Albert Applegate - Murder in a Cornfield

In November of 1895, John Nelson would never have guessed that the unassuming stranger standing at his front door would turn his family's life upside down for the next several months. This story goes to show just how trusting we were back in the 1890s and how we'd open our homes to just about anyone. But just when you think you know who the villain of this story is, the plot twists and turns and you find out that your friend is actually your foe.

Listen in as we pick apart this murder in a cornfield and reveal more than one secret!

This episode features vintage ads for Peffer's Nervigor and Bradfield's Female Regulator from 1895 and 1896.

Transcript

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1. 1 What do corn stalks, cowboys, and commandments have in common? 1. 1. You're about to find out on this episode of Forgotten Felonies! Welcome back to Forgotten Felonies. I'm Monica. And I'm Olivia. And this is where we take you back in time to rediscover the tales of vintage villainy that In this episode, we get to travel back to the 1890s. Our story is a little bit Wild West and a little bit Home on the Range. When I first discovered this story, I thought it would be pretty cut and dry. But right when you get to the end, everything flips on its head and suddenly you don't know what's up and what's down anymore. But first, Olivia and I have our own little story to share. There's a fun reason why we picked this story. Well... Kind of. Not really this kind of crime, but we wanted to find a story with someone involving an Applegate. Right. We were looking for a crime that involved someone named Applegate because what we haven't openly stated on air yet is that Olivia and I are related. Yeah, Monica is my biological mother. I was adopted at birth, but we have had an open adoption the entire time. That's true. We are direct descendants of Jesse Applegate, who was the leader of the first wagon train on the Oregon Trail. And he later went back and forged what is now the Oregon Trail, known as the Applegate Trail. So his National Historic Trail went through southern Oregon and avoided the Columbia River, so it was a safer route for the pioneers. Who made their way west in the 1840s through the 1860s. And today, I-5 follows the Applegate Trail. So it's really some fun family heritage that we're... very proud of. And someday, Olivia and I will be buried in our historical family cemetery with Jesse and his descendants. It would be really neat to find some sort of crime having to do with an Applegate somewhere in history, but we couldn't find anything in our direct line. Because Jesse's descendants are obviously perfect. Naturally. But we did find some very distant relatives. So we found some... crazy stuff, like really crazy. And oddly, all of it comes from the Southern or the Midwestern states. But this one is the one that we settled on. William Albert Applegate is the murder victim in this case, and he would actually be our fifth cousin. So to me, Albert is my fifth cousin. three times removed. And for me, he's my fifth cousin four times removed. And so my great grandpa was his fifth cousin straight across. without any steps of removal. And Jesse Applegate's grandfather's brother was Albert's great-great-great-grandfather. And Jesse Applegate is my great, great, great, great grandfather. So, and I do not expect anyone listening to have kept track of that or understand that in any way. If needed, I can draw a diagram. Yeah, so the relationship between us and Albert is branched off pretty far, but still, he's an Applegate. All hail the Applegates! Yeah? That's true, but maybe not Albert. Yeah, maybe hold off on that toast until you hear the whole story. So, Olivia, tell us a little bit about Albert. Okay, so William Albert Applegate was born the 7th of October, 1868, in New Sharon, Iowa. He was the third of 10 children born to Iowa. Ira Dennis Applegate, and Catherine Matilda White Applegate. William, who went by Albert, married his wife, Mary Elizabeth Nelson, on the 19th of August, 1893. When he was 25 and she was 19. Their first child, son William Ray Applegate, was born on the 19th of May, 1894, in Norton, Kansas. They had their second child, Matilda Jane Applegate, in 1895, in Rock Branch, Norton, Kansas. She sadly passed away that same year. Yep, very sad that she died. I wish we could have found what month she was born and died, but I couldn't find that, so they just had the year. But anyway, onward. Welcome to Devizes, Kansas, located in Norton County. This little settlement first took root in September of 1872 when seven settlers came to the area and established themselves. In the spring of 1873, just a few months later, 12 more pioneer families arrived. arrived to make themselves at home. Among these newcomers were Ira Applegate and his wife, and five young sons. At the time that the Applegates moved to Devizes, The Applegate family only had Charles, Thomas, Albert, Joseph, and little baby Francis. Albert Applegate was four and a half years old. is considered a ghost town. It was officially unincorporated in 1953. It had been hit pretty hard during the Depression, and then there was a bad fire in 1950. 1841 that left it pretty devastated. There is a nice cemetery there, though, with a lot of the original settlers, and that is where the Applegates in our story are buried as well. Our story takes place on a couple farms in Devizes, Kansas. An unexpected guest knocked on the door around 7 p. m. on Thursday, November 7, 1895, just as those in the Nelson home were sitting down to supper. The stranger said his feet were awfully sore and asked if he could stay for the night. These were the days when this wasn't all that uncommon. John Nelson and his wife, Edith Emily Woods Nelson, were friendly and accommodating. They were more than happy to share their evening meal with a stranger. They said he looked to be in his 30s, about 5'6 or 5'8. He had dark hair, dark eyes, and a dark mustache. While he was eating, the stranger asked if there happened to be a man in the neighborhood by the name of Albert Applegate. John told the stranger that, yes, Albert was actually now his brother-in-law and he happened to live on the next farm to the east with old Mr. Nelson, they called him. Albert was now married to John Nelson's sister, Mary. They'd gotten married a couple years earlier in August of 1893. Albert Applegate and Mary were living with Mary's and John Nelson's parents. Albert and Mary had actually first lived with her brother John Nelson and his wife. Then they moved in with the Bisbee family for a bit, then back in with her brother John, and then in with Mary's parents. Oddly, they'd bounced around quite a bit in the two years since the wedding. They'd actually had two children, wasting no time at all. They had a one and a half year old son at the time in November of 1895, and they had just had their baby girl a little earlier in the year. She had died shortly after birth. When asked if John knew Albert, John reacted the way anyone would react in this situation, and he asked the stranger, 'Do you know Albert?' The stranger told him that no, he hadn't met him before, but he used to work with a guy who had worked with him before. He'd heard the name, and he was told he lived somewhere in the area. Thank you. He said he used to live in Colorado, and he managed the cattle and the cowboys on a range for several years, and this made sense to John because Albert had actually lived in Colorado for a while and worked as a cowboy. Albert had floated around to several different ranges until he came back to Kansas, so it all checked out. The stranger also said that he had been traveling up that way through Kansas from the territory. This was put in the newspaper with a capital T. I had to Google what this would have been referring to if a person in Kansas were to have said that back in 1895, and it turns out that Oklahoma was a territory of the United States at that time. That's likely what he had been referring to. The stranger also said that just that day he had come from Norton, which was a town 20 miles to the southeast of the... little town of Devizes. The impression was that this man had walked 20 miles that day. He was worn out and tired, and so, after eating and chatting for a while, Sometime between 8 and 9 p. m., the stranger, John, and Edith Nelson and Edith's 18-year-old brother, Ed Woods, all retired to bed. Ed Woods and the stranger sharing a bed. It's kind of weird. It is weird. So did the guy give them his name at all? Actually, no. And they didn't think that was weird. And they're like, just go ahead, sleep with my brother. No, they did not. There's there's nothing in the paper that talks about their thoughts about that. But he William. Actually, testified in court that he did not give them his real name or a fake name he says he did not give them a name at all, and it is strange because they said there was just that one bed and they slept in the bed together. So it's it's really weird that they're like, 'Go ahead, sir without a name, climb in the bed with my 18-year-old brother. Yeah, that's Hmm. I know. Like, what should we call you? Call me whatever you want. Just don't call me late for dinner. I don't know. That's what my grandpa used to say. Thank you. It just seems weird. But, yeah. Sign of the times, you know? So after they went to the bedroom, the stranger asked young Ed more questions about Albert. He wanted to know about his physical appearance and his build. Was he strong? How was his complexion? He wanted to know when he would be out to work in the morning. Where would he likely be working when the sun comes up tomorrow? And young, naive Ed told the stranger he could find him if he just went down north to the right in the field. The stranger said, 'Well, if I happen to run across him, maybe I'll stop and see him.' What's his complexion like? Is he looking pale these days? Is he eating well? Have acne? Right? Very strange questions. Hmm. According to John Nelson,

he got up around 5: 10:31

30 in the morning of November 8th. He did his chores, built a fire, fed the horses. His wife, Edith, cooked for him. Cooked breakfast for the men,

and they all ate at about 6: 10:40

30 in the morning.

