Episode 3: Lawman vs. The Law

due to the graphic nature of this story listener discretion is advised this episode includes dramatizations and discussions of murder and gore we advise extreme caution for children under 13

In the gloom, trunks of trees began to look like men, bushes became ghosts, stumps seemed to him wild beasts, and the darkness frightened him. In his 1873 novel, I Go a Fishing, American travel writer William Cooper Prime captured the surreal effect prolonged time in the wilderness can have on the human psyche. Bass Reeves spent more time in the wilderness than most people can truly comprehend. He would have to ride for months on end, maybe 800 miles round trip on horseback.

That's the voice of Ernest Marsh, the living history reenactor who performs as Bass Reeves. He's got the clothes, the build, and most importantly, the stash. He even has some of Bass Reeves' original weapons, so he knows what it's like to carry all that gear. The rifle is 10 pounds. The gun belt is probably another. 10 to 15 pounds. You're talking irons, leg irons, handcuffs, extra ammunition, a knife. And the weather in Oklahoma is not the most prettiest thing. Your boots are wet.

Your toes are frozen. It's no picnic. And yet, for 32 years, Bass returned to the wilderness time and again. He spent the better part of a lifetime in that gloom. with the trees and the ghosts and the wild beasts, until eventually the darkness became a part of him.

Karibu sana. Welcome to Solved Murders, True Crime Mysteries, a Spotify original from Parcast. I'm Darnell Ishmael, your host for this special four-part miniseries. We're exploring the life of Deputy U.S. Marshal Bass Reeves. In our first two episodes, we followed his evolution from enslaved youth to soldier to lawman. Now we've come to the midpoint of our story, and it's the darkest chapter yet. Because every lawman has his demons, and every hero has skeletons in the closet.

It's time to put the man himself on trial. This is Bass Reeves, No Master But Duty. versus the law This episode is brought to you by Spotify portal for backstage, but you're wondering what's portal. Well, it's an internal developer portal built to improve developer experience and boost productivity. All software components are centralized. Documentation is automated and easy to maintain. New projects and components? Just a few clicks with your best practices already built in.

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When considering the incredible career of Bass Rees, it's tempting to put him on a pedestal. But he was also a flawed, imperfect human being. The emotion and the humanity of historical figures often gets lost. And it's, I don't think, intentional. I think it is a byproduct of the scope and the distance. And when someone has achieved great things and it's been done...

So long in the past, you forget they're a person. They become an icon before they're a person. That's Ben Watkins, writer, creator, and producer of Amazon's series, Twin Territories. Along with James Pickens Jr., he's spent a lot of time trying to get in the head of Bass Reeves. He loved asserting his dominance. He yearned to get back out there.

that excitement that rush when he was out there he wielded power that a whole lot of black men didn't wheel the time and energy he poured into his job took a heavy toll on his family As the years wore on, his marriage to Jenny became increasingly frayed. I'm sure he had some trauma that he dealt with in terms of being a former slave and how that impacted him.

While he followed a strict moral code and was unyielding when it came to the law, violence had become an integral part of his life. You say he only killed 14 people out of... all the people he caught, but those 14 are like twice as many as anyone else did. Three times as many kills as Wyatt Earp, right? If you watch movies, anytime you go after Outlaw, somebody gets shot. Then you start doing the research and you're like, wait.

rarely shot and almost never killed. But Bass Reeves was over here killing 14 people. We don't know how many he shot, and he never lost a gunfight. The closest he got was what happened with Jim Webb. That's a cold-blooded killer.

Few of Bass Reeves' escapades have been mythologized like his battle with Jim Webb. That's partly because of its epic nature, and partly because Webb was almost as good at killing as Bass was. Jim Webb is notorious. Jim Webb creates his own little what they call death cards that have the pictures of U.S. Marshals. So anybody that took a warrant against Jim Webb, he printed death cards with their pictures on it.

So he flipped the whole script and then he died. Bass had actually faced Webb once before, early in his career. At the time, Webb had been wanted for the murder of a preacher. Bass managed to capture him and take him back to Fort Smith, but before the trial, Webb posted bail and disappeared. Then, in 1884, Bass got word that Webb was back in the territory, holed up at a general store in the Chickasaw Nation.

