo Bill Cody, except Bill Cody didn't murder people often. He wasn't going around and just killing men and women constantly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, Jeffrey Dahmer, no, but... You know, other people maybe.
Right. So there's another variant. There's two of these. These next two are variants of the same idea. And that was that Ringo was assassinated by another member of the cowboy gang. And the idea is that one of his gang members killed him. There's support to this because Ringo was hated by every person that knew him, including members of his own gang. But not Big Nose Kate. But not Big Nose Kate. I think she hated Doc Holliday
more is probably the reason why. But he was hated and feared because of his violence, even amongst other criminals like himself. And he would randomly kill people for no reason, obviously. And he was very, very dangerous. Also, the cowboys were falling apart at that time. They had a lot of pressure on him by Wyatt Earp. So there was a lot of infighting. And it's speculated that he might have been killed for those reasons. I mean, it's hard to keep a gang together when you're...
The opposing gang has, like, the state and federal money to pursue you and kill you. That is true. They also had, that's the thing about the Cowboys, is they had the sheriff's department and marshals on their side, too. All these little wars that happened in the Southwest, both sides had lawmen on their side. They just happened to have, you know, the Cochise County Sheriff versus the fucking whatever county sheriff. And then the, you know, they had two different factions of law enforcement
fighting each other, basically. But yeah, the Cowboys had lawmen on their side. Oh, yeah. It was kind of, you know, we remember the Alamo for everybody, Manifest Destiny and yada yada out there at that time. So the problem with this is that nobody claimed, nobody in the gang claimed that they killed him, and it probably would have become, it probably would not have been secret if it was a member of his own gang. Let's put it that way. Yeah, I mean, potentially. Potentially,
potentially. I mean, kind of like, you know, the gang politics, though, right? I mean, if you kill the big gang boss, are you going to brag about it? Or are you going to... Take, you know, like, so who took, who took over the gang after that? Well, the Clantons were in charge of the gang. The Clantons were in charge of the gang. Ringo was kind of like a hitman sort of thing. Like he was like one of the big wigs, but he wasn't, he wasn't like, he was like a
capo. He wasn't like a, like a Don. Yep. Right. But. Well, you know, capos, if capos get out of the line, you got to clip them, you know? Well, exactly. Exactly. And then you don't ever tell. Like, why would you tell? There's no reason to tell. That is true. Because everyone knows. Everyone in the gang anyway, right? So this next theory is possible. I like it. I like it. The next theory is that he was recognized by a random passerby and was shot, and then it was set up
as a suicide. Okay. And there's many variants to that, but it was, like, not somebody that we know of, just a random passerby who did not like Ringo for some reason. Sure, maybe he stole
some cattle from him or whatever. absolutely and this was a popular road and he was in the middle of cattle country like any of these fucking guys could have seen him and shot him and nobody would have said a fucking word washing his fucking dirty cattle rustling washing exactly so the details do lead to the idea that he was murdered for example he didn't have powder burns on his body he was not in a natural seating position he was clearly these the people who saw him thought
he was placed there the body could have been moved after the fact you never know well and you know it also kind of depends because if you are standing up and this is not i'm not trying to be morbid i'm just i'm just trying to say like i've seen some some tv shows and some films and shit if you stand up and shoot yourself you're going to fall in probably a not very natural way. I mean, it'll be natural because that's what you do when you die, right? I mean, that's
like a natural thing. Well, he was in a seated position. Sure. He was found in a seated position. But in a seated position that would lead people to believe that he did not sit down, shoot himself, and then die. He was in a position that did not appear like he sat there himself. Sure. Yes. Okay. Okay. So. That's fair. Also, they didn't have good, they had no ballistics, basically. So there's no way to tell what size bullet hit him. We gotta bring this slug down. To the lab.
