On the afternoon of May 30, 1893, 50-year-old Ephraim Bennett went to home of John Buchanan about ten miles southwest of Marshfield, Missouri, in West Dallas Township, to talk business with Buchanan, who was his brother-in-law. Sometime earlier, Buchanan's wife (i.e. Bennett's sister) had begun "to show symptoms of insanity and finally became a raving lunatic," and she started accusing her husband of mistreating her. It was decided Mrs. Buchanan needed to be taken to Nevada to the "insane asylum," as the state hospital was called at the time. However, her husband was poor and lacked the funds to have her committed and transported to Nevada. Bennett agreed to lend him the money, despite the fact that he believed his sister's accusations and blamed Buchanan for driving her crazy.
Presumably, the "business" Bennett wanted to talk over with Buchanan involved the debt that the latter owed him. At any rate, the two men talked matters over, supposedly in a friendly manner, and Bennett departed about two o'clock in the afternoon. Buchanan and his 10-year-old son then left the house and started working in a field. They had not been at work long before Bennett showed back up carrying a revolver and accused Buchanan of abusing his sister. Buchanan made a motion as if to reach for a weapon, and Bennett promptly opened fire, shooting the other man five times in quick succession.
After the shooting, Bennett calmly walked away, asking his little nephew to come with him. Bennett went to a neighbor's house, where he readily admitted the shooting. He claimed Buchanan had threatened to kill him and that he'd gone to the field to ask him about it. When Buchanan "tried to put his hand in his pocket," Bennett said, "I was too quick for him and fixed him." Bennett then went to a justice of the peace and turned himself in.
He was turned over to Sheriff James Goss of Webster County and lodged in jail at Marshfield. A coroner's inquest held soon after the shooting concluded that Buchanan came to his death by means of a pistol shot in the hands of Ephraim Bennett. At Bennett's preliminary examination on Monday, June 5, evidence was presented that Bennett had threatened Buchanan on several occasions, while the defendant presented his self-defense version of events. He was bound over without bond to await the action of a grand jury.
After the hearing, several clusters of men gathered in different spots on the public square in Marshfield, and the sheriff, suspecting that they were plotting vigilante action, spirited Bennett out of jail and took him on foot to some woods on the outskirts of town, where a deputy met them with a hack and took the prisoner farther out of town. Late that night a mob of about 70 men surrounded the jail in Marshfield. The leaders went inside and demanded that the jailer turn over the keys and lead them to Bennett's cell. The jailer told them Bennett was not there, but they thoroughly searched the place, ransacking it in the process, before they became convinced the jailer was telling the truth. They then dispersed quietly, and few people living in the vicinity of the jail even knew anything out of the ordinary had taken place.
The next morning, June 6, Sheriff Goss brought the prisoner back to the jail in Marshfield, but that afternoon he and other law enforcement officials decided Bennett should be removed to a more secure location for safekeeping. A deputy took the prisoner to the train depot, secreted him in the baggage car, and escorted him to Springfield, where he was placed in the Greene County Jail.
Bennett was taken back to Marshfield in March 1894, but instead of going on trial as scheduled, he was granted a change of venue to Dallas County. At his trial in Buffalo in October of the same year, the defendant was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to ten years in the state prison. The verdict was met with general surprise and disapprobation, because most observers had expected a first-degree murder conviction. The jury was said to have initially split 9-3 in favor of first-degree but that three members held out for second-degree and the others compromised in order to get any sort of conviction.
The prisoner was received at the penitentiary in Jefferson City on October 20. He was discharged in April 1902 under the 3/4 law, which allowed for release, on the condition of good behavior, after a convict had served three-quarters of his sentence.
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