Bass saw an opportunity to finally take down the outlaw who got away. Jenny thought it was too dangerous. She's looking at Bass like, why would you take his warrant? There's so many other warrants out here, you can make a whole bunch of money. And of course, Baz is like, I'm going after the biggest and baddest. It was about beating the best. He took a single posseman and rode out to find Jim Webb. Here's the scene.

as recorded by contemporary historian D.C. Gideon. Bass Reeves and his posseman ride up to the general store. Inside, standing next to an open window, is none other than... Jim Webb. Webb looks up and sees the deputies coming. He grabs his rifle, leaps through an open window, and takes off running for his horse, which is about 100 yards away. Bass rides ahead of him, planting himself between Webb and the horse. So, Webb turns and starts running back in the opposite direction.

He makes it about 600 yards before he realizes that, without his horse, he's got no escape. What he does have is a rifle. And Bass has no cover. Jim Webb. turns and fires. The first shot is so close it cuts a button off Bass's coat. The second shot clips the horn of his bridle, cutting his reins. Bass slides down out of his saddle, drawing his own rifle from its scabbard as he does. The men are now about 500 yards away. They V-line straight for each other, firing as they go.

Webb gets off a total of four shots. Bass fires twice, and Webb goes down. As Webb is bleeding out on the ground, he calls for Bass to come to him. With his dying breath, Webb says that he wants Bass to have his revolver, which Webb explains he has used to kill eleven men. He'd thought Bass would be the twelfth. Bass accepts the revolver.

And Jim Webb joins the growing list of outlaws who lost their lives to Bass Reeves. If you committed a crime... and Bass was given the warrant for your arrest, it was a done deal. It was just that simple. Bass wasn't just relentless. He was fearless. When it came to serving the law,

he was willing to put himself in situations that few officers would have dared. At least on three occasions, he arrested white folks that lynched black folks. I don't know of any black lawman that arrested white folks for lynching black people except Bass Reeves. There were instances when Bass would have to cross the blue line arresting dirty cops. Yeah, there's at least three or four occasions in my book also where I talked about lawmen that went bad, and Bass had to go out and bring them in.

Once, Bass even arrested his own pastor. Bass arrested the minister that baptized him in Muskogee for selling bootleg whiskey. So, you know, how many lawmen would arrest their own minister? As far as Bass was concerned, no one was above the law. And yet, we know that he must have made compromises.

Well, you can't have informants in the criminal realm unless you overlook certain things or do favors for people. We know he was close to Bell Star, and she's confirmed to have been one of his informants, so he had to let her get by because she had a little empire going. So where does he decide when's the trade-off and where's the compromise to be made within those realms? He was a cop working one of the most dangerous beats in America. Survival required constant judgment calls.

and there was nothing more valuable than having friends with their ears to the street. Ernest Marsh talks about Bass tipping his informants with a silver dollar to stay in their favor. Just as law enforcement does today, they have informants, they give them a little something. You know, they break off a little something for them, a favor or whatever. He would leave with the silver dollar as a token of appreciation. That's how you...

Work your beat. The silver dollar became yet another part of Bass's story, a story he used to his advantage. And I think that's another aspect of law enforcement. building this reputation and this mystique that was done intentionally. The silver dollar, the type of horse he rode, the way he carried himself, the way he talked about his gun, the way he used his gun, all those things were used to create a mystique.

so that half the work was done before he even stepped in. I have a letter that actually Art sent to me that was from an archive where there was a guy who had been on the run and he had a dream. that bass was looking for him the next day he went and he turned himself in this happened a few times actually but the most famous incident involved none other than bell star

The Bandit Queen. Belle Starr was already a legend throughout the frontier. Once a rich southern girl with a talent for piano, she'd discovered that she actually preferred guns. horses, and larceny. In the years since, Bell had built a sizable horse-thieving empire. Judge Parker considered her a menace and wanted to see her behind bars.

But to Bass, she was a friend. Bass, Reeves, and Belle Starr had a working relationship. A working relationship in regards to that. Bass was always welcomed at her house. Their friendship is hard to explain, not just because Bell was a criminal, but because she was a former Confederate spy. Bell Star is a Southern sympathizer. Bell Star is white.