Sunrise was at 7: 10:44

02 a. m. on Friday, November 8, 1895. After breakfast, the overnight guest offered the Nelsons $10 for their hospitality, but the Nelsons were very kind and they refused to take a single cent. He asked the way to Wilsonville, right around daybreak, and John stood at the front door with him to point him in the right direction. It was north and a little west. John watched the stranger walk about 10 feet from the house before John turned and went back into the house. John grabbed his mittens and his coat, then he and his young brother-in-law went out to get his team of horses hooked up to the wagon so he could drive over to his cornfield, about 100 yards from the house, to start husking corn. About 30 minutes later... When John Nelson heard the first shot, he also heard Albert yell, 'Whoa,' to the horses. And then he heard two more shots. His first instinct was that—part of a party of hunters must be in the area and their shooting spooked the horses. The first thing John actually saw was Albert's team of frightened horses running frantically out of the cornfield. When the team of horses reached the road nearby, they turned north and kept on running. John unhitched one of his horses from the rest of his own team and took off after them to help catch them, of course expecting Albert to follow. From John's vantage point, as he passed by a fence near the edge of Albert's cornfield, he saw a person running along the fence and assumed it was Albert chasing after him. His team of horses. John was moving at a gallop's pace, so he didn't get a good look, of course. John met up with his brother William Nelson and another man, Henry Majors, on the road, and the three of them eventually caught up to Albert's horses and got them turned around. By the time they got back to the farm with the horses, a whole hour had passed. So John Nelson and his brother William, along with Henry Majors, missed out on the excitement that took place on the farm while they were gone. They expected they'd wind up running into Albert on their way back, because they thought Albert would also be coming after the horses, but they didn't see him anywhere. That was awfully strange. Meanwhile, back at the farm, when John's wife, Edith, heard the shots from her kitchen, she also saw the team of horses running away. But unlike her husband, from where she stood, she did not see a person running along a fence. There was a cornfield in the way, so she couldn't have seen that anyway. She did not think she saw Albert anywhere. When she saw the team running without him following, she thought maybe he'd been thrown out of the wagon or he'd otherwise been hurt, so she ran out of the kitchen toward the edge of the corner. cornfield, and she yelled his name several times. She heard the sound of corn stalks crackling. It was the noise you'd hear if someone were running through them. Now, she had just heard three gunshots. She saw a team of horses stampeding out of the field without a driver, and now she hears the sound of someone smashing through corn stalks. This scared her, and she ran all the way back to her own cornfield to find her brother, Ed. And that is what I call survival instincts. Yeah. Ed agreed to go with her to old Mr. Nelson's cornfield, where the gunshots and Albert were supposed to be. And together, they found the body of Albert Applegate, lying on his left side, his face down, blood pooling around his face. They did not try to talk to him, and they did not stay with the body. Instead, they went to old Mr. Nelson's house. When John Nelson, his brother Will, Henry Majors, and now Henry's brother Al arrived at the cornfield about 45 minutes later, they also happened upon Albert Applegate's body. They found that Albert's team of horses had originally been hitched to the wagon with about three bushels of corn in it, but it had come unhitched from the team down by Sapa creek. While they were on the run, the wagon was upside down, so they got it turned upright again and picked up all the corn but for them. The men also picked up Albert's body and took it to his father-in-law's house, where Albert and his wife and son had been living at the time. Neighbors were alerted, and before they knew it, about a hundred men were scouring the area for the shooter. Not a single stalk of corn was left undisturbed for miles, yet no one could find this stranger. Granted, at 5'6 or 5'8, he was shorter than your average cornstalk. Cornstalks in the U . S. grow to be between 6 and 12 feet in height, so even on the short end, it was taller than our mystery man. He didn't even have to crouch while he made his escape. Like, this was a short dude. I'm 12 foot tall corn and he's just walking along. There could have been two of him and he still wouldn't. And it was just cornfields in every direction, plus the Sapa Creek was nearby. The settlement of Devizes was strategically located near Sapa Creek. Creek for the convenient water supply, and the creek banks were lined with very thick trees and bushes. All the shooter had to do was make it to the creek, which was not far from this cornfield, and he'd be incredibly hard to spot. While the armed posse, rumored to number well over a hundred, searched frantically for the gunman, John Nelson made the 20-mile trip over to Norton to alert law enforcement. By horse, this trip would have taken three to four hours, and the newspaper does report that he made it just before noon. He reported to County Attorney Jones that a murder had taken place. Coroner Turner was unavailable, so Squire Howell had to make the trip out to Devisey to hold the inquest. Is that like a title or his name was Squire? I believe it's a title. Squire Howell took a look at the body and found that there were three total bullet holes, but these three holes were made from just two bullets. This means that of the three guns, shots that were heard, only two bullets hit their mark. One bullet went into Albert in his right side, four inches below his arm, entering between the 7th and 8th ribs and came out on his front left just below his nipple, between the fourth and fifth ribs, so it entered lower than it exited. The bullet lodged between his shirt and his outer shirt. This wound did not bleed outwardly or freely, so at first glance, nobody noticed this gunshot wound at all. The bleeding from this one was just internal. It was the other gunshot, the one that went in behind his right ear and exited through the left corner of his mouth. So technically, there was an exit wound in his mouth. It actually knocked his teeth out, but for some reason the medical examiner didn't consider that an exit wound. I don't know why. It was this one that left the puddle of blood beneath his face as he lay on his stomach and died. This gunshot had been delivered at such close range that it left powder burns under his ear. Mm-hmm. Now, at first glance, one would assume that this one, you know, to his head, was the fatal shot. But the crime scene itself tells us otherwise. This cornfield is triangular and the rows run north and south. And there are these ditches or draws that run along the edges of the cornfield and they meet at a point. point. So there's a tree that grows at the head of this triangular field. I was on Google Maps hoping to try to find this and I could not. I couldn't find it. I mean, there's a lot. lot of possibilities, but I mean, I don't know specifically which one it is. On the bank where these two draws meet, near this tree, the grass was crushed and it that a struggle or a fight probably took place at that spot. That spot of crushed grass is also behind the wagon tracks, so they were guessing that whoever shot Albert was hiding behind his team of horses. And then Albert was on the other side of the team shucking corn. And so the shooter was probably using the horses and the wagon as cover before he started shooting. Now, there