Yeah, exactly. Sir, the lab will not be invented for another hundred years. Right. And one of the things that really stuck out to me was that his revolver gun belt was upside down. Yeah. And there was no holster or method to holster a pistol on his body. And he wasn't holding it in his pants. So he clearly left his gun belt on his fucking horse. You know what I mean? Like he didn't have his, he had a rifle and a pistol, but no way to hold his pistol. His rifle wasn't
on the horse. And this wouldn't necessarily be 100 % telling, because Lord knows what he might be shooting at. Did they open up the cylinder of his revolver to see if one shell was fired? One shell exactly was fired, and it was the one that the hammer was resting on. However, at that time... It was not uncommon for people to purposefully do that if they were writing actively. Yes. Because the pistol could go off accidentally while writing. So... 100%. Inconclusive. Yeah. Inconclusive.
That is... It was on an empty shell, but... Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Not 100 % inconclusive, but... doesn't help other than it could potentially have been his gun that killed him. Exactly, exactly. And, well, funnily enough, Wyatt Earp famously almost shot himself to death with his own pistol, writing. So, like, it was common knowledge that you could fucking kill yourself, you know. Like, you could. So, anyways. Well, and if only more people took the same care they did in the 1800s. The gun
went off, I was cleaning it. Oh, I love that one. Oh, fuck. That one is the worst excuse I've ever heard. Like, that's just a cover -up. Yeah. That's just a cover up. Nobody cleans their gun with a bullet in the trigger. But that's a conspiracy theory for another episode. Yes, yes, yes. And we have one last one. And this one also is possible. So the last two here are the most likely, right? Okay. Yep. And this last one makes a lot of sense. And this is called the Michael O 'Rourke theory.
Okay. Some people think that Michael O 'Rourke, who was an itinerant gambler, who was in the area, killed Ringo. And there's two reasons why he would want to kill Ringo. He was arrested in January 81 in Tucson for murdering a mining engineer named Henry Schneider. Ringo attempted to lead a lynch mob and break him out of jail and lynch him on the street. And Wyatt Earp broke up this lynch mob. Sure. It's prevented him from being. And he went to trial, no evidence was
found, and he was released, okay? Sure. I have a couple questions. One, is there a reason why Johnny Ringo wanted to lynch this man? I believe it was gang politics because Michael O 'Rourke was tied with the Earp faction in this battle. So it was just like, we're going to lynch one of the allies of our rival kind of thing. Sure, sure. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, there's additional information for this. Sure. The last known sighting
of O 'Rourke was in Tombstone. earlier it was in 81 so he he disappeared off the record in 81 and this murder occurred in 82 but he was known to be in that area a frequenter of those parts he was a frequenter of those parts he was also known to be a member of the erp clique And he owed Wyatt Earp a ton of money. Sure. And he also had a personal grudge against Ringo. And we know that Wyatt Earp forgave him his debts.
He never went and looked for him afterwards, which is out of character for a guy who is a, you know, Shylock, I believe is what they call them. Okay. So yeah, there's no reason why Wyatt Earp would just allow this guy to walk without paying him back. Right. So he did something for Wyatt Earp. to make him not hunt him down. But yeah, somehow this guy paid White Earp back and then had enough resources left over to disappear. Like, you know, just disappear off the record
and walk away. And it was no longer Michael O 'Rourke. He was some other person. And that was also a common theme amongst these guys. You know, their background stories changed. Yeah, well, and there was no database back then. It was very easy to do. You could go to one town and be Michael O 'Rourke. You could go to another town and be, you know, Seamus McGarry or whatever the fuck, right? Right. Well, like buckskin Frank Leslie claimed to be an army scout and wore buckskins,
but apparently he had no tracking skills. Yeah. So, you know, he just probably just made it up. He was just a fucking gambler and a murderer and a degenerate. Yeah, he killed some dude wearing buckskins and it was the same size as him and he put them on. Now he's a tracker guy that can't track. And like a lot of these guys, like Frank Leslie specifically, he just like one day said, I'm going to Mexico and he just disappeared.
