LYNCHING IN ARIZONA.

Taranaki Daily News, 28 July 1917, Page 3

LYNCHING IN ARIZONA.

"JUSTIFIABLE HOMICIDE" BY CORONER'S JURY. VICTIM DIRECTS LYNCHERS. •Frustrated in its determination to remove Starr Daley, murderer of James Ray Gibson and assailant of Mrs. Gibson, ; from the county gaol and hang him, a j mol> of nearly 100 men gave chase, says the New York Times, to officers spiriting Daley to the penitentiary for safe keeping, and, after a sensational 40-mile | drive over the desert, overhauled the offi- ] eer?, took Daley to the scene of his crime, and hanged hkn from an electric power pole early in the morning. An opportunity to pray was given to Daley before being swung from the rear seat of an automobile. lie could only murmur, "Oh, my God!" With head bared in the moonlight, while Daley knelt, every man repented the words of the Lord's Prayer. And then the perpetrator of the most sensational crime in the history of Arizona was swung into eternity. It was a determined party of citizens, I .argely men of business, identified with Arizona in the making, that started from Phoenix five minutes after a car from the sheriff's office dashed out of | town in the effort to land Daley behind i the doors of the penitentiary at Florence, 411 miles away. Automobile after > automobile joined in the chase, which j ended when the officers and their prison- . er were overtaken not much more than ; a mile from their destination. Covering j the deputies with guns, the party direct- j ed Dttlev to step from the car. Still handcuffed, he was placed in another car and driven fifteen miles to the Wells, on the Roosevelt highway, the scene of his crime of two nights before, and there strung up. Equally sensational as the mad drive of the lynchers was that of Governor Thomas E. Campbell, who, called from bed at 1 o'clock in the morning and told what was happening, started with two aids hoping to arrive in time to prevent the execution of Daley. The executive however, reached the scene only to find the bodv of Daley dangling from a pole and none of the party present. Before paving the penalty, Daley confessed the murder of Gibson, and also to having killed at least two men. one in a bank robberv at Independence, Kan., and ) another in a ibank robbery in Missouri. \fter ho had completed his story ho showed the mob leaders how he wanted the noose to be adjusted, and urged that lie be hanged so his neck would break rather than to <bc strangled to death. Sheriff Hall, of Florence, learning of th*e lvnching, went to the scene with the 1 coroner A verdict of "justifiable homiI c i,ic" bv hanging by parties unknown ! was rendered by the coroner's jury. The I body was buried near the spot where Daley died. Daley came upon James Ray Gibson, a travelling «alesman for Hitchcock and Hill, Chicago, wholesale grocers, encamped with Mb. Gibson tut the \l elta. He shot Gibson, and then attacked Mrs. Gibson. He promised her her life if she would accompany him as his wite. To this she agreed, on condition that the body »t her bueband be taken to an va.-

dertaker's. On the way to Mesa something went wrong with the automobile carrying Daley, Mrs. Gibson, and the body of Gibson. Daley started to walk to Mesa. Mrs. Gibson gave the alarm, which resulted in the arrest of Daley before he reached Mesa.