was a 19-foot distance between the crushed grass and where the body was, and there was a blood trail that entire way. So the only wound that bled outwardly was the shot to the face. So they know that one had to be the wound that left the blood for those 19 feet. So it could not have been the fatal shot. Like, I mean, immediately fatal. So that kind of changes, you know, their first impression. So if the shooter shot at him from a distance and missed, and then scared the horses, and maybe Albert charged at him to fight him, that would put Albert in close contact for the face. Shot and then getting shot behind the ear and it came out the mouth that would make him want to run, this was their first theory. Um and realizing he couldn't you know beat a man with a gun, so then he would run, and then they thought that they shot him. He shot him again, from far away. And then that one dropped him, the one that went through his side. So they figured, okay, this must be how it happened, but who would do such a thing and why? Well, it did not take them long to figure out the who, and everybody sure thought they knew the why. Thousands of women suffer untold miseries. Bradfield's female regulator acts as a specific by arousing to healthy action all her organs. It causes health to bloom and joy to reign throughout the frame. It never fails to regulate. My wife has been under treatment of leading physicians three years without benefit. After using three bottles of Bradfield's Female Regulator, she can do her own cooking, milking, and washing. Bradfield Regulator Co., Atlanta, Georgia. Sold by Druggist at $1 per bottle. Police officers didn't arrive on scene until 12 hours after the murder. After two days of hunting for the shooter, they gave up and instead just had to look for clues as to the shooter's identity. Sheriff Betterton from Norton County took up the investigation. He immediately began questioning Albert's friends and family to see if he had any known enemies. It turns out that he did, in fact, have an enemy. If you recall, Albert Applegate had moved to Devisee, Kansas back when the settlement was brand new, back when Albert was just a wee lad at four and a half years old. He had practically lived there his whole life. Almost. See, at least by 1890, when he was 22 years old, but probably earlier than that, he decided he wanted to live the life of a cowboy. And he made it. His way out west to Colorado. From what I can gather, he lived the life of a drifter, a six-shooter strapped to his hip, picking up work wherever he could find it. He'd be hired on for short-term work here and there, and then he'd move on to the next ranch if the opportunity arose. It was fun for a young man with no ties to a white... for kids. He was sowing his wild oats out in the wild west. Yeah, he was. With a bunch of like-minded dudes in male-dominated occupations. Maybe a little too wild. Maybe a little too fancy-free. Maybe he was feeling like the world was his oyster and he was free to take whatever he wanted. That seems to be what got him into trouble when he wound up working on a ranch managed by William E. Hetty. Olivia, you simply must tell us things about William Hetty. And I shall. So William Elijah Hetty was born on the 2nd of June, 1860 in Ringgold, Iowa. He was the second of 10 children born to his father, Thomas Patrick Hetty, and mother, Martha Louise Dugan Hetty. He married his first wife, Anna Ellen Dant, on the 10th of July in Bedford-Taylor, Iowa in 1883. And then they got a divorce. And he married his second wife, Elizabeth Lizzie Dant, on the 7th of August in Bedford, Taylor, Iowa in 1886. And wouldn't you know it, they were sisters. I had so much fun finding William and this case reminded me a lot. lot of the Kate Van Winkle episode that we did because it was like a treasure hunt for me. Because at first William was just I couldn't find anything. I couldn't find him. I had to come up with really creative things to search for. And then I would find something awesome. And it would send me down these fun little rabbit holes until I found. the things that I needed. So William Hetty was not on findagrave. com, but I found an article where they mentioned his father and they said, just said his name was Pat. And then I found Thomas Patrick Heddy on findagrave. com. And sure enough, that was his father. So I looked up a bunch of stuff about his family. And it turns out that William's parents were the 12th couple to ever be married in Ringgold County, Iowa, way back in 1856. newspaper up there loved to write about TP. Heady and they'd share these conflicting, like origin stories about him, depending on what year it was, was like when he left Ireland and sailed the seas on a whaling ship. So I found two and I took screenshots and I actually uploaded them to Thomas Patrick's memorial on FindAgrave. com because they're just great little stories. But the Hetty family was a really... big deal in Ringgold County, Iowa, in the late 1800s and early 1900s, and maybe they still are today. Who knows. So I mean, big shout out to the headies, wherever you are, if you're listening, you guys— we are fans. So Awesome. So yeah, anyway. Back to Albert Applegate. Albert Applegate, 23 years old, living it up as a cowboy in 1891, winds up on a ranch 40 miles from nowhere. The closest... being in Meeker, Colorado. There was another young cowboy there named Bert Page. Bert just so happened to live in Norton, Kansas. at the time of Albert's murder. So police found him to be a very valuable witness with some good info that sent them in a solid direction. Burt told the police... that back in 1891, Albert had gotten sick on the ranch where they both worked, and William Hetty's wife, Lizzie, nursed him back to health. William had been in charge of managing the cattle and boarding the cowboys, so it made sense that his wife would be helping out, you know, if they were under the weather. Well, according to Burt Pace, William was jealous of the attention that Albert got from his wife. So William tried to shoot Albert one day at the dinner table, and it turned into a two-hour scuffle with the gun going off twice, but Albert was able to overpower William because he was younger and stronger, and the whole issue became a long-standing feud between the two. From John Nelson's description, it sounded like the stranger was none other than William Heady. So yeah, that was coming from Burt Pace. Who knows if that was true, but that's what he said. And it wasn't just Burt Page telling such a tale. Albert Applegate himself had told John Nelson, his brother-in-law, that he had had trouble with a rancher in Colorado who had become jealous of him. had tried to kill him. And according to Nelson, the rancher had even told Albert that he would kill him even if it took him 10 years to do it. And to another friend, Albert Major, one of the men who had actually helped move Albert's body, Albert Applegate told him that he had caused the separation of a man and his wife in Colorado. The man had sworn to follow him and kill him if it took 20 years. Really just racking up those years. It just keeps increasing. So Albert Applegate had talked about it to multiple people. He knew there was a man in Colorado that had made threats against his life, and that stranger that showed up said he was from Colorado. So it sounds like the police were on the right track. Something even more shocking came up when the police spoke to Albert's cousin Chris Watson, who lived on the Sapa Creek just a mile and a half away from the two Nelson farms. It turns out that the previous September, about six weeks before the murder, a stranger had come through Devisees and called himself Bill Jones. He had stopped at the Watson farm and asked for breakfast around 9 o'clock on the morning of September 18th. Bill Jones was friendly and talked about Colorado, and he asked if there