November 2017 16 The Pony 2nd Hand Store We Collect & Deliver Your Merchandise FREE LOCAL DELIVERY AVAILABLE 662 W. Wickenburg Way Wickenburg • Open Monday–Saturday thepony2ndhandstore.com 928-231-2730 • 928-232-2019 We Carry Quality 2nd Hand & New Merchandise Your Home Furniture Supplies Store Specializing in Appliances Jane and Peter Kibble peter.kibble@hotmail.com OUR SPECIALTIES INCLUDE: Horse Fences • Arenas/Corrals • Round Pens Shades • Chain Link • Wrought Iron • Rail Fences Vinyl Fence • Pool Fence • Wood Fences Privacy Fences • View Fences • Dog Runs Cat Runs • Gates • RV Gates • RV Shades Snake Fences • Repairs • Masonry Work A Full-Service Residential & Commercial Fence Company (480) 595-7528 NOOSE CLAIMS Camp Verde Killer Rodgers got up and began closing the store for the night. Turner helped him. Before locking the second of the two doors, Rodgers walked over to the stranger and asked him if there was anything he needed before the store was locked up for the night. When the stranger said there wasn’t, Rodgers turned away from him and walked to the second door to close it for the night. The stranger got up unnoticed and followed Rodgers to the door. Suddenly, the man said “get in there Mack,” and backed up the order with a .45. Rodgers hurried through the store toward a back room where the guns were kept. He didn’t make it. The stranger shot him in the back of the neck and Rodgers fell mortally wounded. Wingfield heard the shot echo through the store and dashed from the room where he was working. He saw the stranger with a gun in his hand and headed for the door leading out to the porch. Again the stranger’s six-shooter barked. Wingfield fell mortally wounded by a slug in his lower back. The stranger then walked out on the porch through the door Wingfield was trying to reach. He yelled “I might as well kill you all” and fired at Captain Boyd, hitting him in the right leg. Dick Hopkins ran around to the back of the store and vanished. Lou Turner ran toward a nearby house. The stranger fired at Turner but missed. The gunman then jumped off the porch, ran for his horse and rode off. He had emptied the cartridges from his six-shooter on the way. He headed his horse toward Mud Tanks. William Head had been sleeping on the porch of the house Turner had fled to. Turner told him of the shootings. Dr. Ketcherside was summoned to the store. He could do little. Wingfield died that night about 10 p.m. Rogers had died a short time after he was shot. A rider was dispatched to Prescott to get Sheriff Johnny Munds. Munds and Deputy Joe Drew arrived at the murder scene early the next morning. The Chase Munds put together a small posse and a couple of Indian trackers and set out after the killer. The trail was easy to follow along the main road to Mud Tanks divide. There the tracks mingled with those of a herd of wild or range horses and since the fugitive’s horse was unshod it was impossible to follow the tracks on the hard, heavily trampled ground. Munds left the Indian trackers at the divide to try to find the fugitive’s trail as he left the heavily trampled ground. He and the rest of the posse headed up to Long Valley on the Mogollon Rim in case the fugitive made it up to the valley and was spotted. No trace of the killer at Long Valley could be found and the posse headed back to the divide. Most of the Indian trackers had left. Only a couple remained. They had failed to find the trail of the killer as he left the divide. Munds and the posse headed down the Mail Trail but could not pick up the killer’s tracks. Next morning they continued their search, ending up in Payson. After a day and a night of inquiry in that town, Munds talked to a storekeeper and learned that a man calling himself Charlie Bishop had been camped on the Rim all summer. The man had aroused suspicion in Payson because he bought large amounts of ammunition for his .45 six-shooter and his 30-40-rifle. Munds got a detailed description of “Bishop” from the storekeeper. Munds learned the man had been in Payson six days before the Camp Verde It was a quiet evening at Camp Verde that first day of July in 1899. It was about 8 p.m. and 4 men were sitting on the porch of the sutler’s store, talking away the evening. One, Mack Rodgers, was part owner of the store. His partner, Clint Wingfield, was inside working at his desk. As Rodgers, Lou Turner, Captain John Boyd and Dick Hopkins chatted on the porch, a stranger rode into camp. He tied his horse some distance from the store, then walked over to the porch and sat on the ground at the north end of the building.