Poison and Pistols: the Treacherous Deeds of John Branton

This is the third and final episode in our series featuring Lane County, OR. This one takes you through the life and crimes of John Branton, older brother of Claude.

When Milly Elliott met John Branton, she thought it was a love story to last through the ages. She imagined she'd be with John for the rest of her life. She wasn't wrong—she just didn't realize her life would be so short. Neither did the next wife, nor the next, and it was only through sheer luck that young Grace didn't become wife number 4...

But would John Fletcher consider it "luck"? Is that what you'd call it?

John Branton certainly wouldn't. And... things didn't exactly turn out well for him now, did it? If you thought Claude Branton's story was wild, you will be absolutely floored by his big brother's wild antics. 

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Transcript

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What do poison, penmanship, and tree stumps have in common? 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 time forgot. This is the third and final episode we are covering in our Lane County, Oregon series. This doesn't mean we'll never ever cover another case in Lane County, but we started out with Claude Branton and Cortland Green and the murder at Isham's Corral, and then we realized that the Sheriff of Lane County was murdered a few years after that. So we had to do another episode, of course. And we also found out that Claude Branton's older brother, John, had quite the wild story of his own that overlaps the stories of Claude and Sheriff Withers. It was a wild time in Lane County, and we love a good rabbit hole. It really was. Claude Brandon was hanged by Sheriff Withers for the murder of John A. Lynn back in May of 1899, and then Elliot Lyons was hanged for the murder of Sheriff Withers in April of 1903. If you have not yet listened to those two episodes, you simply must stop this episode right now and go back. Those are the two episodes published before this one. So go get caught up on the mayhem in Lane County, and then this episode will be here when you come back. As for the rest of you... John Fletcher was jolted awake in the most horrible way. He didn't know how long he'd been asleep and he didn't know what had happened. All he knew in that moment was pain. horrible, awful pain, the worst pain. It was in his face, his whole face from side to side. He got up on his hands and knees and realized he could only see out of his right eye. Somehow he was aware of what happened, but he didn't know how he was aware. Without thinking about it, he blurted out, 'Oh my god, I'm shot!' A second shot rang out. Fletcher knew it came from somewhere behind him. What are you doing? Then his best friend, John Branton, came out from behind a tree. He rushed over to Fletcher, still on the ground, and said, 'My God, John, did that ball hit you?' wiping blood and tears from his face. Fletcher replied, 'For God's sake, get me home and get a doctor. I'm suffering death.' John Branton tried to help Fletcher up. They got about 20 feet away from the fire, but he said it was so dark he couldn't find the trail. He sat Fletcher back down and said he'd go home himself to get the rest of the boys at the ranch and they'd be back for him. And then John Branton walked calmly away from the man he'd just shot in the face. He was in no hurry, because John Branton had no intention of telling anyone that Fletcher was in need of help. John Branton fully expected John Fletcher to die out there. That was, after all, the plan. This happened in 1905 and this sure seems like a pretty extreme thing for someone to do. And why would anyone do that to their best friend? Well, in order to explain that, we need to take it back quite a few years. Olivia, let's catch the listeners up to speed on John Brandon's background. Yes, ma'am. John Thomas Branton was born in July of 1873. Just like his brother Claude, he was also born to Samuel Count Branton and Prumelia Caroline Shelley Branton. John was the second child born and was almost three full years older than Claude. Their brother Clarence was between them in age. Clarence was a very level-headed brother. He was the wise one with a good head on his shoulders that tried his hardest to talk Claude and Cortland out of murdering John Lynn. In June of 1898, I don't know what the Branton parents did differently with Clarence that made him so much different from John and Claude. John Branton, just like the rest of his siblings, was born in Lane County and he lived there for his whole life. Well, right up until the end there, but we'll get to that. Now, John met a gal named Nancy J. Elliott, who was born July 20th, 1896, so this makes her almost exactly three years younger than John. She was born into a really good family. Her dad is referred to as the Honorable T. J. Elliott. She was named after her mother, but her nickname was Millie, and that's how everyone knew her. So John and Millie, they fell in love and they got married in 1891. John was just 18 years old and Millie was 15. A year after the wedding, they welcomed a baby girl, Mary Blanche Branton. It was October 18, 1892. Fourteen months after that, the young couple welcomed their son, Thomas Samuel Branton, on December 14th of 1893. That's my birthday, December 14th. Charles Melvin, another baby boy, was born August 3rd of 1896, bringing the little family up to five. One of the big things to do at that time, back in the late 1800s, was to join lodges. So you might recall that Sheriff Withers was... a member of four different lodges. I mean, if you remember the story of his funeral, there were, I mean, people from all four lodges. It was huge. And even John Lynn, who had been murdered by Claude Branton and Cortland Green, he had even been a member of the Woodmen of the World. So John Branton. Claude's older brother, he was also a member of the Woodmen of the World. The Woodmen of the World was a very successful fraternal organization established back in 1890 by Joseph Cullen Root in Omaha, Nebraska, to provide life insurance. Insurance and financial support to its members. They sponsored social events and community projects, but the main function of the organization was to provide financial security in the era following the American frontier. Exactly. So it provided life insurance and mutual aid for the families of breadwinners in the event that anything should happen to them. And in the case of Sheriff Withers, his wife actually received payouts from life insurance policies that he had from two different organizations. And one of them was the Woodman of the World. So this was... kind of the big thing that men were doing back then. They would join this organization, you know, be part of something bigger than themselves, and they would buy a life insurance policy. Naming someone as the beneficiary. And it meant financial security for their families or, you know, whoever it was that they named as the beneficiary. It did not have to be a wife if the man wasn't married. So John Lynn, for example, the man that Claude Branton had murdered, right? He wasn't married. And I don't know specifically. Who he had listed as his beneficiary. It was actually a whole big issue when he died because he had no family in Condon and they had to actually search for his heirs or his next of kin. And they did eventually find his brother and his sisters back in the Midwest. Well, he did spell his last name completely different. That's right. He was Lin and they were Lind. But yeah, so men who were members of the Woodmen of the World and who died specifically between the year 1900 and 1920, they would often have grave markers that looked like a fallen tree stump. And you can still see them in old cemeteries today. So I googled it and I found some cool, really old pictures of these headstones. I'm going to post some in the social media accounts or Olivia will, they'll be up. Um, I didn't find any specifically for the people named in these episodes, so they will be random. Other dead people, but there's some really cool grave markers I found. So a women's auxiliary of the Woodmen of the World started in 18-1991 and it was called Woodman Circle or Supreme Forest Woodman Circle, but it wasn't on the western side of the United States. Over in the Pacific jurisdiction, they decided to form Women of Woodcraft, so it was a similar organization. The Women of Woodcraft organization actually started in 1897, and