Bass Reeves is black, and he's a lawman, and he's welcome in their house. Whatever sparked the unorthodox friendship, it was put to the test when Bass was issued a warrant for Bell's arrest. A few months later, Belle Starr arrived in Fort Smith and turned herself in. When asked why she'd done it, she answered that she did not propose to be dragged around by some federal deputy.

It was the only time in a long and industrious career that she would ever surrender to officers. The incident doesn't seem to have hurt their relationship, as they remained friends for many more years. Toward the end of his life, Bass refused to comment on his friendship with Bell Star. All he would say was that she was always a lady.

With Jim Webb dead and Bell Star in prison, Bass had defeated two more members of a rapidly expanding rogues gallery, but neither would compare to the challenge coming down the line. It's a chapter unlike any other in the life of Bass Reeves, and the most important arrest yet, his own. You're tuned into Auto Intelligence, live from AutoTrader, where data, tools, and your preferences sync to make your car shopping smooth. Oh, yeah. They're going to find it. So true. Oh, it's just for you.

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April 9, 1884. Bass and his posse have made camp east of Paul's Valley in Chickasaw Nation. It's a small crew tonight. Aside from Bass, there's the cook. a black man named William Leach, and one posseman, more like posse boy, actually. Johnny Brady is Bass Reeves' 14-year-old nephew. They've also got five prisoners, a man named James Grayson,

and four creek outlaws. Wait, four more. Mrs. Grayson and her two young sons are accompanying her husband to his arraignment in Fort Smith. And there's a stray dog that's been sniffing around the camp. They're all enjoying a break after a hard day of travel. It's a chance to kick off their boots, have a hot meal, maybe a bit of music.

Larry Callis is the founder of the Black Cowboy Museum and a lifelong musician. He loves talking about the songs from this period. Written by Working Black Cowboys, the lyrics describe life on the trail. When I was playing country music, my daddy told me a song. He said, well, boy, this is a black man's country. And he sang a song called Milk Cow Blues. You would think he's singing about a cow. He'd say, but he's singing about his girlfriend or his wife.

He said, have you ever seen my old milk cow? Pleading right driver on home. I ain't had no milk and butter since my cow's been gone. He was singing about a woman. So there they were, sitting out under the stars. the prisoners chatting amongst themselves, the cook, William Leach, tending to the fire, Bass Reeves cleaning his weapons for the next day, when suddenly…

Bass Reeves shoots his cook. And so we arrive at one of the most mysterious and perplexing chapters in Bass Reeves' story. Bass was brought up on first-degree murder charges. in 86 for shooting his cook accidentally accidentally at least that's what bass told his boss he had been crouched down on the ground

cleaning his Winchester and trying to pry a jammed cartridge out with his pocket knife when the gun went off. The next thing he knew, Johnny Brady was shouting that he'd hit the cook. Judge Parker immediately launched an investigation. The prisoners were questioned and everyone seemed to agree that it had been an honest mistake. With no evidence to the contrary, the investigation was quickly closed. Bass returned to work and that seemed to be the end of it.

Except it wasn't. Almost two years after the shooting, a new marshal joined the team at Fort Smith. Around 85, 86, there was a former Confederate officer who was hired as a U.S. Marshal. Judge Parker was still the top dog, but Bass would now be working directly under Marshal John Carroll.

a former Confederate colonel. We don't know if Bass struggled with taking orders from a former enemy or if Carroll rankled at having a black man as his deputy. But within months of Carroll starting, bass found himself under arrest for the murder of william leach he was taken into custody and placed in the jail at fort smith a few days later after the arrest

the press began to publish stories of Bass's predicament. On January 22nd, the Arkansas Gazette wrote, Ex-Deputy U.S. Marshal Bass Reeves was arrested and lodged in jail today. charged with the murder of William Leach. Leach was cooking at Reeves' camp when the murderous officials shot him dead for some trivial offense. The article was already proclaiming Bass guilty of the crime.

which was a problem for Bass, not just because his reputation was being dragged through the mud, but because he was facing a jury trial. He'd be fighting an uphill battle. Colorful versions of William Leach's death were already spreading like wildfire. According to the rumors, Bass and Leach had been at each other's throats for days before the shooting.