So. And Michael O 'Rourke's the same thing. Like, he was hanging out in Tombstone, owed a shit ton of money to Wyatt Earp, also wanted to murder Johnny Ringo. Ringo died and he disappears. You know what I mean? Yeah. It could be coincidence. Could be. He could have paid him back some other way. Because Wyatt Earp was on the run from the law for a while as well. Sure, yeah. Even though he was also a marshal. That's why this is so fucked up. He was a U .S. marshal, but he was
on the run from other U .S. marshals who were trying to arrest him. But he was also trying to arrest these other guys. And it's like, it's very confusing at best. It's like Billy the Kid's story, right? Oh, sure. They're all deputies. You have these two gangs of sheriff's deputies battling each other from different counties. But yeah, that's the high and the low of it. I think those are all of the conspiracy theories that I could dig up. Sure, yeah. So not a terrible
little section. Which one do you most associate? I think is most true. Well, I think that the evidence is against Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday doing it. Yeah. I mean, it's the same thing with the fucking Mussolini thing where it's like, yeah, it's a huge feather in your cap if it was you, dude, but it wasn't you. Right. Yeah. Like we know Doc Holliday was in fucking in trouble with the law in Colorado and was showing up to arraignments and he was in a hospital there too
for a while. Yep. For tuberculosis. And we know that Wyatt Earp was either California, Colorado, in between, like, He was not there. Yeah, he didn't really have the time to go and do this thing. No, he did not have the time. It just doesn't work out that way. Yeah, travel time. Despite the claims, the multiple claims that Wyatt Earp made that he killed him over the years. That's kind of like Doc Holliday is this famed gunman or gunslinger. He never committed a murder.
Every single killing that he did was either a part of a law enforcement action or was a stabbing at a poker table and it was considered self -defense. Sure. So, like he did. kill a lot of people don't get me wrong but he was also like a sheriff's
deputy and a u .s marshal and he did it by the book yeah yeah he's like on the right side of the law he's a dentist like yeah yeah so and then frank leslie i mean he's just a scumbag who killed lots of people and surely if he would have killed ringo he would have bragged about it immediately like he would have been he would have went to the newspaper and talked about it not waited for him Like wait until he was in jail on murder charges, double murder charges.
Yeah. The same with the outlaw. Like if he was killed by one of the Clantons, they would have admitted to it. Probably. Maybe. Maybe. Yeah. I feel like for me, the random passerby theory is pretty good. You know, like, uh, cause it's almost like the Thanos thing in the Marvel universe, right? Where the person is like, you killed my whole family. And he's like, I don't even know
who you are. Right. So he pissed off somebody who had a vendetta and he's like, this guy's like, holy fuck, there's that guy that I have this huge vendetta against and I'm going to go kill him. And, you know, Johnny Ringo's like, I don't even know who you are. Like, I don't remember stealing that shit from you, but I guess I did or whatever. Or maybe, you know, whatever. Maybe he stole his whole, like, cattle. And the guy couldn't afford to feed his family that winter.
And they had to, like, I don't know, eat one of their legs or something. I don't know. Whatever the fuck, right? Absolutely. And some, like, atrocity. And then this guy, and he thought nothing of it. And then this guy is like, holy shit, there's the guy that, like, upended my whole world. I'm going to go kill him. And then that was that. Yep. And then the other one is kind of like, if it was a gang thing, the gangs don't
necessarily. care about publicity. So they wouldn't have gone to the newspaper or made a big, bold claim about it, depending on which gang it was and how, I don't know, self -grandiosizing, what is the word, Mike? Self, you know, like they don't want to like pump themselves up. Grandisement. Yeah, grandisement. They don't need to do that. They're a gang. They're like, hey man, this guy that stepped out of line, we took care of him. Don't step out of line, the rest of you. And
then that's it. That was the message. It wasn't for the people. It was for the gang, right? So they wouldn't necessarily go to the authorities or newspapers or what have you. Yeah. The Michael O 'Rourke theory is fine. I think that it's less likely. Yeah, it's not a bad one. It's not unplausible. It's very possible. But I do think that the most likely solution was that a random passerby who was wronged by Ringo shot him. And then chased his, either the horse got chased off in the process.
