Murder on the Christian-Douglas Line

On Thursday evening, June 1, 1922, Charley Kyger met and halted Douglas County deputy sheriff Ernest Hall on the county line separating Douglas and Christian. Kyger, a young man of about 25 years old, was riding a horse, and Hall was driving a wagon with his nine-year-old son, Thetus, also aboard. Kyger threatened Hall not to try to find any whiskey Kyger had hidden, and the two also renewed an old grudge relating to a lawsuit Kyger's sister had filed against Hall's brother relative to the legitimacy or paternity of a child.
Hall started off, thinking the dispute was over for the time being, but Kyger followed him about 200 yards down the road and opened fire on him, killing him with two rounds from his revolver. Kyger promptly turned himself in and was taken to the Christian County Jail at Ozark, but, fearing mob violence, authorities removed him from there the next day and took him to an undisclosed location. Charged with first-degree murder, Kyger was scheduled for preliminary examination on Tuesday, June 6 in Ozark. On that day, he was brought to Christian County from Springfield, where it was revealed he had been kept the previous few days, and bound over to the circuit court for trial with bond set at $15,000.
Kyger's trial took place in September 1922. Young Thetus Hall was the main witness against his father's killer. When the trial ended on Friday the 15th, the jury, after deliberating two hours, came back with a conviction on a lesser charge, second-degree murder, and a sentence recommendation of ten years in the state prison.
Kyger appealed the verdict to the Missouri Supreme Court, and the prisoner was released on $10,000 bond pending the outcome of the appeal. The high court affirmed the verdict of the lower court in June of 1923. Kyger was received at the Missouri State Penitentiary on June 20, 1923, and he was discharged in mid-November 1928 under the "merit time" rule after serving only slightly over half of his ten-year sentence.