was anyone by the name of Applegate living nearby. He asked if this Albert Applegate had gotten married two years ago. And Chris Watson said that yes, he had gotten married in August of 1893. Bill Jones said that Albert Applegate had had some trouble out west, but that he felt Albert was a moral young man deep down. So Chris Watson told Bill Jones that Albert had indeed told him that Albert had had some trouble out west and that there was a man who was jealous of him for no reason and was looking to kill him. When Chris Watson said this to the man, his face turned red, and he said that Albert would never get his just dues till he, quote, got laid. lead into him. So till he was shot. So from this, it sounds like the killer had been staking out the area as early as September. Like whoever it was, he was really determined to get his man. Now, Sheriff Betterton, who was investigating the case, obviously he was sensitive when he approached Albert's poor grieving widow, right? Mary had already been through a lot. in 1895. Their baby daughter, Matilda Jane, had been born and died already that year, and now Mary just lost her husband so unexpectedly. so tragically, so violently. They'd only been married for a little over two years, and their son was just a year and a half old. The sheriff probably wasn't... sure he'd get much from her, but to his surprise, she handed over a letter postmarked October 1893. This letter was actually written about six weeks after Mary and Albert's wedding. It was from a Mrs. Lizzie Heddy, postmarked from Mount Air, Iowa. According to an article published in the November 14, 1895 edition of The Champion, which is a newspaper out of Norton, Kansas, this letter from Lizzie Hetty contained much love and a recital of all she had lost and abandoned for Albert Applegate. It no longer sounded like William Hetty was jealous for no reason. It sounded like Albert Applegate and Mrs. Hetty became a little too intimate and had had an affair. Albert Applegate had broken up a marriage in Colorado, and now Mrs. Hetty was living in Iowa, estranged from her husband. All of this sure did point to Lizzie's husband, William Hetty, as the likely culprit. And he'd come to seek his revenge. And he'd found it. So when the news of the affair hit the newsstands, which was literally the day after the murder, sympathies no longer lay with Albert Applegate.

That same article in The Champion reads: 31:10

'Until the seventh commandment is abrogated, there will be an argument in favor of the Avenger.' The seventh commandment is, of course, 'Thou shall not commit adultery.' A little write-up in the Stockton Review and Rooks County Record actually said, 'such exhibitions of revenge are customarily condoned by juries.' So, yeah, back in that day, if it's like, well, he messed with your wife, they were like, 'oh, okay, not guilty.' So, yeah. Every article from that point on pointed out that he had been too intimate with Hedy's wife. And one even said that blame surely lay with Lizzie Hedy because she was older and more experienced than Albert at the time. So I did the math. And in 1891, Albert was 23 and Lizzie was 26. So much older. Wow. I am going to call BS on that because I think Albert knew what he was doing as a 23-year-old cowboy in the Wild West, and he wasn't going to church on Sundays. Yeah, I don't think that Lizzie was taking advantage of Albert. And, you know, when I did the math, it turns out that Albert's wife, Mary, was pregnant when they got married. So I'm guessing that they probably got married because she was pregnant. And I'm going to go out on a limb here and say he was probably a guy who was not shy about spilling his seed wherever he wanted to. And. Sowing his seed. Yeah. Bling. Yeah. Yeah. And I also know other things. So that's why I'm saying that. So anyway, we'll get there. Yeah. So Governor Merrill of Kansas, he made a requisition upon the governor of Iowa for William Heddy, who was now wanted on the charge of. murder. Murder. They were pretty convinced that he was probably up in Iowa looking for Lizzie because they thought he was probably on his way to kill her next. I mean, they were like, ooh, that's probably where he's going. So on Monday, November 18th of 1895, Sheriff Holland in Mount Air, Iowa. He instituted a search for William Hetty. There was actually a $100 reward for the capture of William Hetty. And Sheriff Holland got it, actually. He located Hetty husking corn for Arthur Gillis in a cornfield two miles northeast of Tingley, Iowa, and he arrested him without any resistance whatsoever. The sheriff just walked up behind him and he just said, 'Consider yourself my prisoner.' I wonder if he said it, like, aggressively or was like, 'Just consider yourself my prisoner.' I don't know, but he snuck up behind him. He just said that, and that was it. Now, of course, William swore he was innocent. He was like, 'I didn't do it.' And he even had a declaration of his innocence printed in the papers in Iowa. He was like, 'Oh, I'll prove it. Don't you guys worry—I will prove that I'm innocent.' Sheriff Betterton arrived in Iowa on Thursday, November 21st, to collect his prisoner and to escort him back down to Norton County to face the music. Jury selection was February 4th, and the murder trial began on February 5th of 18. By the time the trial began, he was no longer pleading not guilty. Now he admitted that he had done it because, I mean, The Nelsons were able to identify him, right? A train conductor identified him from his travels heading down that way. And a few different people identified him from when he stopped to ask for meals on his way over to Devisee. So he couldn't argue his way out of being there. I mean, they recognized him. Yeah, that wasn't the smartest. He changed his plea to self-defense, and he even gave the whole story about the murderous act itself and his getaway and where he had buried the gun and a few others. What are these other items? Well, according to William in his testimony during the trial, he had left Colorado on September 16th. 1895, and he arrived back home in Iowa on September 24th and worked on his dad's farm in Shannon City, Iowa. And then five weeks later on November 6th, Second, he received a letter from Lizzie saying she wanted a divorce. So she was actually living in Clyde, Missouri at the time. So he decided he wanted custody of their eight-year-old son, Oscar. So that same night, he left for Missouri to go get two affidavits drawn up that would give evidence that she was an adulterous woman, she had loose morals, and all of this stuff because that would help him get custody in the divorce. Which is so funny considering why his first divorce happened. Because he was, yeah, cheating. Yes, I found the thing in the paper. His first wife, his second wife's older sister, filed for divorce. On the grounds of adultery and desertion. So anyway, so yeah, so he claims that he had the letter from her. Her asking for the divorce as well as these two affidavits with him. And he was going down to Kansas to see Albert to see if he would sign the affidavits to help him get custody of his son in the divorce. So when he fled after shooting Albert, he quickly buried the gun, his gun belt, the 24 extra rounds of ammo, the letter, and the two affidavits. And so later, when he was in jail, he drew a map so that an officer could go and retrieve the items for evidence to back up his story, like, that's why I went to go talk to him. I had these things with me to go talk to him. Hmm. That's very interesting. So the jury, since it was pretty much like— Oh yeah, you killed him because he was sleeping with your wife. They would have been on his side, since that was happening. Right? Well, actually, about that, the judge said, this is going to make you mad. The judge said that because the defense was self-defense, he would not allow any evidence or testimony