Yeah. Or he chased the horse off after the fact. Yeah. And then put his gun belts on real quick and staged it. Sure. And you have to imagine, and this is further to your point, like this is a known criminal. Everybody hates his fucking guts. Nobody's going to question him being dead, right? Nobody is going to question. Oh, he's
dead. So let's say you are a minor. or a townsperson, or a rancher, or a ranch hand, or whoever, and you happen to be, like, bed -crossed by Johnny Ringo, and you see him, you could fucking shoot him and get away with it. He was 700 feet from a house. Like, one of the Smiths could have shot him. And no, they were right there. You're town extra number three, and you can shoot him and get away with it. That is correct. Like in the Hollywood movie. You're town extra number three.
Yeah. Even if they knew you did it, they would not say a word. Well, why would they? They saved all their cattle for the rest of their lifetimes, basically. Exactly. Exactly. So it's not unlikely. The lack of powder burns is a real problem for me. Yeah. Part of his skull being missing or part of his scalp being missing. That's fucking weird. It's weird, but that was kind of normal behavior for the time. So it could have been one of the coroner guys that cut it off. Yeah.
Was it normal behavior of whites or could it have actually been like a Native American? almost undoubtedly a white guy scalping was was started by white people and so it was like within the normal range people saved hair and made trinkets out of it and all kinds of weird shit yeah well i thought some tribes did some tribes did do do the scalping, but not all tribes, from what I understood. Some did do the scalping, largely
in retribution towards scalp hunting. So from my understanding, Native American scalps were sold in European markets to rich people. So it was a trade. Let's put it that way. Yeah. Yeah. It's a very weird problem, kind of like eating mummies back in the day. Yeah, I remember that. Would you like your hat made out of beaver skin? Or we also have Native American. American hair. Yeah. You'll be the talk of the town in Paris. So, real weird, I mean, for a modern audience,
very strange. Well, yeah. We can't even really relate because we weren't there. No, we're not there. Weird times. It's a cultural norm. I mean, like I say. Like, for this class of people, killing people was like a normal course of life. And they were in jail multiple times and somehow got off for murder charges. Because if you didn't have an eyewitness that would testify, you're
pretty much, you know, free to go. Right? Well, it's almost like, and I don't know, I mean, I've been reading a lot about piracy, the golden age of piracy. And a lot of it was kind of like, it's a huge problem, yada yada. And certain country leaders, kings or what have you, would offer letters of remark basically saying, you can go and hunt our enemies. We don't give a fuck. And you'll be protected by us. So, you know, if you were at war with Spain, you'd offer a letter
of remark to all the pirates. And they were suddenly not pirates anymore. And they were now your, I don't know, an extension of your military. They were privateers. They were called privateers. And it's almost the same at the Wild West because all of these people were lawmen at some point. Not all of them, in a sense, but they were all kind of like competing factions of law. And the
law wasn't one solid, unified entity. It was very much the our county is better than your county or our state is better than your state or what have you. And we like these people, so we're going to give them sanction and not you and blah, blah, blah. And so, you know, some of these people acted with the authority as if everybody. Everybody supported their actions when really only a small faction did. But if it was the right faction, then it didn't matter.
So it was very much like, I guess the equivalent would be kind of gangland violence in a sense. Very much so. And the cowboys, as I say, one of the very, very early examples of organized crime in the Western United States. And they had sheriffs and judges and U .S. marshals all on their side, let's say. Sure. In this battle. Yes. And they were involved in killings of lawmen,
both accidental and on purpose. Yeah. And Ringo was, you know, and like a fucking sheriff's deputy could have walked by and shot him and just covered it up. We don't know. Yeah, I mean, almost anybody could have. And, you know, I mean, it could have been that he shot himself too. I mean, that could have been. I mean, there's definitely some weird shit, right? He could have shot himself. A lot of powder burns is a problem. Somebody else could have come by and taken a piece of his hair, skull,
whatever. Easily somebody could have walked by. and cut a piece of his scalp off and walked away and not set it away. Yeah, I guess, like, for me, it's kind of like, at what proximity was the shot to his head, right? Not close enough to burn his skin. Well, then that's a huge issue. Because if... I mean, that's the issue. Not close
enough to burn his skin. From what I've seen or heard or read, like, if you're going to kill yourself and you're serious about it, it's either, you know, you're fucking gagging on the barrel in your mouth or it's, you know, pressed pretty hard against your temple. So there is no way that he shot himself in the forehead with a black powder pistol without having serious burns. Yeah. I mean, I've shot like shotguns at night. There's quite a bit of flame coming out the end of that.