then later they changed the name to Neighbors of Woodcraft, which I don't know what was wrong with calling it Women of Woodcraft. It just seems bizarre. But yeah, the women's auxiliaries, they also offered life insurance to their members. So that was the point, really. So you could insure your wife's life. Now, I don't know when it happened exactly, but because it was the thing to do, John Branton and his wife Millie jumped on the bandwagon. I don't know what John's life was insured for, like how much, but Millie's life was insured through Women of Woodcraft for $1, 000. But that wasn't the only thing that was insured around the Branton homestead. The farm was insured. John Branton operated a hop house on his farm just outside of Walterville, and hops are used in the brewing of beer. On Monday, August 23rd, 1897, John's hop house was destroyed by fire with about 1, 500 pounds of hops. And think about... how much 1, 500 pounds would be. That's a lot of beer. That's a lot. Yeah, it's crazy. The entire barn burned to the ground, and it was all they could do to keep the family residence from being a complete loss. The house was just 26 feet away from this blazing inferno, and it had caught fire, but luckily it had been saved. The insurance payout on the house was $400, 000. $150. The insurance on the press was $75 and insurance on the hops was $500. So this came to a total of $1, 025 in an insurance payout. And that is equal to about $39, 744. 50 in 2025 American dollars. So that was a pretty nice payout for 1897. I wonder if that happened before they got their life insurance policies or if they already had them. But it was 1897 when Women of Woodcraft was founded, and Millie couldn't have gotten insurance prior to 1897. I don't know where it fell in the timeline, but about a year later, after the farm, you know, had that big tragedy, John's father-in-law's house, so Millie's dad's house, burned down when nobody was home. It was July 2nd, 1898. There's no word in the newspapers about insurance money at all, so I have no idea if this is even relevant to our story. But I found it suspicious. And so I wanted to throw it in just in case. So also, just to make everything line up in your minds, since I know you all listened to the previous, you know, episodes. Hopefully. Yeah. July 2nd, 1898, when that house burned down. This is also when Claude Branton was working to establish his alibi. Portland Green had not yet gone to Assistant District Attorney Harris's house. That happened two days later to reveal, you know, that a murder had happened at Isham's Corral. But the murder had already happened, and Claude was busy trying to get people in Walterville to say that they had seen John Lynn alive in Walterville in exchange for some of John's horses. And his brother, John Branton, took at least a dozen of those horses. I know he took at least 14 because John had been told about the murder and he gladly took those horses off of Claude's hands. Just six weeks later, on August 11th, P. H. Stevenson of Condon, who was the... administrator of John Lynn's estate, he was in Walterville trying to retrieve all of John Lynn's horses. He only found 43 of them in Seavey's pasture, and he found 12 of them at John Branton's house. Because John Branton had already sold two of them to other people. Mr. Stevenson demanded that all of the horses be returned, and John Branton said he would not return them. They were because he had supposedly paid money for them, like he had spent, he had paid his brother Claude for these horses, supposedly, and he would not give the horses back until he got his money back. But I would bet you anything that he did not give Claude a single cent for any of those horses. Yeah, I have been wondering, did Um John, Lynn. Like, brand his horses? How did they know which ones were his? He did brand his horses. Okay. Yes. That makes sense. He did. Okay. But anyway, it sounds like John Branton was pretty greedy. Oh yeah, he was. Greedy, greedy boy. Yeah, he was like, nope, I'll do anything to get more money, right? So, yeah, he saw an opportunity to get a whole lot more money and capitalize off of his brother's, you know, the murder that his brother had committed. And he's going to go for it. So, yeah. That was the summer of 1898. So, um, Claude Branton is in jail charged with murder and his father. So John. And Claude's father, he had to pay for the lawyers. Samuel Count Branton was their dad. He had to take out a mortgage on his ranch to afford those lawyers. That defended Claude Branton, and it put him in a lot of debt. Now remember, think back— the Branton parents had just secured a divorce a couple months before Claude had murdered John Lynn, and their mom and the youngest siblings were moving around. Remember, they had moved to Condon, and they were actually moving back. Thank you. Mm-hmm. I wonder where Caroline was living while Claude was in jail. Yeah, that's a good question. I know she moved back. You know, before, like when all that happened, they were on their way moving back and then he wound up in jail. And I know she visited him. She was there during the trial. She must have stayed in the valley. And I wonder if maybe she just stayed like with Sam at the ranch while it was going on, but I really don't know. Yeah. So John and Claude's dad, Sam, he goes deep into debt to pay for the lawyers in late 1898 and early 1890. Well, in February of 1899, I found in the papers that a man named C. Jennings sued John Branton. The Lane County Circuit Court for $180. So basically, I guess John Branton had allowed C. Jennings to put his sheep on John's land, but then John was secretly selling the sheep. At $3 each and keeping the money. And he'd already sold 60 of them before Mr. Jennings, you know, figured it out. And Mr. Jennings was suing to get the cost of the sheep that he had lost. Well, I mean. He should get the cause. Yeah. I mean, they were his sheep. So yeah, I have to wonder if, you know, was John doing that to help his dad pay the mortgage on the ranch or was he actually keeping the money for himself? Like, I don't know. So as you all know, Claude was convicted of murder in the first degree and he was hung by the neck until dead on May 12th, 1899. So it was hard on the Branton family. Several members of the family had gone to see Claude in the jail that morning. And it was very emotional. That's what it said in the papers. It was very emotional as they said their final goodbyes. Clarence and Caroline, their mother, took his body away from the jail after he was hung and they released his body. And two months later, another tragedy struck the Branton family. John Branton's wife, Millie Branton, the mother of his three children, died. It was July 7, 1899, and she was just 22 years old. In two and a half weeks, she would have had her 23rd birthday. At the age of 26, John Branton was a widower with three children to care for. So, Marie Blanche, and she went by Blanche, she was six and a half. Thomas Samuel was five and a half. And little Charles Melvin was just about to turn three. The cause of death was acute rheumatism. Now, rheumatism is an inflammatory disease that develops after having a strep infection like strep throat or scarlet fever. Within two days, John Branton received that $1, 000 insurance payout, and the majority of that money actually went to paying off that mortgage his father was drowning under, due to the legal fees that Claude had burdened them with. And that would be like getting around $40, 000 in today's 2025 American dollars. Yeah, and I think it was very nice of him to help his dad out, right? His dad was 70 years old at that time, and I'm sure he would have been paying off that debt for the rest of his days. He probably would have never paid it off. Now, as was common in those days, John wanted to quickly find a mother for his children, and he didn't have to look long. He found a young lady by the name of Mary Rosigny Goddard. She went by Annie. They got married on December 24th of 1899, just five and a half months after putting Millie in the ground. Annie was 17 when they got married, and she was an instant mother to a now seven-year-old, six-year-old, and a three-year-old. So, basically, she was more like... A babysitter. That is what it sounds like. And as was the cool thing to do in those days, John bought a life insurance policy for his blushing bride. And this time it was for $2, 000. Double the money, double the payout. That would be equivalent of $76, 011. 