Turlington Tumbles

On the morning of March 20, 1890, after a railroad brakeman ejected John Oscar Turlington and Andy Temple from a train near Otterville, Missouri, Turlington took a pot shot at the brakeman. The railroad man came on to Sedalia to report the incident, and the two hooligans were arrested later the same day about four miles east of Sedalia in Pettis County. The twenty-six-year-old Turlington gave his name as William West, and Temple also gave an alias.
Since the shooting had taken place in Cooper County, the pair were charged only with carrying concealed weapons, and they were tossed in jail at Sedalia. Turlington, though, also faced charges in Cooper County for felonious assault and was scheduled to be transferred there on the more serious charge as soon as his short term in Pettis County expired. Had the Missouri authorities been aware of Turlington’s true identity and had they known him as well as the folks back in his native Weakley County, Tennessee, knew him, they might have taken more precautions.
Although of “good personal appearance,” Turlington had a reputation in his home county as “one of the most…reckless desperadoes known to the annals of crime.” He’d served two stints in the Tennessee State Penitentiary. After his second release in the late 1880s, he’d gone to Texas, where he hooked up with Temple, and they robbed an express train in Indian Territory in November 1889.
Afterwards, they went to Indiana and had started back west when they were captured and placed in the Sedalia jail. While still there, Turlington convinced a fellow inmate, seventeen-year-old Wes Hensley, to sneak a gun into him at the Cooper County Jail in Boonville once he was transferred, and young Hensley, who was due to be released soon, agreed to the desperate plan.
After serving their brief terms, Turlington and Temple were released from the Pettis County Jail in late May. Temple went free, but Turlington, still going by the name West, was taken to Cooper County to stand trial for shooting at the brakeman. On June 13, Hensley slipped a pistol into Turlington through his cell window, and the night of the 14th Turlington shot and mortally wounded Sheriff Thomas Cranmer as he made his escape.
A large posse formed and recaptured Turlington within an hour. There was much talk of lynching the prisoner when he was brought back to Boonville, especially after Cranmer died the next day, but the would-be vigilantes finally agreed to honor the dead sheriff’s wishes to let the law take its course. Turlington soon confessed his real identity and told how he’d gotten the pistol. Hensley was arrested and indicted along with Turlington for the murder of Cranmer.
At his trial in late July, Turlington claimed he did not plan to kill Cranmer and only shot him accidentally when he stumbled and fell as he was escaping. He was nevertheless convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to hang, but an appeal to the Missouri Supreme Court delayed the execution. On November 1, 1890, Turlington again escaped from the Cooper County Jail. This time, he made it out of Missouri, but his freedom was again short-lived. He was recaptured in Kentucky on November 11 and brought back to Missouri. Informed that Wes Hensley had pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of murder in the second degree and received a sentence of ten years in the state prison, Turlington decried the verdict, saying the boy didn’t know what he wanted with the gun and was “not right in the head.”
In the wee hours of December 21, Turlington escaped from the county jail at Boonville yet again. He was captured later the same day near Otterville and brought back to Boonville. The new sheriff and other county officials received a lot of criticism, good natured and otherwise, as a result of Turlington’s repeated escapes from their jail. One person even remarked that anybody who could escape from the same jail three times in such a short period ought to be turned loose.
The Missouri Supreme Court finally got around to considering Turlington’s case in January 1891, and the justices sustained the lower court’s verdict. The condemned man was hanged on March 6, 1891, from a scaffold inside a stockade on the courthouse grounds. After the hanging a local undertaker took charge of the body and had it buried in the Old City Cemetery (aka Sunset Hills) in Boonville.
This story is condensed from a chapter in my latest book, Show-Me Atrocities: Infamous Incidents in Missouri History.