I first came to know about this crime when I was the Chief Deputy Sheriff. One of my interns, a young man named Ron Bowden (who became a veteran deputy sheriff), was doing some research on the only known lynching of Lancaster County in 1884. I found a reference in the biography of the sheriff at the time, to the murder and subsequent prison break of Sam Mellick, Nebraska Penitentiary Warden. After the assassination Mellick was appointed interim warden and instituted a number of reforms.
Several years later, an aide, Sgt. Geoff Marty lent me a great book, Gail Christiansen’s “Last Pose,” which told the story of the 1912 prison break in terrifying, haunting, and spectacular detail.
To make a long story short, Shorty Gray and his co-conspirators shot and killed James Delahanty, a deputy warden and a guard warden, on Wednesday, March 13, 1912. He then made his break – in the teeth of a brutal Nebraska spring blizzard. During the next few days, a team followed. During the chase, the absconding men robbed a young farmer along with his team and wagon. As the party closed, a shootout ensued and the hostage was shot and killed in turn, with two of the three escaping.
There was great anger among locals in the area around Gretna-Springfield about the death of his paternal son, and a dispute over law enforcement tactics broke out, leading to his demise. Lancaster County Sheriff Gus Hires was not distracted by the inquiry, although a century later it appears to me likely that the fog of war caused the tragedy.
Christiansen, a professor of history at Indiana State University who died earlier this year, made the following notes on the flyleaf:
“The biggest news, for anyone living west of the Mississippi in 1912, was a violent escape from the State of Nebraska peninsula, planned and executed by a trio of infamous robbers and safe blowers.”
Bigger news than the sinking of half the continent titanic To escape this assassination during the same year would certainly qualify as one of the most infamous Lincoln crimes in history.
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