Stephen Richards (murderer)

Stephen Dee Richards
Born (1856-03-18)March 18, 1856
Wheeling, West Virginia
Died April 28, 1879(1879-04-28) (aged 23)
Minden, Nebraska
Cause of death Execution by hanging
Other names F.A. Hoge, Dee Richards, Dick Richards, George Gallagher, D.J. Roberts, William Hudson, W.A. Littleton, J. Littleton, "The Nebraska Fiend"[1][2]
Criminal penalty Execution by hanging
Details
Victims 9
Country United States
State(s) Iowa, Nebraska
Date apprehended
 December 1878

Stephen Dee Richards (March 18, 1856 – April 28, 1879) was a 19th-century American serial killer who confessed to committing nine murders in Nebraska and Iowa between 1876 and 1878. He was hanged in 1879 for the axe murder of the Harlson family, a woman and her three children, and for the murder of Peter Anderson, a neighbor of his.[1]

Background

Richards was born in Wheeling, West Virginia, on March 18, 1856.[1] As a young child, he moved with his family to Ohio, where he grew up. In the Quaker village of Mount Pleasant, Ohio, where he lived from the age of 11, he attended Sunday school.[1]

In February 1876, he moved west to seek his fortune. "I had no definite object in view, nor any definite destination," he said later, "but wanted to see the country and live easy and avoid work."[1] In Iowa, he worked on farms in Burlington and Morning Sun before finding a job as an attendant at the Iowa Lunatic Asylum in Mount Pleasant, where his job was to bury dead patients.[3] The New York Times reported that Richards "had his finer senses blunted" during his time at the asylum;[3] the Omaha Herald reported that he said of this job, "That took away to some extent my feeling and sympathy for mankind. I could stand by a man and see him die with no more feeling than I would have for a hog. When I left there... I didn't care for anything and had no respect for human nature."[2]

After leaving his job at the asylum in the fall of 1876, Richards drifted around the Midwest, where he found intermittent work and occasionally consorted with groups of train robbers.[3] He passed through Kansas City and Hastings, Nebraska before arriving in Kearney, Nebraska.[1]

Murders

Early murders

In a confession written after his final arrest, Richards confessed to having killed four men in 1876 and 1877 during his travels around Nebraska and Iowa.[1]

Two weeks after his arrival in Kearney, probably in late 1876, Richards met another man while traveling on horseback through the Nebraska countryside. By Richards' account, they camped out for the night near Dobytown and began to play cards for money; Richards quickly won almost every cent the stranger had. The next morning, the two men set off for Kearney, but before they got far the stranger turned to Richards and demanded his money back. In Richards' words: "I refused to refund, and he got kind of savage, and so I shot him. The ball struck him above the left eye and killed him almost instantly. After killing him I dragged him down to the river and pitched him in."[1]

Several days later, again while traveling near Kearney, Richards encountered another stranger, this one traveling on foot. This man told Richards that he had seen him in company with the stranger he'd killed several days earlier and asked what had become of him; in the course of the conversation, Richards realized that the two men were friends and business partners. Richards denied any knowledge of the other man, but, as he put it: "The stranger asked me so many questions that I got nervous, and it seemed to me it would be safest to kill him to stop his mouth." The next time the other man turned his back, Richards shot him in the back of the head and killed him. "I never heard of either one of them afterwards," he said later.[1]

Some time later, while in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Richards used counterfeit money to buy a horse and buggy from a stranger. The man quickly discovered that the cash was counterfeit and tracked Richards down, demanding either good money or the return of his horse and buggy. Richards initially refused, whereupon the man threatened to have him arrested. In response, Richards got the drop on the man and shot him dead, then buried him. "I left there as soon as possible," Richards said later, "and never heard of the affair afterwards."[1]

In March 1877, Richards left Grand Island, Nebraska, on horseback with a young man with the last name of Gemge, heading to Kearney. Near the end of their journey, they camped for the night along the Platte River between Lowell and Kearney. Richards woke at around 3 a.m. and shook Gemge awake, telling him that it was almost morning and that they ought to get back on the road; Gemge, infuriated at being woken so early, swore that it couldn't be past midnight. When Richards said that he'd checked his watch and that it was 3 a.m., Gemge replied that Richards' watch was as big a liar as Richards himself.[1] Richards recounted what followed:

"It's a good thing you don't mean all you say," I said. "But I do mean it," he said. "You don't want to mean it," I said; and he picked up his revolver and saying, "Here is something that backs all that I say," cocked it. I looked at him, and thought, "The fool acts as if he means to shoot," and skipping out my little 33 I plugged him one in the head. That was the first trouble we had ever had.[2]

