Nathaniel Borders

In early June 1898, Nathaniel Borders, a crosstie rafter from Big Piney (MO), suffered a "fearful accident" when a charge of dynamite exploded near him, bursting his right eye and tearing off one of his arms. The Rolla Herald reported that the injury was very severe and that Borders's chances of recovery were "discouraging." 

A month later, though, the same newspaper reported that, although Borders had to have part of one of his feet amputated, he was now making a rapid recovery. In fact, Borders went on to live a number of years after the accident, long enough to kill a man and be charged with murder.   

Borders and his wife divorced in 1900, and apparently he became a rather disreputable character after that, if he had not already been so. In early 1903, he was charged in Pulaski County with "camping on highway with female." He was convicted of "camping for sexual intercourse" and sentenced to two years in prison. He was released after a year and half under the three-fourths rule.  

By 1916, Borders had remarried (to the woman he camped on the highway with, do you suppose??) and was living in northern Texas County. On the night of August 16 of that year, Borders was hosting a party at his place when Ike Heflin showed up looking for trouble with Borders, according to the Houston Herald. Borders's wife tried to warn Heflin away, but he insulted and slapped her. Borders got his shotgun and fired a shot, and some of the pellets struck Heflin. This only served to infuriate him, and he advanced toward Borders, who then retrieved a revolver and fired several shots into Heflin's body, killing him almost instantly. 

The Herald said that both men had bad reputations for being quarrelsome and getting into trouble and that too much alcohol no doubt played a part in the tragedy. A coroner's jury initially ruled the shooting justifiable, but Borders was nonetheless placed in jail to await investigation by a grand jury. 

The grand jury apparently disagreed with the coroner's jury, because Borders was charged with second-degree murder and found guilty at the November term of the Texas County Circuit Court. He was sentenced to ten years in prison but served only about six before having the sentence commuted by the governor.