Oh yeah. And a black powder gun is more so. And that's modern powder. Yeah. That's not black powder. Yeah. With a modern load and all that, not a hand -packed black powder cartridge and a fucking shitty ass pistol. Yeah. Like, yeah, there's going to be burns everywhere. Like, yeah. Yes. So. Very interesting. Like I say, I didn't know that there was controversy about it until we watched Tombstone, my wife and I did. Oh,
sure. Yeah. Sarah had never seen Tombstone and she had no idea who any of these characters were. And I'm like, well, I know who these guys are. Yeah. I need to rewatch me some Tombstone for sure. But I have heard that people have misquoted, I'll be your huckleberry. And what the actual
quote is, is I'll be your hucklebearer. Oh. we go which means i'll carry your casket more or less right yeah and well in tombstone it was insinuated that big nose kate was banging johnny ringo but it wasn't explicit yeah you know the good guys were the good guys and the bad guys are the bad guys well they have that particular in that particular movie we can't have any ambiguity right the star trek episode where they're at the okay corral the erps were the bad guys in
that episode and i really respected that because that was within spitting distance of Wyatt Earp's lifetime. And his wife, Josephine Baker, she lived until the 40s. So she was like recent Hollywood, you know, like there were people who were working on that show that probably knew her personally. Oh, I'm sure. You know what I mean? Because they were big into Hollywood and that's why we know who Wyatt Earp and the OK Corral and all that. That's why it's the stories because he was involved
with the early era of movies. To the victor go the spoils. Exactly. Exactly. I'm going to say my favorite conspiracy theory about this, which apparently isn't even one except I just invented it now, is that Big Nose Kate fucking killed this dude. That's my theory. And I'm sticking to it. I don't even know if Big Nose Kate's ever been accused of killing anybody. Well, I think she's got one. I'm going to chalk up one in her column. There we go. Oh, my God. Yeah, there
we go. Big nose Kate. And she, I mean, there's pictures of her. And she, I mean, she does have a moderately large nose, I guess. Yeah. So, interesting. I mean, it doesn't look that big to me. Her sister's nose is way bigger. Okay. Yeah, there we go. Yeah. I still think it was her. I think she was the culprit, I think, of this whole thing. I'm not saying she was wrong. I'm just saying I think she's the guilty party. There we go. I rated the cigar a 2. It wasn't offensive, but it wasn't
great. It wasn't, I don't know, a 2. 2. It's a 2. What about you, Mike? I am not going to be that generous. I am not going to be that generous. I am going to go 1 .5. It's not offensive. Oh, I put it on the wrong line. You did put it in the wrong line. 1 .5. What do you do? Big nose
Kate will get anybody excited. There we go. he was a lucky man that johnny ringo yeah yeah big nose well uh you know later in life she married a blacksmith and quote -unquote worked several mining camps okay okay it's like jesus christ right yeah i don't uh don't envy that do not envy that but always interesting yes indeed Yes. I will in the future have something sort of similar to this, but not exactly this. Well, it does pertain to some conspiracies, but not as fully
as ingrained in these conspiracies as this. I like this one. This was fun, Mike. This was fun. Yeah, I thought so too. And plus it's... A well -known historical figure in the United States. And it doesn't really matter who killed him because we know he was, you know, he died at 32. He was a gunfighter who gives a shit. Like, there's no political repercussions because some random scumbag got killed or killed himself or whatever. Which is the attitude at the time, even. You
know, like, he's a piece of shit. Well, for sure. Yeah, you get 12 people together and you're like, yeah, he's dead. Cool. Thanks. He's dead. He was shot in the head. There we go. Bury him. Get him out of here. So. Cattle are safe for a little bit. There we are. There we are. All right. Well. As always, thanks for listening. If you follow us on Instagram, give us a like. If you don't follow us on Instagram, please give us a follow. Give us a follow on Facebook. You
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