Charivari Turns Deadly

On February 1, 1907, 24-year-old Robert Threet married 16-year-old Maud Merryfield in Benton County, Arkansas. When the newlyweds went home to spend their first night together, they were met by a rowdy charivari that Threet thought went a little too far. A couple of Threet's brothers participated in the revelry, but Threet was angry in particular at 23-year-old Eli Ecton, a former sweetheart of Maud's, who supposedly tried to "gain admittance to the bridal chamber." It was also said that Threet thought Ecton, who was engaged to another young woman and had apparently moved on from Maud, was nonetheless spreading rumors about the young bride.
The spat between the two young men came to a head a few weeks later, on February 20, 1907, when both of them attended a service at Tuck's Chapel, about five miles north of Rogers. Accounts differ as to exactly what happened. According to one story, at the close of the service Ecton exited the building first and Threet followed him out. Picking up a limb or similar instrument, Threet clubbed Ecton over the back of head without warning, knocking him down, and then pounced on him with a knife, stabbing him three times. Another version of the story says that Ecton accosted and threatened Threet first before the stabbing incident occurred. In either case, Threet fled the area immediately afterwards with no trace of where he'd gone. Meanwhile, Ecton lingered on his deathbed for about three weeks before finally dying about the middle of March.
No leads as to Threet's whereabouts were gained until over a year later, in the spring of 1908, when one of Threet's brothers borrowed an envelope from a local businessman and used it to send a letter to Threet, under the assumed name Arthur James, at Ritzville in the state of Washington. When Threet did not promptly pick up the letter at the Ritzville post office, it was returned to the businessman, whose name was in the return address. He opened the letter and, realizing the suspicious nature of its contents, turned it over to local authorities. Threet was soon arrested and brought back to Arkansas. His young wife, who'd joined him in Washington just a week or two before, was also brought back.
Threet was charged with murder, and the case came to trial in September 1908. I've been unable to readily determine the exact outcome of the trial, but apparently Threet was acquitted, because two years later, at the time of the 1900 census, he and Maud were living in Rogers with their one-year-old baby. If this is true, the jury must not have believed the version of the crime that said Ecton had been attacked without provocation.