Ep. 12 - Murdered Bones Don't Rest
One of the reasons cited for a soul to be at unrest is a lack of justice. And sometimes that justice hasn't come because a body hasn't been discovered. Some of the most interesting ghost stories feature a spirit of a murder victim that leads people to the spot of their hidden burial. Two of these stories date back to the late 1800s. One story features the typical haunted house and the other features a ghost wagon.
Bruce Marshall had inherited the Eanes-Marshall Ranch House. This property had been in his family for over 130 years in 1991. That was the year the body was discovered. Alexander Eanes had been born in 1806 and he moved from Mississippi to Texas in 1845 and bought ranch land in 1857 near Austin in Westlake Hills. Alexander sold the land to his brother Robert in 1873 and this eventually was sold to Robert's son-in-law Hudson Boatner Marshall. Hence the name Eanes-Marshall Ranch. Hudson didn't like where the ranch house was located, so he dismantled it and moved it closer to a nearby creek. And then eventually, Bruce ended up with the property.
Traveling along back roads can be a dangerous venture and that is the case regardless of the era. It was early morning in June of 1871 when a hay farmer who lived outside of Austin, loaded up his wagon and set off for Daniel Creary's Livery Stable. He arrived and after Creary checked the load and bought the hay, the farmer headed over to Beryman's Grocery and Provisions to purchase dry goods. He ate a meal at a local restaurant and headed back to his homestead. The journey was cut off abruptly by a large boulder in the middle of the road that hadn't been there in the morning. The farmer felt something wasn't right and he reached around to grab his shotgun, but it would be too late. The trap had been set and he was caught. A bullet pierced his chest and knocked him to the ground. We are left to imagine what went through his mind as he watched his goods and money being carried off as his life slowly left his body.
The Eanes Homestead was right there and they had heard the gunshot. They found the man deceased on the road and decided to give him a proper burial. They placed him in ground on their land in an unmarked grave. His identity was unknown and those bones would remain buried until 1991 when another crime would reveal the grave. The Westlake Police were having trouble with deer poachers. They gathered a group like a modern day posse and set off to find the hunters in the woods. They didn't find poachers, but they did find a pecular indent in the ground that looked suspiciously like a grave. They decided to excavate and sure enough, they found some bones. Forensic anthropologists estimated that the bones were around 100 years old. When Bruce Marshall was made aware of the discovery, he immediately remembered a couple of stories shared by the family. One was the tale of burying the poor murder victim on the property. The other was about a visit from a group of five parapsychologists in 1966 who had traveled up from San Antonio.
Bruce had actually been present for the investigation and he remembered one of the investigators had entered into some kind of trance and started relaying information through automatic writing. This is a technique in which a psychic allows a spirit to use their body to write out answers to questions on paper. The investigation took place over several nights and the investigators believed they were communicating with a spirit that identified itself as "Burns." This entity went on to explain that he had been murdered by three men after he got off his wagon to remove a large boulder that was blocking the road.
Now, any good investigator knows that the best way to back up claims by spirits is to dive into actual history and see if anything can be found that matches the information provided. Jeanine Plumer explains in her 2010 book "Haunted Austin, History and Hauntings of the Capital City" that "a newspaper reporter who was present at the séance diligently investigated old microfilm newspaper articles at the Austin History Center. He found a newspaper account matching the incident. The article stated that, in fact, a man by the name of “Barnes” had been robbed and murdered on his way back from selling hay in Austin in 1871. The only difference between that story and the one told at the séance was the location. The newspaper stated that the crime had taken place seven miles north of the city, and the Marshall house is situated seven miles southwest of Austin."