Murders of the Harlson family

In June 1878, Richards was jailed in Kearney for what he described as "a false charge of larceny."[1] In the jail, he encounted the wife of Jasper Harlson,[note 1] an acquaintance of his. Jasper Harlson and another prisoner named Underwood[note 2] had escaped from the Kearney jail shortly before Richards arrived there; Mrs. Harlson had been jailed based on suspicion that she helped her husband escape. Richards and Mrs. Harlson agreed that she would sell him the deed to her property for $600 six months later. After Richards was released from jail, he traveled around Nebraska for several months, doing business in Hastings, Bloomington and Grand Island, before arriving at the Harlsons' Kearney County[note 3] homestead on Oct. 18, 1878. When Richards arrived, Mrs. Harlson transferred her property to him, and he settled down there for several weeks.[1]

Soon, Richards resolved to kill Mrs. Harlson and her three children: ten-year-old Daisy, four-year-old Mabel and two-year-old Jasper, nicknamed "Jesse." (Jasper Harlson was living in Texas at the time.[2]) In his confession, he gave three reasons for the murders. First, he said, Mrs. Harlson talked too much; second, she was too inquisitive; third, she had gone through his papers and knew he was guilty of murder. "She would have 'given me away' had I let her live ... and so, knowing what she did, I thought it the safest plan to put her out of the way," he said.[1]

On Nov. 3, 1878, Richards and another man named Brown, who had been staying at the house, got up early in the morning. Brown went to feed the horses and do other chores around the farm; Richards found a spade and dug a hole near the house, then crept back into the house and murdered Mrs. Harlson, Daisy, Mabel and Jesse with an axe. All of the Harlsons died immediately, Richards said, except for Daisy, who "moaned and murmured and writhed around some." Richards carried their bodies out of the house and buried them in the hole he'd dug. The entire process took less than half an hour, he said.[1]

When asked where the Harlsons had gone, Richards said that they had gone off with Brown and "probably would not return soon, if they did at all."[1]

Murder of Peter Anderson

In December 1878, Richards agreed to help his neighbor, a Swedish immigrant named Peter Anderson, with some work that needed on Anderson's property.[1] On December 8 or 9, Anderson became ill after eating a meal Richards had prepared, causing him to suspect Richards had poisoned him. Anderson told a neighbor of his suspicions, then confronted Richards, leading to a fight in which Richards beat Anderson to death with a hammer or hatchet.[2][3] (Richards denied poisoning Anderson, saying using poison wasn't his style, and claimed that he killed in self-defense after Anderson attacked him with a knife.[2])

Capture

Richards fled Kearney on horseback after killing Anderson. The Times account of Richards' crimes says:

That evening a party of neighbors came up to inquire after Anderson, and found Richards hitching up the Swede's team. He told them to go into the house and see, and then threw off the harness from one of the animals, mounted him, and made for Bloomington.

He traveled east by horse, train, and foot, passing through Omaha, Chicago, Wheeling, and Bridgeport, Ohio before reaching his hometown of Mount Pleasant, Ohio, where he was arrested. He had spent about two weeks on the run. Ohio authorities jailed him in Steubenville, where he wrote two articles confessing to his crimes for the local newspaper. Sheriff Anderson of Buffalo County and Sheriff Martin of Kearney County, who had pursued Richards all the way from Nebraska to Ohio, returned with him to Nebraska.[2][3] According to the Times, Richards nearly evaded capture in Ohio:[3]

"If [Sheriff] Anderson hadn't been so quick in coming," said Richards, "he wouldn't have got me. The day I was caught I was going to start back for Nebraska. Why? Because they never would have thought of me coming West again, and would have gone on East, while I would have passed by here and gone to the mountains. But I went to a ball the night before I was caught, and if it hadn't been for that - but, anyhow, if I hadn't had the two girls with me, I guess the constable, McGrew, who arrested me, would have been a dead man - either of us would, for I'd have shot."

Execution

Richards was hanged at Minden on April 28, 1879. "Richards manifested supreme indifference to his lot, was perfectly willing to be brought direct to Kearney Junction, and said he had as soon died one way as another," the Omaha Herald reported upon his return to Nebraska.[2]

Notes

  1. ↑ In the transcription of Richards' confession, the name is spelled "Harlson." Other sources give alternate spellings, including "Harelson," "Harolson" and "Harrelson."
  2. ↑ When describing the escape in his confession, Richards indicated that three prisoners had escaped: Harlson, Underwood and a third man with the last name Nixon. Elsewhere in the same document, however, Richards refers to "Underwood, alias Nixon, a notorious desperado."
  3. ↑ Despite the name, the town of Kearney is not located in Kearney County; it is the county seat of adjacent Buffalo County. The county seat of Kearney County is Minden.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 Life and Confession of Stephen Dee Richards, the Murderer of Nine Persons, Executed at Minden, Nebraska, April 28, 1879. Lincoln, Nebraska: State Journal Co. 1879.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 "Richards, the Kearney County Murderer, Gives for the First Time Full Details of His Crimes". The Omaha Herald. 31 December 1878.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "The Nebraska Murderer: A Cool Confession of His Many Crimes". The New York Times. 2 January 1879.
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