On the night of December 18, 1893, just south of the Missouri state line in Baxter County, Arkansas, several unknown assassins opened fire on prominent stockman Hunter Wilson and his wife as they sat by the fireside in their home. Wilson fell dead, and his wife was seriously wounded. The killers made off with about $1,500 from a trunk, where Wilson had stored it after a recent cattle transaction.
Despite her wounds, Mrs. Wilson managed to drag herself across the ground to a neighbor’s house and give an alarm. Law officers were summoned to the scene, and bloodhounds were brought in to track the villains.
William Walter McAnish was soon arrested as a suspect in the case. His preliminary examination in early January 1894, however, did not produce enough evidence to formally charge him for the crime, and he was shortly afterward released.
Then, on February 25, the wife of Anderson Carter implicated her husband and her son, Bart, in the heinous deed. Bart immediately confessed, saying that his father and Bud Montgomery, alias Jasper Newton, were the main culprits and that he had been forced to participate.
All three men were arrested, but on February 27 Bart Carter was paroled so that he could take law officers to the spot where the ill-gotten money was hidden. That evening, while Bart was still away from the jail, a large body of vigilantes assembled in Mountain Home in an orderly fashion for the express purpose of lynching the two older men. They overpowered the jailer and guards, took their guns, and demanded the keys. The state representative from Baxter County made a speech trying to dissuade the mob from its purpose, and other officials spoke as well. But to no avail.
After listening in “sullen silence” to the speeches, the vigilantes procured the keys to the jail, unlocked the doors, and commenced shooting into the cells where Carter and Montgomery were housed. After about twenty shots rang out, there was a temporary lull. Carter was found to be dead, but Montgomery was still alive and asking for water. The request was granted, but as soon as Montgomery finished drinking, the gang opened fire on him again, riddling his body with bullets. Both men died protesting their innocence.
The mob declined to take the men out and hang them, reportedly because they thought the sheriff and his posse would be more likely to interfere in such a scenario.
In the aftermath of the lynching, it was reported that Anderson Carter had supposedly killed a man previously in Texas County, Missouri, and that Bud Montgomery (i.e. Jasper Newton) was wanted in Clay County for a crime committed fifteen years earlier.
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