After Dr. Perry Talbott was shot on Saturday night, September 18, 1880, through the window of his home about seven miles south of Maryville, Missouri, investigators rushed to the scene to see the critically wounded victim and learn what they could about the incident.
They found the doctor still clinging to life, and when asked who had shot him, Talbott, an outspoken supporter of the Greenback Party, offered a vague opinion that some “enemy of the great cause” sent out by the national banks had done it.
After lingering in pain, Talbott died the next day. A coroner’s jury concluded he’d been killed by unknown parties, but over the next few weeks many people began to suspect that Talbott’s sons, twenty-one-year Albert “Bud” and sixteen-year-old Charles Edward, had murdered their own father. At least one of the brothers had recently argued with the father, and it was also speculated that the boys might have killed the father to protect their mother, Belle, whom the doctor reportedly mistreated.
Detectives were put on the case, and one of them, Jonas Brighton, found work under the name of Hudson on a farm neighboring the Talbott place. Brighton and his wife, Virginia, whom he represented as his sister, moved into a tenant house on the farm and quickly became acquainted with the Talbott brothers. According to later reports, “Miss Hudson” feigned romantic interest in Bud to gain his confidence, and he soon confessed his involvement in his father’s murder.
Brighton promptly relayed the news of Bud Talbott’s confession to Nodaway County authorities. He also told officials the Talbott brothers had offered him $50 to kill the Talbotts’ hired hand, Henry Wyatt, because he was in on the murder and they were afraid he would give them away.
Acting on Brighton’s statement and other evidence, Sheriff Henry Toel arrested the Talbott brothers and Henry Wyatt on October 26 and escorted them to the Nodaway County Jail in Maryville. A preliminary examination began on the 27th.
At the hearing, Brighton described how he and his wife had inveigled their way into the Talbott boys’ confidence and the brothers had revealed their secrets to them.
Belle’s brother-in-law Wilford Mitchell, who was in on Brighton’s scheme to trap the Talbott boys, also took the stand to testify against the brothers. He added that Belle had previously confided to him that Dr. Talbott abused her.
Henry Wyatt also testified, claiming that he was not in on the shooting but that the Talbott boys told him about it afterward.
At the close of the preliminary hearing, Bud Talbott, Ed Talbott, and Henry Wyatt were held on first degree murder charges, Bud as the principal and the other two as accessories before the fact. All three were committed to jail without bail. Although Belle Talbott was suspected of knowing about the plot but not actively participating in it, the grand jury declined to indict her.
Wyatt’s case was severed from that of the Talbott brothers, and when the Talbott trial got underway in January 1881, Wyatt, striking a deal, was one of the main witnesses against the boys. Jonas Brighton was also a principal witness, as was his wife. The defense attacked Brighton’s credibility, because he was an ex-convict and all-around desperado. The defense also attacked Virginia Brighton’s character. The defense theory of the crime was that Wilford Mitchell, Bellle’s brother-in-law, had hired Wyatt to commit the crime.
On January 28, the jury declared the brothers guilty of first degree murder. They were sentenced to hang on March 25. An appeal to the state supreme court automatically stayed the execution. In late April, the high court affirmed the verdict of the lower court and rescheduled the hanging for June 24.
As the execution date neared, many people pleaded with Missouri governor Thomas Crittenden to intercede. Even Brighton and Wyatt thought the boys deserved mercy. Belle Talbott traveled to Jefferson City to meet personally with the governor, but he still declined to intervene.
Until the very last minute.
All preparations for the hanging had been made and a large crowd had already gathered to witness it on the morning of the 24th when the sheriff received a telegram from Jeff City postponing the execution until July 22. It was feared for a time that vigilantes might try to hang the brothers anyway, but no such mob formed.
On July 5, Ed Talbott signed a sworn statement confessing that he had fired the shot that killed his father when he found his father beating his mother and her crying for help.
Bud Talbott signed an affidavit saying that Ed’s statement was true as far as he knew, from the time he entered the house, and he admitted helping cover up the crime. He said he’d been willing to die alongside Ed if his brother preferred to keep the secret, but now that Ed had confessed he was hereby confirming that part of the confession he knew about.
Many observers believed the boys’ affidavits showed “beyond all question the true state of facts” surrounding Dr. Talbott’s murder. But others thought the confession was a self-serving, phony plea for mercy.
Governor Crittenden was among those not persuaded. He said that if Ed Talbott’s confession was true, then his and his brother’s previous defense, including their appeals to the supreme court and to the governor, was based on a falsehood; that the boys had ample opportunity to tell the truth before now; and that he was not inclined to grant clemency based on a last-minute appeal that might also be a falsehood. The governor cited the fact that Mrs. Talbott had not confirmed Ed’s confession as strong evidence of its untruth.
On the evening of July 20, just a day and a half before the scheduled hanging, Bud Talbott issued a detailed confession retracting what Ed had said two weeks earlier, once again fingering Henry Wyatt as the person who’d shot Dr. Talbott, and naming Mitchell as an accomplice. Bud’s latest story turned many people against the Talbotts and soured the faith of those who’d previously argued for clemency.
On July 22, Bud and Ed Talbott, declaring their innocence to the very last, were escorted to a scaffold on a hill just northeast of Maryville and launched into eternity before 12,000-15,000 gaping spectators.
This story is a greatly condensed version of a chapter in my latest book Show-Me Atrocities: Infamous Incidents in Missouri.
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