Leach started taking out his frustrations on the stray dog, which had been hanging around the camp. Bass warned Leach to leave the dog alone. Then, on the evening of April 9th, Bass was resting by the campfire.

While Leach cleaned up from dinner, the dog wandered over to the cook and started whining for scraps. The popular story was that there was a puppy, a dog, that was licking on pots and pans and the cook got mad at the dog leach took a skillet of scolding grease and poured it down the dog's throat While the dying animal writhed around on the ground in agony, Leach pulled his revolver to finish it off, but he didn't get the chance. Bass leapt to his feet.

grabbed his rifle and fired a single shot. The bullet struck the cook in the neck, nearly decapitating him. It's supposedly a bad shot at the cook, and the cook fell into fire, and they said he charged. When Baz saw that the dog was dead, he allegedly kicked Leech's body into the fire out of anger. He wouldn't let anyone remove it until the body was burned to a crisp.

Well, that wasn't what happened. But that was a popular story for a long time. While these rumors were spreading, Bass languished in prison for six long months. Finally, on June 15th... Some of his colleagues successfully appealed for him to be released on bail. The bond was set at $3,000, around a year's earnings for Bass. And he wasn't done spending.

Bass immediately got to work assembling a legal team. If Bass was going to keep his freedom and escape the hangman's noose, he would need all the help he could afford. It's a summer night in Fort Smith, a few weeks before the trial. Bass is standing on the street when someone taps him on the shoulder with their cane. Bass turns and comes face to face with a drunk.

Looking to pick a fight, he introduces himself. His name is A.J. Boyd, and he's a member of the jury that's going to hear Bass's case. He prods Bass again and asks, what really happened with the cook? When Baz refuses to answer, Boyd hurls racial epithets and says, I'm just as certain to break your neck as I have this cane in my hand. Me and three others have got it in for you.

Bass reported the incident to Judge Parker, who held Boyd in contempt of court. We can assume that he was removed from the jury, but his promise that other members of the jury might have it in for Bass.

hung over Fort Smith like a dark cloud. Finally, the trial began in October of 1887. two and a half years after the shooting. In all that time, Bass Reeves' story hadn't changed an inch. You know, the trial transcripts state emphatically that Bass was trying to dislodge a bullet from his rifle. And in trying to dislodge the bullet, the rifle went off and hit the cook. And Bass tried to get help for the cook, and the cook later died. Johnny Brady and several of the prisoners took the stand.

Most of their testimony corroborated Bass's version of events, but a few claimed that Bass and Leach had been butting heads. They had been arguing all day because Bass didn't like his cooking. And they had gotten it serious because the cook threatened to shoot Bass's horse. But they said that Bass was very displeased with this guy's cooking. So that's what the original argument was about. To clarify.

Bass wasn't just upset that Leach was a bad cook. His meals had given some of the prisoners severe diarrhea. Leach himself had it so bad, he'd been to see a doctor a few days earlier. Bass's defense team argued that this might have contributed to his death. There was one other major similarity to the rumors that had been swirling around. The dog cropped up in the testimony of several prisoners.

But now it seemed that Bass was the one who wanted to get rid of him. Actually, due to court, records were with the cook, and the cook was the one letting the dog lick the pots and pans, and Bass told him to get the dog in check. It's worse than that. In Bass's own testimony, he said that he told Leach, You had better kill that dog. It's some little Indian dog, and you had better kill it.

So I don't care who you are, that's not a good look. On the other hand, there were a few facts that were strongly in Bass's favor. First, Leach did not die immediately. Several witnesses testified that Bass had done everything in his power to clean the wound and get Leach medical attention. Unfortunately, they weren't able to reach a doctor until the next day around noon.

When Bass left him, Leach was still alive. And finally, Bass needed Leach. On the stand, Bass said, He was all the help I had to work for me. There was Johnny, and you couldn't trust him with five prisoners in that country, no how. You can't hardly trust yourself. Over the course of three days, nine witnesses took the stand. Finally, the jury shuffled off to discuss what they'd heard. Bass knew that the freedom he'd fought so hard to achieve was once again at stake.