The names Barnes and Burns are pretty similar. Whether these investigators actually had contact with a spirit is hard to say, but the Marshall family claims that haunting experiences have happened on the property. The old ranch house was restored some time ago and a new house was also built on the property. After moving into the new house, the Marshalls claimed they would hear the sound of pounding horse hooves and the creaking of wood. Sometimes the sound of leather slapping was heard. If they didn't know better, they would swear it was as if a wagon was coming down the road. But of course, there was never any wagon. Stories about the Ghost Wagon traveled and soon young people were coming to see if they could hear any ghosts. The Marshall's teenage son invited some friends to camp out by Eanes Creek to see if they could hear the wagon. The boys were close to falling asleep when the crickets fell quiet and the dogs with them stopped barking. Even the frogs stopped their chirping and croaking. Suddenly, the boys could hear the distant rumble of what sounded like a wagon. There was creaking metal and wood and the slap of leather. The sounds of horses breathing and their hooves pounding was also audible. The boys were so scared, they all ran for the ranch house, leaving their camp behind.
Other people to experience the Ghost Wagon have been a couple of night watchmen from a nearby office building. They too have heard what sounds like an approaching wagon. Many people think that this is the sound of a runaway wagon without its rider. A security guard at the State Capitol named Joel Quintanella ran into Bruce Marshall and he told him a story about when he was young and he and some friends made a trek out to the property to see if they could hear the wagon. Around midnight, they heard a wagon approaching. When Marshall asked if the group had seen anything, Joel confessed that the group had taken off at a full run before the sound could get close enough for them to see anything.
Is there a Ghost Wagon continuing its trip from a hundred years ago in Westlake, carrying the spirit of a man who never got justice? That's a matter for the listener to decide, but one thing that is fact is that someone was buried in an unmarked grave on the Eanes-Marshall property.
Our next story has an unquiet spirit in a house rather than outside along a road. This spirit made noises too that actually did lead to the discovery of a body that may not have been found had it not been banging around down in the cellar of George and Amelia Brewer's rental home. Amelia wrote for the Elko Free Press in Carlin, Nevada under the pen name "Busy Bee." Usually she was relaying the daily gossip of Carlin, much like Lady Whistledown in the show Bridgerton. But on this particular column that she wrote on January 5, 1888, she confessed that she and George were living in a haunted house. She wrote, "It's a little exciting when one has the good luck to move into a veritable haunted house. So far, the ghost hasn't scared any of us, but he is here just the same. Sometimes he taps on the head board of the bed; other times he stalks across the kitchen floor, and he hammers away at the door and nobody's there. But the gayest of capers of all is cut up in the cellar. There he holds high revels, and upsets the pickles and carries on generally."
Now some people might just relegate this writing to fanciful tales imagined, but the fact that a body was indeed found in the cellar, might change some minds. After a couple of weeks of this ghostly noise, George finally decided to investigate, so he grabbed and iron rod and headed down to the cellar. The cellar had a dirt floor and he used the rod to poke around in the dirt. Perhaps he thought the spirit was hiding under the dirt? George poked around for a while and finally gave up his search. But after another week of more strange noises, he decided to check the cellar again and this time, he did find something. George said, "I saw something that looked like a rotten turnip. I pulled up some hair and the smell came with it. The head looked as though it was cut off right straight across below the ears." He contacted Deputy George McIntosh who telegraphed Sheriff Lou Barnard over in Elko and a group of officers began digging in the cellar.
What they found were the remains of a man who had been cut into several pieces with a crushed skull that was charred. Decomposition had set in for some time, so the man was unrecognizable and being that this was 1888, there was no using DNA for identification. But there was something that did lead to finding out who that man was and it was a distinctive knife carried by a Carlin miner and rancher named Miles Faucett. When officers asked around about him, they discovered that nobody had seen him in over a year. It was clear that Miles had been murdered and buried and more than likely by someone who had previously lived in the house. The couple who had been here before the Brewers were Josiah and Elizabeth Potts. They had left Carlin for Rock Springs, Wyoming with their children a few months earlier.