or anything to come into play if it made any mention of infidelity at all. So he allowed all of the witnesses to say that Albert said a man in Colorado was jealous of him for no reason. But nobody could say that Lizzie admitted that there had been an actual affair between the two at all. That's super dumb. Why couldn't they do that? Well, he said that 1891 was far too long ago, so it couldn't count for the... self-defense argument. So like, cause he couldn't possibly be defending himself against something that happened four years prior. So he wouldn't allow it to even be mentioned in front of the jury. But that's literally part of the case. That's the whole basis of the story and why he wanted to go and talk to him in the first place. And it would explain why Albert thought William would be out to get him. I know. Like, it would have made everything make sense. The judge made a very big error. I agree. So yeah, like, without any context, here's what William said happened when he left John Nelson's house that morning. This is what... The jury heard on the stand. He said he was just walking along and he happened to see a team of horses turn into the cornfield and he knew it must be Albert. So he turned down a draw or irrigation ditch and he ran that direction to go talk to him. He stayed down low in the draw and when he got close to the horses, the horses whinnied. He says Albert spotted him then and he exclaimed, 'Oh, Hetty.' Albert then rushed at him aggressively. So William opened his coat to show him the revolver. And he said, 'Albert.' Albert, I want to speak to you. But Albert ran around behind the wagon and William could see his feet because he was like down lower in the draw. So he saw that Albert climbed up on the other side of the wagon. And so William assumed he was going for a gun because Albert always carried one to Colorado. So William got up and he ran around to the other side of the wagon and he shot. Adam and then Albert yelled 'whoa' because that scared the horses and then Albert fell back when the horses started to run. One foot caught in the tug, the other dragged on the ground. The horses ran off and one of the wheels ran over one of his legs below the knee. So William, like, went up to Albert, not realizing that the shot had actually hit him and he tried to help him up. And William said, 'Why don't you stop and talk with me?' And so he reached out his hand to help him up. But Albert, when he got up, he grabbed William to like fight him. And so that's when William shot twice more. And then William ran back to the draw because there was like all this smoke from the gunfire and he couldn't see. So he ran back to the draw and then he said that he saw through the smoke that Albert was on his feet running south before he collapsed. So then William went over to his body and saw that he lay on his left cheek and blood was coming from behind his right ear. So after that, William started to unload the gun, but then he realized he should probably get out of there, you know, because if he was caught, I mean, obviously someone was going to. Be coming to the sound of gunfire and everything. So, if he was caught with the gun, the extra ammo, and those papers on him, he was gonna look awfully guilty. So he buried everything real quick. He ran down to the Sapa Creek, he swam across it, and climbed up the other side. Then he actually saw a few men on horseback. So he was like, 'Oh shoot!' And so he saw a bunch of tumbleweeds caught on the edge of the creek. He just climbed under them and he stayed there until the sun went down. So what happened with the jury? Well, the jury... deliberated for a while. They were actually out for 36 hours. And quite a few actually wanted to acquit him in the beginning. But by the end of the deliberations on Monday, February 10th, they unanimously agreed he was guilty of second degree murder. And the following Wednesday evening, February 12th, William Heddy was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor. So this case seems pretty cut and dry, but hang on because things are about to turn a little bit sideways. Weak men made vigorous. What Peppers Nervigor did. It acts powerfully and quickly. Cures when all others fail. Young men regain lost manhood. Old men recover youthful vigor. Absolutely guaranteed to cure nervousness, lost vitality, impotency, nightly emissions, lost power, either sex, failing memory, wasting diseases, and all effects of self-abuse or excess and indiscretion. Wards off insanity and consumption. Don't let Dragus impose a workless substitute on you because it yields a greater profit. Insist on having Pefers Nervigor. It can be carried in vest pocket. Prepaid plain wrapper, $1 per box or $6 for $5. February 12th, the same day of his sentencing, William Heddy, still sitting in the county jail, wrote a letter to the editor of The Champion. He wanted to... his story, his entire sad story that the judge would not allow into the courtroom. He was due to be transferred to the state prison the following morning, and he had a few things he wanted to explain to the good citizens of Norton County. He began by saying that he felt no hatred toward anyone involved in prosecuting his crime or finding him guilty. And he expressed from the depths of his heart true sorrow. For the bereaved widow of Albert Applegate. He wrote about leaving his home in Iowa at the age of 18 to seek employment as an independent adult, about marrying his beloved Lizzie Dant on August 17th of 1886. He wrote about the two of them moving to Missouri, then Kansas, sometimes living with his sister and her husband. He wrote of his beloved son, Oscar, being born in Cheyenne Wells, Colorado. In 1888. William and Lizzie Hetty decided to settle in Colorado after the birth of Oscar. In 1890, William was working for a man named Watson on one of his ranches. It was a hay and grain ranch. He worked for him from March until December, and it was during the summer of 1890 that Albert Applegate was hired on. He boarded with William during that time as well. At the end of 1890, Watson sold his ranch, and they were all out of work. Albert asked William if he could stay with William and his family for a while, because Albert, being 20, and carefree, had not saved a single cent. He had no money and nowhere to go. William, at the age of 30, was a responsible family man and had saved enough money to purchase his own ranch at that point. He told Albert that he could stay with them until he got on his feet. William was able to get a house, fences, outbuildings, and everything else built on that land during 1891. The home was 300 yards from a mill where Albert had by then secured a job. Albert finally found his own place to live, but he would still come around every Sunday and Lizzie would wash his laundry. One day in August of 1891, William was out in Meeker, the county seat in their area, and he ran into a friend of his. This friend told William that he'd heard Albert Applegate making very inappropriate comments about Lizzie Heddy. William referred to them as light remarks. Olivia, what did 'light remarks' refer to in 1895? 