29— penny indeed. And he got to cash that in just 14 months later, because on February 22nd, 1901, 18 and a half-year-old Annie Branton was dead. They decided it was neuralgia of the heart. This is also known as cardiac neuralgia, and it's a condition characterized by pain or discomfort in the chest area. That is caused by irritation or damage to the nerves that supply the heart. Now, I googled this. I will admit, I have a leg up over the doctors in 1901 because they didn't have Google. But Google told me that you can't die of cardiac neuralgia. In extremely rare cases, there could be damage to a nerve that could potentially cause a fatal complication. But that would be insanely rare and definitely not the norm. But they decided in 1901 that this... 18 and a half year old girl must have died a totally natural death caused by cardiac neuralgia, and that just made sense in 1901. She was buried in the Camp Creek Cemetery on February 24, 1901, and by February 26, Sheriff William Washington Withers, Coroner G. W. Grifflin, Deputy Prosecuting Attorney L. T. Harris, and Dr. D. A. Payne left Eugene for Walterville to exhume the body of Annie Branton because word had spread all over the county that she had likely been poisoned by her husband. Whoa. They left early in the morning and the plan was to remove her stomach and take it back to Eugene with them. Sheriff Withers and the rest of the men were expected to return to Eugene with Annie's stomach that evening. I googled how far it is from the original location of the Lane County Sheriff's Office to the Camp Creek Cemetery, and it's 13. 9 miles. It would take a horse about three and a half to four and a half hours one way to make that trek. So this would be a very long day. They had to get there, dig up the... lady, take her body somewhere for the autopsy, bury her again, I assume, and then make the trip back. And everyone in Eugene and Walterville was very eager to hear the results. The next day, February 27th, the newspaper headline read, 'Party has not returned from Walterville.' It turns out that they got there on the 26th and they did not exhume her that day. Sheriff Withers had gone to see John Branton first, and he took John Branton over to a Mr. Post's house where the rest of the sheriff's men were. And he didn't arrive there with John until about four o'clock in the afternoon. I'm not sure what the holdup was. Like it didn't explain. I don't know. So they were going to exhume the body on the morning of February 27th. On February 28th, the newspaper headline read, 'That poisoning case.' Absolutely nothing in it. 16 witnesses, 2 doctors, and a coroner's jury prove rumors false. I wonder who started the rumor. I don't know. I don't know. That's a really good question. The article says that everyone in Walterville who had been in a fever heat of excitement over the rumor that she had been poisoned was able to, quote, sleep on their downy pillows last night, fully convinced that their— suspicions were unfounded. So when they got to Walterville on Tuesday, they spent that whole evening looking up evidence and talking to witnesses. And then on Wednesday, they exhumed the body at 930 in the morning. They looked at the surface of Annie's body and saw no evidence of poison on her. So I don't know if that meant like looking for like, like injection sites or like foaming at the mouth. Right. Or like discoloration that poison might have caused. Like, I don't, I don't know what, what they were looking for. Um, and then they went to Camp Creek Church and they talked to 16 people who had helped lay out her body. And they all said that there had been no signs of violence on her body. So yeah, all of this plus the fact that John Branton was willing to let them exhume her body was enough for the men to decide that her death had to have been natural. They did not even examine her stomach, like was the plan, which would have given them actual results. Yeah, and anyway, for the record, Google told me that death by poisoning could absolutely mimic neuralgia. Yay, Dr. Google. So it's just wild that they went all that way to see if she was poisoned just to be like, well, he said he didn't poison her, so he must not have. And he's letting us look at her body. So, I mean, that's like proving he's not guilty. Yeah, pretty much. Yeah, it blew my mind that they didn't actually check her stomach because people lie, especially criminals. They had just dealt with his younger brother, Claude, right? And it's not like he just came out and admitted to killing John Lynn. You know, I mean, he was like, 'No, it wasn't me.' You know, he told a whole story. So why would they think that John? Branton was going to be more forthcoming than Claude. Like, it's just ridiculous. So yeah, he got his $2, 000 insurance payout. The women of Woodcraft organization were satisfied by the findings and they sent the money. And now, poor John Branton, age 28, a widower for the second time, had three motherless children again. In February of 1901, they were ages eight, seven, and four and a half. And this time, it took him a little longer to find a bride. Yeah, I would definitely be weary and afraid to marry him after all that. Yeah, maybe that's why it took him longer. I don't know. But he finally met a woman who was a little older than him, and she agreed to marry him. Maddie Downs was 37 years old in 1903 when they got married. She'd been married before to a man named John L. Downs. Now, I don't have a lot of information about their marriage, but I know they didn't have children. was from Medford. Like that's where her parents and siblings and stuff live. That's where she grew up. And she moved to Cottage Grove with her husband. She and John Downs had a lovely home on a little like lot of land. I don't know how big it was, but I know back then the lots were pretty sizable, you know. Um, but John Downs, her husband, began to struggle with his mental health. John Downs was arrested on a charge of insanity on January 21st of 1899, and I had mentioned this as one of the calls that Sheriff Withers went to. On in our last episode. So John Downs was arrested on January 21st. He was examined a few days later and found to be insane. And then he was taken to the County Poor Farm. He wound up dying there on Thursday, May 11th of 1899, so just a few months later. And then Maddie Downs remained living in her home in Conda Grove because, you know, now the property was hers. So she, she owned it and it was hers and she stayed. So it was July 9th of 1903 when John Branson and got married for the third time. He was 30 years old, Maddie was 37, and the kids were now 10 1⁄2 and 9 1⁄2, and little Charles Melvin was just a month shy of his seventh birthday. And I just want to say, for our not Oregon listeners, that Medford. Oregon is in... Jackson or Josephine County, and it's south of Eugene. By, like, a two-hour drive today. And Cottage Grove is in Lane County, and it is also south of Eugene. Thank you. Just for people who don't know those places. But yes, I do hope Maddie was ready for that marriage and to jump into being a stepmother. Because those kids... Trauma. Oh, yeah. Yeah, they've been through a lot. It was probably hard for the kids. I mean, there's nothing in the papers saying, like, those kids were struggling. You know, nothing like that. But I mean, that was like a game of musical chairs. Like, how many musical moms? Yeah. How many moms can they have? Like, it's crazy. It's a... You would start to wonder, like, if they liked... Maddie. Because they've already been through, like, two parents? Yeah. Well, yeah, I don't know. But it doesn't really matter what they thought about her because she wasn't around for long. You know, just 17 months later. Oh, another funeral. You got it. Yep. I, uh, I'm seeing a pattern here with Mr. John. Yes. So Mrs. Branton III winds up dead out of nowhere on December 2nd, 1904. This time, there was no insurance, and her friends said that John had suggested she get life insurance, but she refused because of the rumors about him killing her. His previous wives for life insurance. But what he got out of this death was a sweet little house in Cottage Grove on a small parcel of land. And now John Branton had two homes that he used. He had this one in town, plus he had his ranch about one and a half miles outside of town. Town, which he could reach just by walking through the woods. So it was a sweet little setup, a little stroll. Yeah. There's a little trail. You just walk right