Murder of a Summersville Constable

 On Wednesday, July 18, 1888, Will Renfro appeared before a justice of the peace in Summersville, Missouri, on a minor charge. He and his brother, Peter, became angry at one of the witnesses, and late that afternoon, after the trial, they accosted the witness, John Hughes, on the streets of Summersville. When Will hit Hughes with his fist, Constable Charley Dorris intervened and told Will Renfro he was under arrest. Discovering that Peter Renfro had his pistol drawn, Dorris turned toward him and said, "Hold on!" Peter Renfro retreated, and the lawman followed. When they were away from the crowd, Renfro suddenly turned and fired, striking Dorris in the forehead. Dorris lapsed immediately into unconsciousness and died an hour later. According to a report in the Houston Herald a few days later, both Renfro brothers were drunk at the time of the incident. Peter Renfro made his escape after the shooting, but he turned himself in the following Monday, July 23, and was lodged in the Texas County Jail at Houston.

Charged with first-degree murder, he was granted a change of venue to Greene County. While still awaiting trial, he escaped from the Springfield jail in early January 1890. Around the first of August, when Renfro had still not been recaptured, the Missouri governor offered a $200 reward for his apprehension. He was captured a few days later in a cave on Leatherwood Creek in Shannon County. 

Renfro was taken back to Greene County, where his trial got underway on August 24, just a couple of weeks after his recapture. At his trial Renfro claimed the killing of Constable Dorris was an accident--that he'd actually been aiming at someone else who was among the crowd on the street in Summersville at the time of the shooting. Understandably, the argument did little to sway the jury, and Renfro was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to hang on October 9. An appeal to the Missouri Supreme Court automatically stayed the execution.

The high court upheld the lower court's verdict in November 1892. His execution was reset for late January 1893, but he again escaped from the Greene County Jail on January 21, with eleven other prisoners, just eight days before he was scheduled to die.   

This time he stayed on the run for over five years. He was finally recaptured on February 14, 1898, on the Current River not far from the Missouri-Arkansas border. He said he'd been roaming over southern Missouri and northern Arkansas for the whole five years. He was brought back to Springfield, and his execution date was reset for May 21. However, a number of citizens, especially some of the women of Springfield, circulated a petition asking for leniency, and, just a week and a half before he was supposed to hang, the governor commuted his sentence to 25 years imprisonment without parole. He was taken to the state prison in Jeff City on May 14, but he ended up spending nowhere near 25 years behind bars. A different governor commuted his sentence to time served as of May 13, 1905, and he was discharged on that date after serving only seven years at the Big House.