The Murder of William Humes

    Joplin, as many readers probably know, was a wild and wooly place during its early days. In fact, local historians have referred to its very earliest couple of years, when it was really just a booming mining camp, as the "reign of terror" because of the lawlessness that characterized the place. However, it is often hard to find information about the first few years of Joplin's history, because few local newspapers from the era survive. Although Joplin got its start as a mining camp in the late summer of 1870 and, within two or three years after that, one or more newspapers were publishing, only scattered dates survive prior to about 1879 or 1880. So, even someone like me, who has written fairly extensively about Joplin's history, may not know much about a lot of events that happened during the town's earliest days. An example of an event I had seen mentioned before but did not know much at all about until just recently is the murder of  William Humes by Lee Goodwin at the Joplin post office on the evening of May 1, 1878.

    Goodwin, a prominent Joplin grocer, was in the post office about 6 p.m. when William H. Humes, an engineer employed by Porter and Dorsey Mining and Surveying, walked in to pick up his mail. Goodwin immediately accosted Humes before he could call for his mail. "Defend yourself!" he exclaimed as he simultaneously drew a revolver and shot Humes in the left side. The victim collapsed and died within an hour, while Humes gave himself up to the police.

    This wasn't the first time Goodwin had tried to kill Humes. He'd made an attempt on Humes's life just a few days earlier and been arrested, but he was released on $500 bond after a preliminary hearing and was still out on bond at the time of the murder. "There seems to have been woman at the bottom of the trouble" between the two men, said a correspondent to the St. Louis Globe-Democrat. A contrary report in a Springfield newspaper said the difficulty grew out of a game of cards, and it made no mention of a previous attempt on Humes's life.  

    At his preliminary examination on the murder charge held in Joplin on May 6, Goodwin was bound over for trial in the circuit court during the June term, and he was taken to Carthage that evening and lodged in the county jail. Upon examining the prisoner, a Carthage newspaper reporter described him as about 30 years old, with light hair, a very light mustache, a sharp, thin nose, and a noticeably receding hairline. "Altogether his physiognomy is bad." 

    Goodwin's trial for first degree murder at the June term ended in a hung jury, and he was again released on bond to await the new trial. In early November, he sold his interest in the grocery business and made arrangements with a young Joplin woman to meet him in Kansas City, The woman left for Kansas City on the morning of November 5, but before departing, she told a friend about the arrangements. The friend reported the matter to police, who promptly re-arrested Goodwin as he was preparing to leave for Kansas City as well.

    On December 21, 1878, Goodwin's second trial ended with a not guilty verdict after jury deliberations that lasted 24 hours. "The verdict will create astonishment," opined a correspondent to the Globe-Democrat, "for it was generally believed that he would hang." The correspondent explained the unexpected verdict by suggesting that the defense presented extenuating circumstances while the judge's instructions to the jury made no allowance for conviction on a lesser charge than first-degree murder.