through now. Now, what happened was that Maddie was not happy in the marriage. She had written a letter to one of her friends and said that she was going to leave John and she was going to move to Arizona. And John had actually seen this letter, but he didn't say anything to Maddie about it. And then suddenly, Maddie got really sick. For two weeks straight, like she got really sick and she finally caught pneumonia that weakened her heart. And she went into convulsions on December 2nd of 1904. And by the time the doctor got there, she was already in the throes of death. That's what the doctor said. So it was very similar, it was noted. A death by strychnine poison. And they actually swore out a warrant for John Branton's arrest. And we don't know why, but for some reason that warrant was never served. And now here was John Branton, age 31, a widower three times over, with three motherless children who are ages 12, almost 11, and eight and a half. And he's already set his sights on a 17-year-old, freshly divorced young lady by the name of Grace Dell Price from Eugene. That was a lot to unpack. With the whole 17 and freshly divorced. Yeah. She should just take some time for herself. Maybe go to college. Well, there was question in the paper, like, did he help her get the divorce? Like, did he pay for it so that she could marry him? There was a question about that later. They wanted to investigate. Interesting. Very interesting. Buggies, buggies, buggies. The season for buggies is now at hand. We can sell you top buggies, open buggies, buggies with rubber tires, buggies with one seat, buggies with two seats. If you want to buy a buggy, see our buggies before buying a buggy. S. L. Long, 9th Street. Let's set the stage for early 1905. As I mentioned, John Branton now owns two homes. In Cottage Grove, he has a nice little house on a little bit of land. When he goes to this home, he calls it 'going, quote, into town.' This home had been the home of his third wife, Maddie Downs, and her first husband, John L. Downs. The home that John owned previously to marrying her was actually a thriving ranch, which was a few miles outside of town if you were driving on the roads. But as the crow flies, his ranch land was actually just about a mile and a half away from his home in Cottage Grove. It was separated by raw countryside, lots of timber and woods and wildlife. But if you knew the way, you could make the walk from one home to the other in about 30 minutes. It was a pretty nice setup, and I can see why he wanted to get his hooks into Maddie's property. And honestly, maybe that's why he married her in the first place. On his ranch, he had several ranch hands living there. He had an older couple by the name of Haskins, plus their teenage son and daughter living and working on the ranch. He also had his brother, Roy Branton, living there and working for him. And Roy, I think, was like 16. John T. Fletcher lived in the Cottage Grove house. So he was originally from the town of Lorain, Oregon, and John Branton and John... Fletcher were really good friends. Now, unfortunately, and this just kills me to say, we were unable to find any truly solid information about John Fletcher. Yes. So he was born in, I think, we said, Kentucky or Virginia. And we found a marriage license. Connecting him to his wife. But then they got a divorce and he disappeared and there was another John Fletcher back in that state he was born in, but it just didn't match up with who he was. He disappeared. He was gone. Yeah, it was very frustrating. Everything in the newspapers, like... In Eugene and stuff, like through the whole trial and everything, he was John T. Fletcher. And then, just everything else we found. I mean, there were so many other John Fletchers in the area. There's a John M. Fletcher, a John H. Fletcher. And so it was so frustrating because when you look up just John T. Fletcher, only like three things came up. But if you look up John Fletcher, you'll get a million articles, but you don't know which John Fletcher is talking about. Very, very frustrating. Yeah. But I'm pretty sure he's the one that got married to. That girl, Iva. I'm pretty sure he married Iva. And so, if that was the right one, then he would have been about 25 years old. There was a picture of him in the newspaper that we know 100% is supposed to be him, like unless the newspapers put the wrong person in, but it is supposed to be the John T. Fletcher connected to this case. So we will share that picture. And if anyone recognizes him as an ancestor... Tell us or find out for yourself by using our affiliate code with newspapers. com. Yes. Forgotten20. F-O-R-G-O-T-T-E-N-2-0. But yeah, there was that one that I found and they had a picture there and it looked just like the guy in the newspapers. But it wouldn't have matched up with like the other things that we found. I don't even know. It was so hard to find it. Yeah. Oh, frustrating, frustrating. But anyway, yes, all I know for sure is his dad lived in Lorraine because he had to come over to identify something. But anyway. Because both of the people in this story are named John, we've got John Branton and we've got John Fletcher, I'm going to refer to John Fletcher as Fletcher for the sake of clarity. Fletcher worked for John in exchange for room and board, plus $15 per month on top of that. And while it wasn't explicitly stated, I believe that John's children also lived at the Cottage Grove house. So I get the feeling that John Branton and his kids lived at the Cottage Grove house, and he let the ranch hands run the ranch. But John Branton would go back to the ranch during the day to work there. And Fletcher was referred to as his roommate and best friend in the newspapers. Now, I imagine that Fletcher moved into the Cottage Grove house after Maddie Downs died. And maybe John wanted him to move in and help with the kids a little bit until he could marry 17-year-old Grace Price. But John Branton got to talking to Fletcher. And they became really close friends very quickly. Fletcher was, like I said, for my best guess, he was 25 years old in early 1905. And John would have been— much wiser at 31. So Fletcher really looked up to him. I'm sure Fletcher soaked up all the great advice that John was dishing out, especially when John told him that he ought to join the Woodmen of the World organization. It was a really great thing to be a part of, after all. I don't know what all he told him, but whatever it was, it made sense. So Fletcher joined. Now, Fletcher was not a married man, but he had to pick a beneficiary for his life insurance policy. And being a single man, he was able to afford a bigger monthly investment. I would imagine that's what John talked him into anyway, so Fletcher decided to insure his life for $3, 000. Triple the payout! And, well, since John Branton was his very best friend and had done so much for him, making John the beneficiary just made the most sense. March 1st of 1905 fell on a Wednesday, so it was either the first three days of March or the last two days of April, but it was somewhere during that week. When Fletcher received the official paperwork showing that he was a bona fide member of the Woodmen of the World. and he had the documents in his hands, showing that he had his life insured for $3, 000, with his best friend, John Thomas Branton, as the beneficiary of the money in case he should lose his life. Fletcher handed all of that paperwork to John Branton, who put it in a safe deposit box for safekeeping. You know, just in case. The following Wednesday, March 8, 1905, there was a Woodmen of the World event in town. It was going to be an evening dinner and family members were invited. I don't have all the details of the event, but I know that John Branton took his 12-year-old daughter, Blanche. Fletcher did not go. The only reason I have for this is a reason provided by John Branton, so I don't know if it's true, but Branton says that Fletcher didn't go to the event because a girl he was pining after was not going to be there. Fletcher was apparently madly in love with a girl named Minnie. But Minnie was married. And from what I can gather from John Branton's story, Fletcher and Minnie were still seeing each other to some extent, but she couldn't fully be his, and this was very upsetting to Fletcher. But take that for what it's worth because John Branton is not a man whose word you should trust. John Branton and Blanche went to the event and they got back to the Cottage Grove house very late that evening. John changed his clothes and then he and Fletcher left to make the