Sheriff Barnard took Constable Joe Triplett with him to Wyoming to interview the Potts. They weren't willing to talk so the Sheriff informed them that he would be bringing them back to Carlin with him. On the trip back, Josiah must have been suffering from a guilty conscience because he confessed to dismembering and burying Miles Faucett. However, he didn't claim that he murdered the man. Potts said that Faucett had committed suicide and that he was afraid that he would be charged with murder, so he decided to hide the body, rather than report the suicide.
The Potts didn't seem like murderers. The two were from Manchester. England and had emigrated to the United States in 1865, two years after getting married. They had seven children, but by the time they arrived in Carlin, only two of the children were still in their custody. The other five had been adopted out for unknown reasons. The Potts had lived in Carlin, renting the house for two years. Josiah had worked as a machinist in the Central Pacific Railroad shops and was a hard worker with a good reputation. They had been friends with Miles Faucett who was 57 at the time of his death. He had arrived in Carlin from Sacramento a few years before the Potts. All three of them were from Manchester and had actually known each other in England. Faucett had a ranch called Hot Springs Ranch that was a few miles outside of the town and so he sometimes boarded with the Potts when he wanted to be in town. He frequently lent them money and Elizabeth Potts would do his laundry.
On New Years Day 1887, Faucett arrived at the Potts house with a friend named J.R. Linebarger. The group had a few drinks and Linebarger excused himself for the rest of the evening. He would be the last person to see Miles alive other then the Potts. And you know what they say about people who are the last ones to see someone alive. They usually are the murderer. When Linebarger didn't see Miles again for a few days, he decided to stop by the Potts place to ask if they knew anything. Miles team of horses and wagon weren't there, so Linebarger initially believed Josiah when he told him that Miles had gone east on the railroad around six p.m. on New Years Day. But when Josiah continued by informing Linebarger that Faucett had signed over his ranch, wagon and team of horses, Linebarger bocked. So Josiah pulled out a bill of sale. Linebarger still couldn't believe that Miles would do such a thing, so Josiah told him a harrowing tale.
The Potts claimed that Miles had molested their six-year-old daughter Edith. He had been boarding in the barn and one day Elizabeth noticed that little Edith was missing. She found her daughter in the barn with Miles. Miles was only in his drawers on the edge of the bed and little Edith was straddling him in her drawers. When Miles saw Elizabeth, he threw Edith to the ground and started choking Elizabeth, screaming at her that she better not say anything. Elizabeth eventually passed out from the choking. She did keep what had happened a secret, not even telling Josiah, but she finally decided to write a letter to Deputy McIntosh, telling him what happened. The letter was never sent and Josiah discovered it on that New Year's Day. When he confronted Miles about it, Miles said he would move away and give them everything he owned if they wouldn't report him and thus the bill of sale.
Linebarger must have been convinced because he left and didn't report Miles missing. But now Miles body had been found and the Potts were indicted for that murder. When it came time to testify, the couple claimed they were innocent because Miles had killed himself and they had merely buried the body in the cellar. Elizabeth testified that Faucett had come to the house on New Year's Day to get his washing. When she saw he brought a friend, she invited the men in for a glass of whiskey. Linebarger left after two drinks. Later that evening, Josiah found the letter and confronted Faucett who fell to his knees and claimed, "I was crazy! I didn't know what I was doing!" Then he offered the Potts everything he owned and $180 that he owed them. This contradicted earlier testimony from Linebarger who had said that Miles told him that the Potts owed him a large sum of money and that he was going to threaten them with some damaging information about Elizabeth's past that he knew from Manchester to get the couple to pay the debt. Linebarger also claimed that he had seen one hundred dollars in twenty-dollar gold pieces in Faucett's bag that very day.