'Light remarks' could imply flirtatious or over-familiar comments. Remarks that were overly friendly, flirtatious, or implying a level of familiarity inappropriate for someone outside the immediate family. Yeah, so in William's letter to the editor, he didn't include examples, but whatever it was, it wasn't anything that was too horribly incriminating. It was just enough that he didn't feel comfortable having Albert around his wife anymore. So when he went home, he told Lizzie, 'Lizzie? You tell Albert Sunday when he comes.' To get his washing done elsewhere and take his clothes and... Keep away. William figured it would be best coming from Lizzie because if William told him to keep away, Albert would likely get the impression that William was jealous. And Lizzie did it. She wasn't happy when she heard about his light remarks either. Sure enough, the next Sunday, William was on his way back to his house, and he saw Albert walking in the direction of his house, away from the Hetty homestead, carrying his bag of laundry with him. Albert assured William he would keep away and he wouldn't give anyone any further reason to talk. William and Albert actually shook hands, and William thought that was the end of it. During that next week, though, one of William's hired hands told him that Albert had been out to the house again. The hired hand was working in the kitchen and Lizzie had been sweeping out the living room. Albert showed up outside and started calling for her. She yelled to him, 'Albert, I'm busy. Come someday when Will is at home.' Well, he wouldn't stop yelling to her, even though she told him to leave. So she went out there and had a short conversation. So William. He thought this was a little alarming, and he wrote a notice to Albert and told him he was not allowed on the property unless it was for business. And truth be told, William did owe him a little money for working. had done for him, and William fully intended to pay it. William was a very honest, upstanding man. Well, the following Sunday, so a week after Albert had been told to stay away, William went hunting because they were out of meat. He was out hunting for a deer. He was gone until late in the afternoon. And when he came inside of the house, about 200 yards away, he saw his wife, Lizzie, coming to meet him with little three-year-old Oscar by the hand. As she got closer to him, he could see that she had been crying, like really, really crying. He could tell she'd been crying for a while. And William got off his horse and he kissed her and he asked her what was wrong. All she said was that she had worried maybe he'd been hurt because, you know, he'd been gone so long. And they went into the house and she cooked dinner, but she wouldn't eat anything. And he could tell something wasn't right, but she wouldn't say anything. I mean, this was just really off, but this was August of 1891. Over the next few months between that August and fall, William ran into Albert Applegate several times. They always spoke, but Albert wouldn't look him in the eye. That fall, Albert told William he was going to Kansas soon, so William made sure to get him the $70, 000 dollars that he'd owed him. Over that winter, William and Lizzie lived happily. They hosted six dances at their house. Everything was fine. And when the weather warmed and it was spring of 1892, wouldn't you know it, along came Albert Applegate right up to the house. He was allowed to stay there for a few days. and then he didn't come around much that summer at all. At the end of October in 1892, William was over at a neighbor's house doing some threshing. Threshing is what you call it when you separate grains like wheat or oats from the stalks. So when William got home, it was dark, and there was a horse in his stable with a saddle on it. Like there's a weird car in my driveway, right? So he's walking to his house and he passes the window, and he sees through the window that Albert Applegate and his wife are sitting in two chairs side by side. And Lizzie has her head down, looking at the floor, and Albert had his left arm around her waist. And his head was down as well, and very close to hers, and it seemed like they were having a very intense conversation. So William bursts into the room, and he says, 'Lizzie, take your choice of us two.' There he is, and here I am. If you think more of him, take him and get out of my sight with him. If not, stay with me and he will sure keep away and let you alone. Do it quick. He picked up his gun, and by that time, Lizzie had run to him and threw her arms around his neck, professing her love, saying she would never leave him for any man. She was sobbing. Standing at his right side. William had the rifle pointed at the floor. Albert stood to his left side with one arm against his left arm and was trembling, saying he swore. Nothing was going on. Albert said he hoped God would strike him dead if there was any more between him and Lizzie than what William had just seen. William then fired the rifle through the floor. Just to scare Albert. And it worked. Albert staggered backward, begged for mercy, which made William smile. He thought it was hilarious because William... really didn't think he had seen anything incriminating enough to warrant murder. And so he really was just trying to mess with Albert at that point. So he told Albert to leave and never bother either of them again because next time he was not going to let him off so easy. They actually shook hands and Albert promised he would never bother either of them ever again. But things were not all rosy at the Hetty homestead after this. William could not unsee what he saw, and he had concerns. He told Lizzie he wanted her to go home to Iowa for a little while and give him some space. He and four-year-old Oscar would be fine. If he didn't hear anything more about her and Albert, he would send for her and bring her back home, but he just needed some space. He needed time to think. Unfortunately, he didn't have the money to send her to Iowa. So instead, he took her 35 miles away to his sister's house. Then he sold a bunch of their furniture in this fancy new house that they had. And he rented out a room to a cowboy. After a while, he went to see Lizzie at his sister's and told her he still didn't have the money. Lizzie told him she knew about a widow nearby. Who was looking for a married couple to live and work on her ranch for $45 per month. So Lizzie and William took that job. They lived together again on that ranch from January 1st. of 1893 until May, so remember the incident where he saw Albert's arm around her was at the end of October 1892 and two months later on January 1st, they're living together with their son Oscar on the widow's ranch to earn enough money to send Lizzie back to Iowa. One day in February, William was out with the other cowboys far out in the field, seven miles away from the house on the ranch, moving cattle because they were going to be sold. Old. After having been out there for several days, William went into town and ran into one of his friends who asked him, did you see Applegate? The friend said that Albert Albert was in the area, in town, and had been for four or five days. And he said that Albert said he was going to go see Lizzie Heddy before he left Colorado. Also said he was ready for when he ran into William Hetty and he had a six-shooter strapped on him. William went to the hotel where his friend said Albert had been staying, and sure enough, there was his name on the register. William just held his tongue, and he never did see Applegate that February. And this was four months after Albert had promised nothing was going on and promised to stay away from him and Lizzie. By the end of spring, William had earned enough money for a one-way ticket to Iowa. On May 16, 1893, he sent Lizzie home, and once she was gone, suddenly everyone in Meeker County was talking. Before Albert left Colorado in February of 1893, he had been telling everyone about how he'd been having intimate relations with Lizzie Heddy for the past two years. One person even claimed he had seen a letter that Albert had written to Lizzie. Lizzie, in which he'd called Lizzie his dear wife and a lot of other pet names. He'd bragged about all the things he had done with her, up, down, and sideways, and he told everyone that he fully expected to meet William someday, but he'd be prepared for it with his gun. And he wasn't. No, he wasn't. So Lizzie, she wrote to William from Iowa from the day that he shipped her off. Like she was sending him love letters, begging for him to take her back. And she said that Albert Applegate had been the ruin of