walk to the ranch at 11: 38:56

30 p. m. This was about a mile and a quarter or a mile and a half through the woods in the dark of night. There was a trail by this time between the two properties, and if they were walking at three miles per hour, it would have taken them 25 to 30 minutes. They walked for a little while. We'll just guess it was, I don't know, 10 minutes or so. And then John stopped and said he saw something in the trees. He said it was a dog or a coyote. Why don't you shoot at it, John? So Fletcher took his gun out and he shot in the direction that John Branton was pointing, but he hadn't actually seen anything. He put the gun back in his pocket. They walked a bit further and then John said he heard it again. This time he said he thought it was a cougar following them. He told Fletcher to hand the gun to him, and John took a shot at something. Then he said, 'Oh! It was just a stump.' Then John put the gun in his own pocket. See how that switcheroo happened? Uh-huh. Very sneaky. At this point, John took out a bottle of beer and handed it to Fletcher to drink. Then John took it back and drank some as well, or at least he pretended to. They walked on a little bit longer and then suddenly John said he felt really sick. So sick that he thought he might vomit. He needed to sit down until it passed. So they got to a tree and John sat down. Fletcher built a fire while John was in just, you know, abdominal agony. And after about an hour, Fletcher asked John if he was able to continue walking. Wasn't this just supposed to be like a 30-minute walk? Yeah, and it's turning into a whole ordeal. Like, he's been sitting there, like, groaning for, like, an hour by this tree. So it's pretty ridiculous. So John says, 'No, he still can't go on. He feels just horrible.' So then John asks Fletcher if he's feeling tired because by now it's like almost one in the morning. Fletcher said he wasn't really feeling tired, but he was likely going to be feeling it in the morning if he didn't get some sleep. So John says to him, 'If you're sleeping. Lay down and sleep. I'll wake you up when I feel better.' So Fletcher decides, you know, he might as well. The fire is nice and warm. There's literally nothing else to do. So he lies down and he dozes off. And that's when it happened. He woke up to the pain. The bullet had gone in through the right cheek below the eye, traveled upward and shattered his nose, went through his left eyeball, and exited through his left temple. So... It sounds like it. Like, knocked around a little bit. No, it was a straight shot like through, just through his face. Okay. Right, right through, right through there. But it went up, shattered behind his nose and went through the eyeball and out the temple. Like crazy. I don't think he woke up immediately when it happened, or I think he was in shock and it took him a bit to come to full consciousness and react. And I think this is the case because... Two doctors testified that he had powder burns on his face at the entry point of the bullet, which means the gun had been right next to his face. And yet. When he got up on his hands and knees and said, 'Oh my god, I'm shot,' John Branton fired the second shot from behind a tree and said that he'd just been shooting at the cougar that had been following them. John wasn't right up next to him anymore. Hmm. So do you think John was shooting at him again? I don't think so. Well, hang on and you'll see why. So at first, John said he'd help Fletcher make it home. But then he said, 'You know, it was too dark to find the trail.' And he told Fletcher, 'Just wait there by the fire. I'll go get all the boys from the ranch and we'll come back to help you.' Well, after he left. Fletcher wrapped up the left side of his face with his bandana, and he decided he didn't want to wait. He stumbled down the trail alone, and he reached the ranch not too long after. John did. He found John standing by the fireplace, like nothing was happening. And of course, Fletcher bursts in and says, 'For God's sake, go for a doctor. I'm suffering death. I love how he was like, self-preservation. I'm doing this myself. Like, I should have been home hours ago. Right. Yeah. Like think how bad that hurt. And he's just sitting there, you know, I mean, he was just like, 'I gotta go. I gotta go. Yeah, for God's sake, go for a doctor.' John Haskins, so one of the farmhands, he was actually the 17-year-old son. He was supposed to go get the doctor, but he was going slow. Like, Fletcher's like, you are not getting out of this house fast enough. So he begged Roy Branton to go. And so Roy, he went faster. He had more pep in his step. So then they got Fletcher into bed and they started to clean him up. And after everyone was out of the room and it was just John and Fletcher in there, John actually said to him, 'If anyone asks how this happened, you say you've done it yourself. If you don't, they'll jerk me up and raise thunder with me. Like his brother.' He then told him that if he sells the ranch, he'll give Fletcher half the money as long as Fletcher keeps his mouth shut about what happened out there. And on the stand later, Fletcher says that his response to this was just that he couldn't talk right then due to the pain, but that he was, you know, there was no way he would have said that he shot himself. Good for him. Yeah. So Dr. Corcoran soon arrived and realized that he needed to take Fletcher to a facility. Like, this was kind of a big deal. Big deal. So Fletcher told the doctor that John had actually shot him in the woods and that John had tried to bribe him to say that he shot himself. So anyway, Dr. Corcoran had to operate to remove Fletcher's left eyeball. So he completely lost that eye. And then, when Dr. Corcoran made contact, like you guys, are you ready for this? When Dr. Corcoran made contact with City Marshal Underwood. The strangest conversation ensued. Dr. Corcoran told him that he'd had a medical call to take care of John Fletcher for a bullet wound. To the head and Marshall Underwood seemed like he had seen it coming. When asked about this, Marshall Underwood was like, 'Well, I did receive his suicide letter in the mail this morning. I was about to ride out and collect his body. What? Yeah, a suicide letter had been written, signed, sealed, and put in the mail, postmarked March 8th, the day before, sent to Marshall Underwood, signed by John Fletcher.' And here's what it said. Marshall. I leave this note to show that I have taken my life and you will find me on the road between town and Branton's Ranch. I'm tired of living and leave this to save trouble for my friends and expense to the county. Goodbye, Jay Fletcher. Okay, very confusing. What is going on? Like, did he not send letters before and they couldn't, like, look at the handwriting and realize? Hmm. All right. So the doctor and the marshal also wanted to know what was going on. And so they asked Fletcher about it, you know, and. And Fletcher also wanted to know what was going on because he had never written a suicide letter. So his father came into town from Lorraine, and that's a pretty long story. lengthy trip, but he took one look at the suicide letter and he said that was absolutely not his son's handwriting. That's what I'm saying. Yeah, so it was looking like Fletcher's story about John shooting him in the woods was probably true and it probably wasn't an accident. This was looking premeditated. And so John Branton, age 31, was arrested for the attempted murder of John Fletcher, leaving his three motherless children virtually orphaned. And this opened quite the can of worms as everyone started to really question the deaths of all three of his wives. Certain, all three of them had been poisoned. Now, I personally think that maybe the first wife probably died naturally, and that's what gave him the idea that death could be lucrative, but I have no idea. I find it interesting that both Branton brothers— killed, and attempted to kill people named John. And it was out in the woods. Yes. Shot when they were sleeping. Fire. Fire. I know, right? Isn't that crazy? We just need a jaw harp. Exactly. Who knows? He might have. Now, John's potential fourth wife, 17-year-old Grace Price, came from Eugene to Cottage Grove to watch after the children. In the meantime, she made the acquaintance of John Haskins, the 17-year-old son of the Haskins couple who lived on John's ranch. And ultimately, they did wind up getting married and they had six children together. So she dodged that bullet and was able to live to the ripe old age of 41. