A Webb City Murder The Killing of Coyne Hatten

When a stranger bumped into Coyne Hatten on the street in Webb City on the night of May 16, 1931, Hatten’s natural inclination was to stand up for himself. If Hatten had known the desperate character of the man he was facing, he might have exercised a little discretion, but, instead, he demanded to know whether the stranger was looking for trouble. He’d scarcely gotten the words out of his mouth when the stranger pulled out a revolver and shot Hatten in the chest. After a pause, the man poured two more bullets into Hatten’s body, killing him almost instantly.

After the shooting, the assailant rendezvoused a block away with a male companion and two female companions who were waiting in an automobile. The four then sped away from the scene.

The shooting was totally unexplained at first, and the shooter and his companions were unidentified. Early the next morning, May 17, authorities got a break when Mickey Carey, a forty-three-year-old ex-convict, appeared at the Joplin Police station. He said that he’d driven a man known to him as Jimmie Jones from Joplin to Webb City the previous night and that they’d been accompanied by Carey’s wife and a Webb City waitress named Doris Adams. Carey said he and his wife let the other couple out and that he heard gunfire shortly afterward. He claimed he and his wife then returned to Joplin, leaving Jones and Miss Adams behind.

Jones was arrested later that day at a Joplin rooming house. He was identified as an alleged Detroit hoodlum with several aliases. Police said Jones had recently associated with a gang of bootleggers at South Coffeyville, Oklahoma, where he was known as W. H. Geers. The suspect admitted going to Webb City the previous night but denied killing Hatten. However, on May 18, a coroner’s jury named Geers, alias Jones, as the slayer of Coyne Hatten. Doris Adams testified that she heard a shot and looked up to see Geers shoot Hatten twice more.

Geers was charged on May 19 with first degree murder. The next day, he broke down and gave a full confession. He said his real name was James “Jimmy” Creighton and he was twenty-six years old. Born in Oklahoma, he’d served one term in a reformatory, one term in the Oklahoma State Penitentiary, and brief stints in a couple of city jails. He admitted he was wanted in connection with a daring bank robbery at Hastings, Nebraska, the previous February during which he and his partners shot it out with police to make their escape. He said he shot Hatten because Hatten shoved him and asked whether he was looking for trouble.

Creighton’s trial on a first-degree murder charge got underway at Carthage in late June 1931. Numerous witnesses identified Creighton as the man who’d killed Hatten, and they suggested that he had little, if any, provocation. Creighton, on the other hand, took the stand to claim self-defense. He said Hatten not only shoved him but also made a move as though reaching for a weapon.

On June 26, the jury found Creighton guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced him to hang. Creighton was taken to the state prison pending the outcome of his appeal to the state supreme court. In August 1932, the high court reversed the verdict on the grounds that the judge should have granted a change of venue.

Creighton’s second trial was held in Barton County in January 1933. The jury found him guilty and sentenced him to life imprisonment.

For the first few years after being transported to the state penitentiary at Jefferson City, Creighton had a reputation as a troublemaker. In February 1934, he tried to “gouge his eyes out” with a fingernail because he’d supposedly been driven insane by the prison routine. Part of his sight was saved, and authorities thought his self-mutilation was a ploy to try to gain a parole. Creighton eventually calmed down and went to work as a prison barber.

He became trustworthy enough that he was allowed to work on the prison farm, but he escaped from there in 1944. Recaptured the next year, he was returned to the main prison. In early 1954, he was moved to the State Asylum at Fulton but returned to the prison after a month and half.

In September 1954, a riot at the state prison resulted in the death of one inmate and injuries to about twenty-five others, including Creighton. Afterward, Creighton, who was in a cell next to the man who was killed, was moved from the prison to the nearby Cole County Jail for his own protection. The following year, he testified against the ringleaders of the riot, earning a reputation among fellow prisoners as a “squealer” but also scoring points with officers prosecuting the rioters. In January 1956, the Missouri governor paroled Creighton on the recommendation of the prosecutors rather than return him to the penitentiary, where he would almost surely be killed.

This blog entry is condensed from my latest book, Midnight Assassinations and Other Evildoings.