her. She wanted no one other than William. Even her mom and her sisters were writing letters to him to tell him Albert had been the cause of her ruin and she loved nobody but William. I wonder if her older sister... was writing that too. I don't know. I wonder if she just disowned the family because she's not even on Find a Grave. Like I can't even find it. William was hearing so many horrible things about this sordid affair. He couldn't even bring himself to respond to Lizzie. Like he was a bro. And I mean, a man he had once taken in and befriended had destroyed the beautiful life that William had once had. His wife, his family, his plans for their future. I looked up even yesterday and found a thing, like a blurb in the Meeker County paper. About William Hetty and Albert Applegate were lucky enough to kill two elk on the Something Creek when they went hunting together in like, it was 1890. And it was like, they used to be hunting buddies even. Best friends. Like, oh, man, you jerk. But anyway, so a quote from his letter to the editor says, 'My wife wrote to me often. Good loving letters. But I'd heard so much talk, I would not send for her. My life was misery and sorrow to me there. I could not sleep, I could not eat. Nothing but misery for me. Well, someone in Colorado wrote a letter to Albert in Kansas when they found out that Lizzie was home in Iowa. And so Albert Applegate... Sent her a letter. When Lizzie received it, she wrote back, by this time convinced that William was done with her forever and she was without a husband. Without her child and without a home. She had nothing to lose. They exchanged a couple letters and Albert told her that he got married in August of 1893. When Mary got pregnant. So she wrote him a letter dated September 30th, but postmarked October 1st of 1893. This was the letter. That made it into evidence, the one that was supposedly full of love and detailed everything she had sacrificed and abandoned on account of Albert. Now, Lizzie was angry. That this man, who had left her in ruins, was married to someone else and his life was going on as if nothing had happened. He'd just come through like a wrecking ball. destroying everything that she and William had built with little Oscar. And now Albert walked away unscathed. Lizzie wrote to William in Colorado in September, 1893, after learning of Albert's marriage and told him that she'd exchanged some letters with Albert, that he was married and living in Devizes, Kansas. She said, She said, 'I want to see William, and if he would just come to see her, she could tell him a secret she'd been keeping all this time.' William thought he would finally get the answers he craved. Maybe she'd come clean. So William went to Iowa in December of 1893. She was brokenhearted. She got down on her knees, sobbing, and she told him some things that connected some dots and made complete sense. He would remember that if he remembered that day he went deer hunting, and he came home and found her crying and despondent. He remembered that day very well. She said that while he was gone, Albert had come to the house. When she told him that he was out hunting but should be back soon, he sat down to wait. She was washing the dishes. He came up behind her and grabbed her, forcing her into the bedroom, pulled her down on the bed, and he had raped her. She said, 'I went to tell you when you came home, but I was afraid you would kill us both.' And that day, when William was seven miles away from the ranch house, moving the cattle for sale, Albert had been hiding in an outbuilding watching for William to leave that day, and he showed up when he knew Lizzie was alone. Lizzie said to him, 'What have you come for?' when you know you have caused us trouble? She says she stood at the door and wouldn't allow him to come in. Albert told her he wanted her to meet him in town the next day and run away with him. She told him she would never do such a thing and she would stay with her husband. He said he would stay there then and kill William when he came back from the fields so she had nothing to stay for. Lizzie cried and begged him to leave. He finally left, but before he left, he said he would never see one minute's peace for the rest of his life because he'd always be watching over his shoulder for William Hetty, afraid she would tell him someday. He made Lizzie promise not to say a word. According to Lizzie, Albert had raped her. And had continued to come back to harass her and attempt to assault her on multiple occasions, and she was scared to say anything. But Albert just bragged to all the other cowboys that he was having a fling with her, even though it wasn't happening. So why do you think she didn't just tell William? There are a lot of different reasons why people don't report sexual assault. Like it's really a hard thing for people to talk about, first of all, because it's a very deeply personal violation. And when the perpetrator is someone who is part of your social circle, it makes it so much harder. And the majority of people who commit rapes know their victim. I mean, that's unfortunate. The victim often feels like... If I say something, it will ruin all of these friendships, or it will cause all of this chaos, like at work or among my social circle, or whatever it is. And they feel like it would be their fault for saying something. And, you know, like I would be responsible for that. I can just avoid all of that if I just don't say something. So she probably felt like. If I just wait until he leaves, you know, then that could be avoided, or whatever it is. You know what I mean? She didn't feel safe to say something until he got married. And it would be settled somewhere, so he would never come back. You know. Um, Yeah. And then, also sometimes, like, if you say something, it makes it feel more real or more people will know. And then maybe they look at you differently or you feel more like a victim once other people know. And that's not a comfortable feeling. You don't like feeling like a victim. Or just telling the story, retelling the story is traumatic in and of itself. But also, she may have been terrified at how William might have reacted. Because he probably would have wanted to go and kill Albert, obviously. But what if, like, in that fight, William got hurt? She doesn't want William to get hurt. I mean, he's a small man, you know. 5'6 or 5'8. And I don't know how big Albert was, but that one friend of his, Bert Page, said he was younger and stronger. You know what I mean? And I mean, everybody had guns back then. And she loved William. She didn't want him to get hurt. So, I mean, there's so much. To it, you know? Mm-hmm. And she probably also blamed herself a lot. She probably was like, 'Why did I allow him to come in the house and wait? Everyone's gonna think it's my fault. You know what I mean?' And who knows what Albert said to her. He was telling everyone that they were having an affair, probably to preemptively save his butt in case she said anything. Because if she said that he raped her, he could say, 'No, she's lying.' Ask all of these other guys. I told them, like, they all know that she and I were doing all of these things. I gave them all details. What a piece of scum. So, yeah, he probably liked made up all that stuff so that no one would believe her. Yeah. So, but just in case anyone's wondering, I believe her. Just like, no, I think even though, even though we're related to Albert Applegate, I am team Lizzie. Yes. Yeah. Yep. I hashtag weep for William. Just so you know. So it was December of 1893 that Lizzie told William she had been raped. And this really changed things for William. He'd kept young Oscar with him all this time and he believed Lizzie, but still he didn't trust her story fully. I mean, he'd heard a lot of different stories. I mean, a lot. I mean, all of these people in Meeker County had been