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't live super long. I don't know what happened, but she, um, didn't, you know, die of poisoning, I assume. Yeah. Yeah, but she and John Haskins, they're actually buried in the same cemetery as Bert and Joycey from our very first episode. Potentially, Joyce. She might have been moved. Yes, we still never got to the bottom of that, but I think she's probably still there. But, you know, at least from this premeditated attempted murder, or a little love story came out of it. Yes, yes, and six children. Yes. How lovely. Anyway, back to this story. John Branton's former father-in-law, the Honorable T. J. Elliott, so father of his first wife, came over from Walterville to collect his grandchildren. A lengthy interview and it was pretty emotional. Actually, he was all teary eyed and stuff. He was outside the jail and said that he had never questioned the cause of his daughter's death until the second wife had died. And he said he really hoped that his daughter had died of natural causes and that all he wanted at that point in time was just to take care of his grandchildren. So his wife, so Millie's mother, she had actually died like 21 years earlier and was dead at the time that Millie died. Millie had married John Branton. So Thomas Elliot had been, you know, a widower himself. He said that four kids were still alive at the time that she died. He didn't even approve of Millie marrying John Branton, but, you know, she made her own choices. But yeah, he just wanted to take care of the grandkids. Now, the newspaper also shared that John had sent a letter home to his kids a few days prior and told them that, as long as the kids and Grace were standing by him, he'd be okay. Anyway, as far as the investigation was going. Prosecutor Brown was determined to prove that John Branton wrote that suicide note. There were several handwriting experts back in 1905 that... he was going to submit handwriting samples to. But first he needed to find some really good samples of John Branton's handwriting. You see, now whoever wrote... the letter, the suicide letter misspelled the word 'expense,' for example. So instead of an 'S' at the end, the letter writer spelled it with a 'C'. And then the word 'Marshall'— because it said, like, 'Marshall Underwood,' right? The word 'Marshall' didn't have an 'A' at the end, but instead had an 'E.' So they spelled it 'M-A-R-S-H-E-L.' And also the letter writer wrote his letter 'C's and 'G's very ornately. Now, Prosecutor Brown was determined to find samples of letters written by John Branton that included the word 'expense,' as well as things that that he would have written, John Fletcher's name on. And he was able to find several local businesses to whom Branton wrote orders saying things like, 'please let John Fletcher have, you know, whatever it was.' And wouldn't you know, he signed Fletcher's name exactly the same on those work orders as he did on the suicide letter. Also, when he wrote Cottage Grove at the top of the letters, it looked identical to how he wrote it on the top of the suicide letter. Olivia, have I shown you yet the letters? Mm-mm. Oh my goodness. Okay, I'm going to send it to you, actually, right now. Anyway, so now you've seen them. What are your thoughts? Did he write them both? Yeah, I mean, I was saying that from... beginning, but I mean, visually, can you see how like yeah yeah visually yes, especially like also with seeing how He... like Fletcher's in there too. And like seeing it. Yeah. Yeah, well, the top... letter does not say Fletcher. The top letter is actually to a judge, and I'll explain that in a But I mean, they both have... J's. The J's are identical. Expenses. I see it. I see it. Yeah. I mean, just looking at the words 'cottage' and 'growth', I mean, you know, I mean, just right there. Absolutely. He wrote it. He wrote it all. Okay. Now, the last thing Prosecutor Brown needed to find was a letter where he wrote the word 'expense'. And he finally found it in a letter that he'd written to a judge, Chrisman in Eugene. In this letter, he was asking the judge what steps he would need to take to become the administrator of his last wife's estate. He wanted to know the expense involved, and wouldn't you know, he spelled it with a C instead of an S. Hmm-mmm. I visually saw it. Yep. The March 16, 1905 edition of the Oregonian printed pictures of the suicide letter, as well as the letter to Judge Chrisman, so the public could compare the C's and the G's, the way he wrote Cottage Grove at the top, and the way he wrote the word 'expense'. So we will have this picture shared on our social media pages. Olivia has now seen it, and she agrees that they are definitely both written by the same person. So once they had all the writing samples they needed, it was all sent to the experts, and it was clear in no time that John Branton was indeed the author of the Fletcher suicide letter. All of the people who once thought he was innocent— had now changed their minds. You can buy Dr. Scott's electric hairbrush for $1. It should be used daily in place of the ordinary hairbrush, hair washes, or hair grower. It is warranted to cure nervous headache in five minutes, bilious headache in five minutes, neuralgia in five minutes. Dandruff and disease of the scalp prevent falling hair and baldness, makes the hair grow long and glossy. We will send the brush postpaid for $1. For sale by the Blumauer Frank Drug Company, Woodard Clark and Co. On Monday, June 19th, John pleaded not guilty to attempted murder, and the trial was set to begin on June 20th. The courtroom was packed with spectators. John Fletcher was the first to take the stand. He told the whole story and even demonstrated the position he was lying in when he was shot. His testimony took up the whole day. On the second day of the trial, there were several witnesses for the prosecution up until early afternoon. Many of them were handwriting experts. Others talked about the gun and cartridges. But let me tell you about a couple notable witnesses. One was a man named Fred Myers. Which is funny. Like a store? Yeah, because we have a store here and in other states as well called Fred Meyers. But anyway, his name was Fred Meyers and he lived 10 miles from Cottage Grove. And he was at the Branton Ranch on March 9th. and testified that John Branton had actually told him that he'd made a, quote, damn good shot. So, dun-dun-dun. Interesting. Now, another was a man named L. A. Nessler. Now, this is fascinating. So, this man had been in jail with John Branton. had offered to pay Nessler's fine to get him out of jail if Nessler would do him a favor. John had written a letter. This letter was supposed to be, supposedly, written by none other than John Fletcher. And it essentially said, 'Branton is innocent.' I totally shot myself. You should let him go and drop the charges. Like, I really did it. And I mean, I don't know the exact wording, but you get the idea. So Branton asked Nestler to, like, get out of jail and befriend Fletcher. Convince Fletcher to go with him to Astoria, Oregon. And while they were there, just drop that letter in the mail, send it to the prosecutor. And, you know, it would be postmarked from us. Astoria, and obviously Fletcher would have been seen in Astoria, so it would make sense that he had written it and sent it, and then John Branton would be free and clear. Now, they actually had this letter in evidence. John had actually written it. And the handwriting experts were able to look at it while sitting on the stand to say that it was indeed written by John Branton, not by Fletcher. So. Yeah, just digging himself a hole. I mean, the whole family does really. Yeah. Yeah. So the prosecution wound up resting its case in the early afternoon and then the defense got started. The first witness to take the stand was 12-year-old Blanche. She basically told the story about Fletcher being in love with the gal named Minnie, who was married, but she said that all day on March 8th, he was very depressed and saying he didn't want to live if he couldn't have Minnie. Then Mary Haskins took the stand. She was the teenage daughter of the Haskins couple who lived and worked on the ranch. She said that Fletcher had told her on the 8th that he was going to going to kill himself because all the girls he liked didn't like