THE LEE BOYS GONE UNDER
Submitted by: Mollie Stehno

Ever since the killing of the Roff brothers and Jim Guy the Lee boys have been terrorizing the southern part of the Chickasaw Nation and their sudden death has been momentarily expected.

On Monday last, the news arrived that Heck Thomas, a detective of Forth Worth, and Jim Taylor and Jim Shattles, of Delaware Bend, killed them. We give Thomas' story as told before a coroner's jury:

"Proceeding before the jury of inquest, H. A. Thomas being sworn, said: "I live in Fort Worth. About 10 o'clock yesterday morning I was informed by John Strother that the Lee boys were near his house and thought that they had cut his pasture fence. I tried to find the Lee boys then, but failed. Between 12 and 1 while at dinner, a runner came and told me the Lee boys were riding through Strother Brown's pasture. Jim Taylor, Jim Shattles and I commenced looking for them at once.

About 2 or 2:30 o'clock we saw them half a mile off. They were off the horses and on the ground, but we couldn't tell what they were doing. We hurried in that direction, but we couldn't see them after we had got on the hill, and when we struck the land between Strother Brown's and John Washington's pasture, we saw they had cut Strother Brown's pasture and were cutting John Washington's pasture across the land. We had a spyglass. We got as close as possible, about forty or forty-five yards and ordered them to surrender. They dropped their nippers and fired at us. As Pink tried to throw another shell in his gun he was killed. We all three were shooting at them and couldn't tell which killed him. About a second or two later Jim was shot by one of us and badly wounded. Jim Lee fired ten shots in all. I shot about sixteen shots-kept shooting till Jim quit. Don't know how many shots struck the Lee boys. No one did any shooting at the Lee boys accept Jim Taylor, Jim Shattles and myself. Jack Brown saw part of the shooting but
didn't do any of it.
Heck Thomas

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