telling him other stories. So he didn't know who to believe. But still, I mean, she got down on her knees, weeping, you know, before God, saying all the stuff. So, I mean, he was so torn, but she was broken and she had lost— her husband and all she wanted was her son. And so William actually returned Oscar to her in spring of 1894. He spent all the money he had to get Oscar back to her in 1894 and then had to borrow money from his brother to get himself back to Colorado. Being in Colorado just reminded me him of everything he'd lost. He was still so broken. He then moved to Utah, thinking maybe a fresh start would help him, but he had the same sorrow. And he put this in the letter. He was still just as broken, had the same sorrow. In Utah, he went back to Colorado. And then finally, in September of 1895, he decided to leave Colorado. Colorado for good and head home to Iowa to his dad's farm. On the way, he met a man around September 18th at a stop in Kansas City. And he offered this man $5 if he would travel to Norton and then Devizes to find out if Albert Applegate lived around there. He asked him to send him a letter in Shannon City, Iowa, at his dad's farm, to let him know, and the man did. The people who had met this man later testified at the trial that it was William Hetty who had been there. But in William Hetty's letter to the editor, he explained it was just a man he had paid to do some digging for him and that they had been mistaken. So, according to William Hetty, On November 2nd of 1895, when he got the letter from Lizzie saying she wanted a divorce, he went to Clyde, Missouri, to get the affidavits saying she had, you know, committed adultery so he could try to get custody of his son. He stayed at a hotel on Sunday night, November 3rd, and when he was leaving on the morning of November 4th, the hotel manager said to him, 'I feel so sorry for that little wife of yours. She was a good-hearted woman and surely did love you at one time. But by the way, she says some men in Colorado did overpower her and break up your home and was the cause of her ruin. And right then, he decided he was going to go see Albert to find out his side of the story. And he couldn't put, he couldn't say any of this in court, remember, because the judge wouldn't allow any of it. He couldn't say. Because the judge was dumb.' Yeah, he couldn't say, well, I needed to go and find out if he actually raped my wife. Like, he couldn't say any of that. So anyway, in this letter, he was like, 'I had to go find out.' He was convinced. You know, he said in this letter that, because Albert, when [ Albert saw William] and Albert went straight to violence and straight to like try to attack him, that that was proof to William that Albert is a violent criminal. And so he must have raped Lizzie. William believed everything Lizzie said must be true. And he feels terrible. Like he, in this letter to the editor, he just like, he was like, 'I feel so awful that I ever doubted my wife. I, you know. I loved her.' I loved her so much. And I just feel horrible that I treated her as if she were guilty. And he said he would never forgive himself forever. Leaving any of those ugly rumors that Albert had started back in Colorado. He ended his letter with goodbye to all, and it was dated February 12th, 1896. At around midnight that night, another prisoner heard William Hetty up walking and busy in his own cell. The other prisoner asked him what was the matter and William told him everything was fine. The prisoner went to sleep, and William blew out the light in the corridor. At about 3 a. m. On February 13th, that prisoner woke up when he heard a disturbance in William's room. cell. He got up and lit the lamp. When he peered through the grates, he saw William Elisha Hetty hanging from the north wall, his feet scuffing the floor, his head jerking forward and downward, trying to strangle his whole body, convulsing. The prisoner rushed into the cell and grabbed hold of him, but he had nothing to cut the rope. It was two hours before anyone arrived at the jail to help. Sheriff Betterton cut William's body down and laid it on the bunk. They found that he'd burned the ends of a cot to get a rope loose. He'd used a spoon to scrape quicksilver from the back of his... Mirror, and there were marks around his mouth showing that he'd swallowed some of it. The rope had been doubled and tied to the top bars of the grate. It had been close to his bunk, which he'd stood upon to slip the noose over his head. At any moment, he could have raised himself on the grate by his feet or his hands, but he didn't. He deliberately strangled him. himself. He was supposed to have been transferred to Leavenworth that morning to serve 15 years of hard labor, but the heartbroken man had instead chosen the permanence of death. Hashtag weep for William. Yep. So yeah, he was buried in the Norton Cemetery. That's what the newspaper says. But he was not on Find a Grave. So I added him and then I... emailed the Norton Cemetery folks to see if they could verify that he is there. They said he's probably in an unmarked grave. But there had been a fire and those records from that long ago were destroyed. So my heart breaks. If I were wealthy, like super wealthy, I would try to have him located and give him a headstone because my heart breaks for him. I just, I was confused. I was like, 'Quicksilver? Like he's just eating silver? No, mercury. Hmm. Okay. Yep. That's... I wish... I wish that they had filed an appeal. So that they could have brought that evidence into court. And I wish that Lizzie would have come and said, 'Yes, I was raped.' And then they could have overturned the conviction and he could have gotten out. And he and Lizzie could have been a family again with Oscar. Poor gal. Did she remarry? Yeah, she married. Her last name was Gulick. And then she died when she was 45 from appendicitis. Well, shout out to newspapers. com, especially. Um, family search. Ancestry. Find a grave. Christian for doing commercials. The clerk's office at Norton County? Mm-hmm. All of you for listening. Heck yeah. The Norton County Genealogical Society. website. We have some cool old pictures of Devizes from their website. I found a couple on Facebook. Someone, somebody went to visit. There's some buildings standing actually in Devizes. Yeah. And they're pretty cool. So somebody on Facebook like goes to visit ghost towns. And so I. Thank you. They will be on Facebook. I love ghost towns. Mm-hmm. There's some good stuff standing in Devisees, actually. You should tell them about the Applegate house. Oh, the Charles Applegate house? Mm-hmm. Yeah, so Charles Applegate's house, that is, it's the oldest original home. That's in Oregon, that is still owned by the family that built it, so it's in Yoncalla, Oregon. And it was split down the middle. It was because Charles and his wife, by the time it was built, weren't getting along. He was adulterous. Yeah, weren't there like 16 kids? I think it was like 16 kids, but they had it split down the middle so they had a boy's side and a girl's side. But the girls still had to do all the cooking, but they had to walk outside. The dining room was on the boys side. So the girls did the cooking on the girls side and had to walk outside to get to the boys side to serve it. And what I find is so ridiculous is the boys side had like a staircase to go upstairs and the girls just had a little ladder. With those dresses, they had to climb a ladder to get up to their bedrooms. So ridiculous. Yeah. Super cool old house, though. Very cool. Our Applegate family's reunion is often out there at the Charles Applegate house in Yoncalla. Yes. All hail the Oregon Trail. Which Albert was never on. No. Well, didn't Jesse and his brothers come from Kentucky? He was born in Kentucky. Yeah. But they came from Missouri. So that makes sense why there's so many. Over there.