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October 15, 1887, the final day of the trial of Bass Reeves. His mother, Perla Lee, is in the audience. Jenny is not, though. She has not been to the courthouse once throughout the proceedings. The crowd goes silent as the jury files in. The foreman stands to read the verdict. This decision will be reported a few days later in the Fort Smith elevator.

Bass Reeves was perhaps the best-pleased man in Arkansas last Sunday when the verdict was announced pronouncing him innocent of the charges of murder. Once again, Bass had fought for his freedom and came out on top. He was innocent, at least in the eyes of the law. But for those of us reviewing the facts of the case today,

The story feels frustratingly incomplete. Professor Burton has probably spent more time with the available court documents than anyone alive today, and even he acknowledges some doubts. I believe it was an accident that did occur. Now, the only thing that points to it, the fact that it wasn't an accident. Well, he said he was shot in the neck and they had shot folks in the neck when he wanted to kill them. But.

That's one of those things that's kind of cloudy in terms of exactly what happened. But I would defer to the fact that the jury found him innocent. I'll say he was innocent. Even if we accept the shooting was a total accident, Bass must have felt some responsibility. Colin Mapp, president of the Bass Reeds Gun Club, considers the event from the perspective of a modern-day gun owner.

He violated civil health safety fundamentals, right? He negligently discharged his firearm and shot his cook. You have to pay the price for that. It was an accident, but, you know, we educate in our organization that there are no accidents. once we understand the safety fundamentals you know it's all negligence for colin this failure isn't a reason to discount bass's many accomplishments so much as a lesson in human fallibility

So he was a man like anyone else, you know, so highly proficient with these firearms, but violated one of those safety fundamentals as well. So his humanity is there, but he picked back up. He held himself accountable. allowed himself to be arrested and put in jail and go through the due process right not knowing what's going to come what's going to happen to him on the other side right so by grace he was allowed to go free

Bass Reeves was free, but the victory was bittersweet. Legal expenses had sapped the majority of his savings. Around the time of the trial, He was forced to sell his family home in Van Buren just to pay his lawyers. The trial that he was on for shooting his cook broke him for the most part. He moved to a little house outside of Fort Smith. Bass had spent a decade working for that money. He'd put his life on the line, spent months away from home. His son Benny was now 10 years old.

and Bass had spent much of the boy's life out on the trail, and the job had taken a massive toll on his relationship with his wife. Within a few years of the trial, Bass and Jenny would not be living together.

He left his family in 1893 and then worked for the Eastern District of Texas at Paris, Texas. Exactly what came between them isn't clear. though it's obvious that Bass had his own demons to contend with. I think a lot of the issues that Bass had, some of them dealt with PTSD. Stories I've heard about him not wanting people to...

stand over him or stand in the doorway while he was sleeping, and how he would curse a lot in his sleep. I'm sure he has some effects of PTSD from the Civil War that affected him. Bass faced his problems the same way he always had, by throwing himself into his work. The months following the trial saw several notable arrests, including his clash with the outlaws.

Tom Story, and Greenleaf. If work ever wasn't enough of a distraction, Bass had his faith to lean on. While living in Van Buren, he served as a deacon at the Methodist Church, And he continued proselytizing when he went out on the trail. This is what I'm going to take my master. He would preach to the people he captured. He captured 3,000 convicts.

and he preached to every one of them bass couldn't have preached to every outlaw he ever arrested but there are accounts of him reciting scripture to his prisoners And it seems that his spirituality wasn't limited to his Christian beliefs. We found research that indicates that Bass Reeves was very superstitious.

And we also know that he spent a lot of time living with, you know, indigenous people in the territory. And so in our Bass Reeves, he has picked up on certain philosophies with regard to spirituality.

and his own superstition. By this point, Bass had been working alongside the five tribes for over two decades. He respected their cultures deeply. and had built countless close friendships, some of which he'd maintained for years. One of those friends may have been Ned Christie, a controversial Cherokee figure of almost mythic stature.

