Sons of Bill Tilghman held for murder

SONS OF FAMOUS OLD PEACE OFFICER ARE HELD FOR MURDER
Submitted by: Mollie Stehno

Charges of murder face the two sons of the late Bill Tilghman, one of the most famous of the pioneer peace officers of Indian Territory and early Oklahoma and who was himself slain by Wiley Lynn, in a spectacular gun play on the streets of Cromwell, several years ago, when that town was at the height of its oil boom and Tilghman was chief of police.

The Tilghman boys, Richard, aged 23 and Woodie, aged 16, are charged with having one with three other men to raid a poker game near Minco, a few nights ago, and to hi-jack the players. James Chitwood, 60-year old farmer, resisted by pulling his gun and starting firing. The raiders retuned the fire and Chitwood was killed. Two others in the game were wounded and Richard Tilghman was so badly shot that his life is despaired of. He is in a hospital in Oklahoma City. His injury was the key to the identity of the raiders. The younger Tilghman confessed that he and his brother and uncle, Alfred Stratton, Due Brown, and Jack Reynolds planned to hold up the game and get the money, the jack-pot consisting of several hundred dollars.

All five are charged with murder. Mrs. Tilghman, mother of the boys, is prostrated by the tragedy. The family now live in Oklahoma City, and Richard Tilghman had been prominent in school athletics in that city.

SON OF FAMOUS OLD FIGHTER DIES FROM GUN SHOT INJURY October 31, 1929—The McAlester Guardian—Richard Tilghman, aged 21, son of the famous old peace officer Bill Tilghman, passed away in a hospital in Chickasha, last Monday night, from the effects of a gun shot wound received on the night of October 6, when young Tilghman and his young brother, Woodrow, and their uncle Alfred Stratton, together with a fourth man, Jack Reynolds, are alleged to have held up and hi-jacked a poker game at the home of James Chitwood, near Minco, and ruing which Chitwood is alleged to have been slain by the hi-jackers. Richard Tilghman is alleged to have been shot by one of the men who were sitting in on the game, when the raiders entered and started to hi-jack the party. Chitwood was killed instantly and one of the hi-jackers is declared to have robbed his body as it lay on the floor. Tilghman was hot in the abdomen and is said to have been carried to a waiting car by his uncle and later taken to a hospital in Chickasha, where he was treated. His wound proved fatal, however. His mother, who lives in Oklahoma City, was prostrated by the whole affair. All four of the men alleged to have been implicated in the hold up were charged with murder, but death, of course, stops any prosecution in Richard Tilghman’s case. Tilghman’s father, as will be recalled, was shot and killed by a man named Lynn, while Tilgman was serving as chief of police of the town of Cromwell, in its early days as an oil town.