him. And he asked her where the gun was. So she said that after he was shot in the face that he told her, Mary, don't get scared. I did it myself. But during the cross-examination, she admitted she actually didn't like John Fletcher at all. Then John Branton took the stand and he gave his version of events. He also said that Fletcher had made some comments sounding like it was his last day on earth. And he said that while he was sitting by the tree out there and feeling nauseated during that walk in the middle of the night, he and Fletcher started talking about Minnie. And John told Fletcher that he should probably not see another man's wife because that's a little dangerous. And then Fletcher replied that he couldn't live without Minnie. John said that shortly after this conversation, he got up and started walking again. And shortly after that, he heard a shot. So he turned around to look. And he saw that Fletcher had fallen over and was feeling around for the pistol, which he had dropped. And so Branton went back and picked up the pistol, and he refused to hand it back to Fletcher. Fletcher, because he didn't want Fletcher to, you know, finish the job. So Branton says he took Fletcher back to the fire, told him to sit there while he went for help. But then Fletcher showed up shortly after Branton reached the ranch and, then, they put him in the bed and attended to him and blah, blah, blah. So Branton denied that he had even taken any beer with him. And he also said that he never wrote the suicide letter. And he, of course, denied having shot Fletcher at all. And he even stuck to his story all through the cross-examination. So shows you that he's a really good liar. Then the rest of the Haskins family, you know, one by one, got up and said that Fletcher said he was going to kill himself. Fletcher had a reputation for being a liar. And then a bunch of other people came up and took the stand to say that the Haskins family had a reputation for being liars. And then Fletcher himself took the stand and denied ever threatening to kill himself. And he swore up and down that he had not shot himself in the face. On Thursday, June 22nd, a little after 5 p. m., the jury declared John Branton guilty of assault with the intent to kill John Fletcher. On Saturday, June 24th, he was sentenced to 10 years in the Oregon State Penitentiary. And on Monday, June 26th, 1905, he walked jauntily between Sheriff Fisk and Deputy Matthews toward the train depot. He jested and joked all the way to the train that carried him to the depot. And then, one month later, on July 24th, John's dad, Samuel Branton, went missing. He and Clarence had moved to eastern Oregon, and he vanished, and his body was found in April of 1906 with a bullet hole through his head. Yeah, and that was so crazy. I found nothing about any investigation or anything. And the Prineville newspapers, which apparently covered that story, they are not even available. In any of the databases that we have access to. And the lady at the Historical Society in Crook County never responded to my email. Well... But at least we did find that he was found because prior to finding that, everything like on Find a Grave said his body was never found, but I found his body. And you fixed it. Yes, I got it updated. He was found with a bullet hole through his head. But anyway. So, back to John Branton. Appeals were filed in his case through October of 1906, and all were denied. It makes you wonder if he and Cortland Green talk to each other in prison. I also wondered that. I wonder if they would have even been friends, considering Cortland is the one who turned himself and Claude in for the murder of John Lynn. Well, weren't they, weren't, um... Courtland and Claude like good friends growing up. So they would have known each other at least. But maybe not friends in prison. I don't know. I don't think that they did know each other their whole childhoods. I think that Cortland, I don't remember. I'll have to go back and listen. Yeah, I don't remember. But anyway, but yeah, Cortland had turned state's evidence against Claude and then Claude got the death penalty. So I imagine that John probably would have had hard feelings toward Cortland, but I don't know. But yeah, so prison is not a place where John wanted to be. And he was not giving up on securing his freedom. So on January 31st of 1908. Guys, get a load of this. An anonymous letter postmarked on January 29th from Cottage Grove was handed to Dr. Charles Chamberlain in Portland, Oregon. Dr. Chamberlain was the son of the governor of Oregon, Governor George E. Chamberlain. And this letter said, 'Dr. Charles Chamberlain, sir.' You are hereby notified to have your father to pardon John Branton out of the penitentiary. And you keep this secret between yourself and father and don't let Branton know anything of this. He is a good man and is innocent of any crime. He was convicted on perjured evidence and in prejudicial court. And we demand his pardon by the 20th of February this year. If this is not granted, you and your father will both of you be dealt with the same as Stuenberg and Brown were. We don't want to kill anyone, but it is no worse to kill a man than it is to keep an innocent man in prison. and away from his helpless little children. So you take warning and save yourselves and let Branton go to his children. We mean just what we say. Committee on Justice. Now, the writing looked like a child had written it, and they could tell that it was a very labored attempt to create the impression that the writer was illiterate. But the envelope itself was clearly addressed in a woman's handwriting. The letter was referencing Governor Stunenberg of Idaho and former Sheriff Harvey K. Brown of Baker County. So, Olivia, what happened to them? Yes. So what happened to them could be its own episode. It's very fascinating. Governor Stunenberg was assassinated. Nearly five years after he left office in 1905. He was outside his home in Caldwell, Idaho, when he opened a side gate and triggered a bomb that had been placed there. By Harry Orchard, who was a former employee for the Western Federation of Miners. Harry claimed he was innocent at first, but after solitary confinement and... intense interrogation by Pinkerton agent James McParkland, Orchard signed a 64-page typewritten confession detailing years of being a paid assassin and dynamiter for the Western Federation of Miners. Then Sheriff Harvey Kimball Brown was killed by a bomb that was rigged to his front door in Baker County, Oregon, in September 1907. He didn't die immediately, but later died at the hospital. I think it was the following day. They never brought his murderer to justice, but there is a theory that it had to do with things surrounding the assassination of Governor Stunenberg. And the... Western Federation of Minors. Very fascinating. So, yeah, so he that was September 1907 that that Brown was killed. And then. Yeah, so this letter was January 31st that... That was delivered to Dr. Chamberlain. So prison authorities took possession of some letters that were in John Branton's cell. And it became clear that the envelope had been addressed by his daughter, Blanche. And it turns out that the letter itself was written by John Branton. And I find this really amusing because, okay, so John Branton, remember, he basically was like the newspapers back when he was. being like put on trial and everything. Um, they were mocking him because they were like, well, you know, he, he tried to disguise his handwriting and he failed at that. But you know, he should have been better at spelling because they got him for expense and, you know, because he spelled that incorrectly and blah, blah, blah. So he had basically been like, 'Okay, so I'm really going to spell all of these words. really, really wrong.' Because I know that I'm spelling them wrong, but like, you know, I normally don't. So they'll never know that I wrote this letter. But then, of course, it was traced to his daughter. And what's really interesting is... Later that year, in November, it was November 24th of 1908, there was an article. in the newspaper about the Grove Fair in Lane County, and it was talking about awards for school exhibits at the fair, and his daughter, Blanche, actually won first place for penmanship. Well, I mean, good for her. Must get it from her mom. I know. Well, I think I just think it's like really funny because it was her penmanship that got him caught. You know, it was really good penmanship. I