Elizabeth continued her testimony claiming that Josiah had crumpled up the bill of sale and thrown it at Miles. Miles backed up against a cupboard that had a gun on a shelf and Elizabeth claimed that he grabbed the gun, held it to the left side of his head and laughed, saying, "You folks
will be blamed for this." He then grinned and pulled the trigger. Josiah told Elizabeth to go to the bedroom while he took care of the body. To add credence to the story, the defense called the couple's sixteen-year-old son Charley to the stand. He testified that he heard loud talking and shouting, so he got out of bed to see what was going on. He then witnessed Faucett shooting himself. He ran back to bed and never discussed it with his parents and when the prosecutor pressed him on whether his testimony was coached, Charley claimed that it was not.
Josiah then took the stand and repeated the same story as his wife and then explained that he knew he needed to hide the body so he wouldn't be blamed for the death. So he wrapped Miles in blankets and pulled the body down into the cellar where he dug a shallow grave and put the reamins in it with a pillow under Miles' head. Nothing happened for the next three months, but Josiah got worried that the body would be discovered so he needed to destroy it. He dug up Miles and then described what he did with it, "I cut up the body in pieces. I cut off the head and feet. I mashed the head with an ax in order to burn it. I chopped the feet up a little with an ax. I succeeded in burning a little of the skull and a little of his foot. I had to give it up and could not finish on account of the smell." He then reburied the body parts.
The defense then rested. The trial had taken four days, but it would only take the jury four hours to find the couple guilty of first degree murder. When the verdict was read Josiah bowed his head, but Elizabeth just looked straight ahead. The judge sentenced the couple "to be hanged by the neck until dead." Josiah's lips quivered, but Elizabeth looked right at the judge with no emotion. The couple appealed and had the execution order stayed, but the Nevada Supreme Court upheld Judge Bigelow's death sentence. He set Friday, June 20, 1890 as the new date for their execution.
Sheriff Barnard was reluctant to hang a woman, but he ordered a scaffold that was built in Placerville, California, which had once been called Hangtown. The Sheriff had his men test the scaffold with weights after putting it together, with the Potts being able to witness the whole operation. This was a double gallows, so that the couple could be hanged together. Unlike other executions that were public, Sheriff Barnard had a fence erected around the gallows and only allowed people whom he had invited by sending out black-bordered invitations. Elizabeth almost didn't make it to the gallows. The day before the execution, she slit her wrists and then asked the jailer to play her a tune to soothe her to sleep. When he saw that she had wrapped herself in a thick blanket on a hot June afternoon, he became suspicious and pulled back the blanket. A doctor came to stop the bleeding and Elizabeth ranted and cursed everyone before she passed out from loss of blood.
On June 20, 1890. the Potts were lead to the gallows and offered a small bottle of booze as Reverend C.J. Porter prayed for them. The death warrants were read and Mrs. Potts lifted her right hand and said, "Innocent, so help me God. We are innocent, that's all we can say; we are innocent from first to last." Elizabeth was dressed in a white dress with black silk bows at her throat and wrists. Josiah was in a business suit. Before the nooses were placed around their necks, their shoes were removed, their hands and legs were bound, they were allowed to kiss and black hoods were placed over their heads. And then the trap door was pulled. Josiah quivered for a moment, but Elizabeth was nearly decapitated because of her weight. They were placed in coffins side by side in a wagon and taken to the cemetery. The San Francisco Daily Report editors wrote: "It is to the credit of Elko, Nevada, that it hangs a woman guilty of murder. It is a dreadful thing to hang a woman but not so dreadful as for a woman to be a murderer. Evidently Elko possesses citizens who, when on a jury have some respect for their oath. In San Francisco Mrs. Potts would have walked out of court a free woman." This was the first and last time a woman was executed in Nevada.
Clearly, the evidence in this case was circumstantial. But no one doubted the guilt of the Potts. One does have to wonder if Miles was finally able to rest after being discovered and having his murderers executed. There were no more stories about his ghost, so I think it is safe to assume that he is at rest. And then we wonder about the spirit behind the Ghost Wagon. His murderers were never brought to justice, but his body was found and buried properly. So perhaps he is able to rest now too.
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