Today, Ned Christie is remembered by some as a ruthless outlaw and others as a hero. According to Bass's great-nephew, Judge Paul L. Brady, Bass was originally friends with Ned's father. Watt Christie. They would have met around the Civil War when Watt was a Union volunteer in the Cherokee Home Guard, and Ned was just a teenager studying to become a gunsmith. For the record,

The idea that Bass and Ned knew each other has been disputed by some historians, who contend that Bass and Ned never encountered one another. But even if their personal friendship is an embellishment by Bass's family, he would certainly have been aware of Ned's reputation. His arc is so amazing to go from being a diplomat to radical. Ned was a fiery speaker on the debate floor and especially passionate about defending Cherokee culture. In 1887, Congress passed the Dawes Act.

breaking up communal land owned by the tribes for distribution among its members. This allowed the land to be sold to the railroad companies. and white settlers who were champing at the bit to get to the area known as the Indian Territory. When Ned Christie spoke out against such laws, the Cherokee people listened. It earned him some very powerful enemies. Then, in May of 1887, Bass got horrible news. Ned Christie was wanted for murder. The victim was Dan Maples.

a deputy U.S. Marshal who'd been sent into Cherokee Nation to combat the whiskey trade there. The circumstances of his death are cloudy, and it's very possible that Ned Christie was not involved at all. Several years later... A witness would come forward to state that the killer was actually an outlaw named Bud Traynor. But for now, Ned was the only suspect. The manhunt that followed was so massive, it's now known as Ned Christie's War. And it really was a war.

The US government shipped guns and artillery, including a 300-pound cannon, across the country to flush Ned from his hideout. For several months, Ned Christie managed to fend off one attack after another. Meanwhile, unfounded stories about him began to circulate that he was a maniac, a ruthless cop killer. a horse thief, and a lifelong bandit. Now, whether the smear campaign against Ned was deserved, or just fueled by bigotry, one thing is for certain.

Pretty soon, he was the most feared and hated man in the territory. On November 27, 1890, the vinter chieftain newspaper reported a raid on ned's fort led by bass himself the posse climbed up into the hills approaching ned's hideout from the rear They set brush fires as they climbed, hoping to smoke Ned out and force a surrender. But it wasn't to be. A few days later... the muskogee phoenix reported deputy marshal bass reeves was killed monday by ned christie near telequa

At the same time, other newspapers reported that Christie had been killed in the battle. In reality, both men had escaped unscathed. Bass abandoned his attempts to bring Christie in and returned to Fort Smith. he now believed that ned would never be taken alive and he was right november 1892 A crowd masses in front of the Fort Smith Federal Jail. Ned Christie's bullet-riddled corpse is propped up on a door for all to see.

A rifle has been placed in his hands so that he better fits the image of a Cherokee terrorist. To add insult to injury, his body has begun to decay. On the far side of the street, Bass Reeves moves against the crowd. He's already seen enough. He passes a newsboy screaming headlines at the top of his lungs.

The paper is announcing another land rush into the newly opened Oklahoma Territory. For the past year, hordes of predominantly white settlers have been stampeding into the area to stake claims. Ned Christie's fears are already coming true. The frontier is changing, and not just for the Five Tribes. A match has been struck. A firestorm of unprecedented violence and terror is rising, and Bass Reeves stands between the murderous Blaze and his people.

In our upcoming finale, Bass's commitment to duty is tested like never before, as we explore his legacy as a lawman and a true Lone Ranger. Solved Murders True Crime Mysteries is a Spotify original from Parcast. This special was created and developed by Derek Jennings. It was written by Andrew Kelleher and Luther Mace, with editing by Andrew Kelleher and Maggie Admire. Researched by Sapphire Williams. Fact-checking by Haley Milligan and produced by Josh Kern.

Our production manager is Michelle Kitchen, and our supervising editor is Ryan O'Leary Jones. Original music by William Ryan Fritch. Our supervising sound designer is Juan Borda. With additional sound editing by Alex Button. Music supervision by Liz Fulton. Nick Johnson is our head of production. Quality control by Lisa Marie Gallegos. with quality control support by Spencer Howard. And I'm your host, Darnell Ishmael.