mean, she probably couldn't write horribly if she tried. So. I just find that really funny. So yeah, now to put all of this in perspective, as far as the timeline, the letter happened in January of 1908. And it was January of 1909 that Cortland Green was pardoned from Oregon State Penitentiary. And then he and his mother and aunt moved to Nebraska. At some point in 1908, though, there was a convict by the name of J. S. Stevens in prison with John Branton, who was about to be pardoned. Not John Branton, but J. S. Stevens was about to be pardoned. He had been in for cattle stealing from Klamath County. He was being paroled by Governor Chamberlain. John Branton did a stupid, stupid thing. He gave J. S. Stevens power of attorney to take charge of his money and his... estate so that he could use it to take care of John's three motherless children for him. Stevens got out of prison and he secured the money all right, but he just used it for himself. John Branton was, of course, livid, so he pressed charges from inside the prison, and that got Stevens' Parole was revoked, and he was sent right back to the penitentiary. penitentiary. Well, when he got back, Stevens circulated a story saying that John Branton was going to be charged with the murder of his third wife, Maddie Downs Branton, as soon as his 10-year sentence was over for the attempted murder of Fletcher. So when this got back to John, he became desperate to get out. And that kicked off what happened next. Wednesday, March 24th of 1909. A prison guard, making his regular rounds, discovered that someone had been working to saw through one of the bars to the window on the basement floor, just opposite the butcher shop. The tool used had been a meat saw from the prison butcher shop, which was run by the prison butcher, John Branton. The guard reported it to the head officials. They immediately suspected Branton. Rather than lock him up in solitary, they decided to simply watch and wait. Every day the bar was inspected and the progress was noted. On the night of Sunday, March 28th, they found that the bar was completely severed, so they stationed five armed prison guards outside the window to wait for the escapees. On the morning of March 29th, just after 5 a. m., John Branton and three other convicts put their escape plan into action. John Branton was accompanied by J. P. Collier, who worked in the prison bakery. He was also sent to prison from Lane County. He was serving a two-year sentence for robbery and had only been there for one month and eight days. Also with them was C. H. Spaulding, a cook, who was serving a two-and-a-half-year sentence for larceny in a dwelling from Clatsop County. He had been there for six months. And the fourth member of this crew was J. B. Lethridge, a hospital clerk who was serving three years for forgery committed in Umatilla County. He had been there for six months and three days. And by this time, John had been in prison for three years, nine months, and three days. And again, his sentence was ten years. John Branton, who was the prison butcher, was let out of his cell at 5 a. m. every morning,

and the other three were let out of their cells at 4: 1:11:32

30 every morning. When Branton made his way to the butcher shop that morning, he made his signal to the other three to let them know that everything was ready, and they fell in line behind him. The chapel guard knew what was going on, and he was keeping a close eye on their movements. When he saw the cooks and the baker go into the butcher department. He slipped down and locked the door to the corridor behind them. Not knowing yet that they were caught, the four convicts wrenched the severed bar out of the window using a 2x4 piece of wood. And crawled out into a trench or gutter that runs along the edge of the basement and to the front yard of the prison. After climbing out of the window, they sprinkled cayenne pepper all around it, hoping to throw off any bloodhounds if they should take up the chase. Typically, there had been only one guard in the front of the prison at night, and being as early as it was in the morning, the convicts were expecting there would still just be one guard out front. There is also usually no guard in post number one, says the article in the Register Guard, and this post is the first one to the right by the main entrance to the prison. The convicts were planning to climb into the guard box and then simply jump down on the other side of the wall. Only on this morning, because they knew a prison escape was in the works, there was a guard in post number one. Guard H. M. Brunk was there. And in their room on the second story of the West Wing was Deputy Warden Bengen and Guard Louis Herzl. There were an awful lot of guards, a lot of guns, and a lot of eyes on these inmates. The four inmates made their way along the building and crouched while they watched the outside guard. They waited until they saw him go inside the building to do his morning rounds, and then they took off running for the guard post. They hadn't gone far before they were held at gunpoint in order to put their hands up. The five armed guards ordered them to go right back the way they'd come, and they even had to go back through the basement window they'd crawled out of. Then, with one guard remaining outside the window, the rest of the guards went in through the door to round up the would-be escapees. John Branton wasted no time. He walked right into his meat shop, grabbed a long butcher knife, and drew it across his throat from ear to ear. He was dead almost as soon as the guards reached him. His three accomplices were taken to solitary confinement. Branton's body would be released to his younger brother, Roy, for burial. A few months later, on June 12, 1909, the three Branton children were formally adopted by their grandfather, and their last name became Elliot. Blanche wound up dying less than two years later of scarlet fever, but her brothers both lived to adulthood and had wives and children of their own. That's it. Is the end of our story of John Branton. Of the Branton brothers, Sheriff Withers. And Lane County. So far. So far. There was a lot that, I mean... Man. That withers encountered like that, that one family of the family. The murder-suicide. That would be one that would be interesting to dig into. But yeah, shoutouts. Shoutoutnewspapers. com where you can use our affiliate code FORGOTTEN20. Yep, to get 20% off. Um, shout out to find a grave Which we love. We do. Shout out to OregonGenealogy. com. for help with the finding out what happened. To Sheriff Brown. Um, and... Wikipedia. For the little snippets on Governor Stauenberg from Idaho. And shout out to Ancestry, which also just had an update on your DNA results. Yes. And shout out to FamilySearch. You should follow our socials. Forgotten Felonies on Facebook. at forgotten underscore felonies on Instagram. And we have a threads account. Which is... The same handle as the Instagram. at forgotten underscore felonies. Um, leave us a review. Yes. Do we have any more since last time? I will look. Did you talk to Little Gal about not listening to one of the episodes? Yes. Oh, yeah, she was. When I said, 'you can't listen to those ones,' though, like the Hans Schmidt episodes, then she gave me this sinister look and picked up her iPad, and I was like, 'no, you actually can't.' They're blocked. You wouldn't be able to. Yeah. Uh, no. No reviews, so... No other reviews on Apple Podcasts. I don't know about other places. Um... Also, thanks to my brother. Yes. And I think he did a really good job on the... Thank you. The note sent to the governor's son reading all those misspellings. Yes. That's funny. We will post a picture of it because the newspaper printed it with all of the misspellings on purpose. We'll post a picture of you pointing at your face. No, it was a straight shot, like, through, just through his face. Okay. I'm a visual person. Yeah. I'm showing you with my fingers right now. Yes. I'll have to take a picture of that and post it for everyone later. Do it. Like right through here. Pew! I've got my fancy fingerless gloves because my hands are cold. Picture taken. Will be posted. If my former student cat listens. And then, if she's, if she's on the Facebook group, she will recognize the gloves because these were, she had these gloves and I was like, 'Oh my gosh, where did you get those?' And then I had to buy them immediately. It's her fault. It's her fault I look so cool today. Okay, anyway.