Murder & Mayhem in Southeast Kansas by Larry E. Wood

Author:Larry E. Wood
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing Inc.
Published: 2019-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

9

AS BAD AS THE BENDERS?

THE NOTORIOUS STAFFLEBACK CLAN

After several members of the Staffleback family were arrested for killing Frank Galbreath in Galena, Kansas, in the summer of 1897 and were suspected of several other murders, newspaper headlines routinely said the Stafflebacks rivaled the Benders or were as “Bad as the Benders.” Some even called them “Worse than the Benders.” Although the headlines were rather blatant exaggerations, Nancy “Old Lady” Staffleback and her hellish clan did call to mind the notorious family from neighboring Labette County whose backyard gravesite had yielded up the bodies of about ten murder victims twenty-four years earlier.161

On the morning of July 19, 1897, a southeast Kansas man named Passwaters was tramping into Galena along Cemetery Road (West Seventh Street). Out of curiosity, he paused about a quarter mile west of Main Street to look into an old abandoned mine shaft that sat just off the road to the north. He was horrified to discover a dead body floating atop the water in the shaft. Word quickly reached Main Street, and soon, a crowd of curious onlookers gathered around the shaft. The body was pulled up and identified as that of Frank Galbreath. Galena city marshal Milford Parker recalled seeing Galbreath drinking in the company of another young man on a Saturday night a few weeks earlier, but nobody had seen him since—until now. Although the body was decomposed, Galbreath had obviously been murdered before being thrown into the shaft. Two bullet wounds were apparent, and the victim’s throat had been cut.162

A local justice empaneled a jury to view the body, and that evening, Coroner Charles Huffman arrived from Columbus, the Cherokee County seat, to begin an inquest. Galbreath’s body was buried the same evening. After deliberating for a couple of days, the coroner’s jury adjourned until Monday, July 26, to allow more time to gather evidence.163

Suspicion soon settled on the Staffleback family, who lived in a three-room shack on “hell’s half acre” just off Seventh Street in the vicinity of the abandoned mine shaft. Besides the Staffleback family, several young women stayed at the place, and it was considered a house of prostitution. In addition to the unsavory reputation of the Stafflebacks and the proximity of their house to the mine shaft, the fact that mysterious gunshots had been heard in the vicinity of their home on or about the night Galbreath disappeared aroused suspicion against them.164

The Stafflebacks had lived in the southwest Missouri towns of Joplin and Mount Vernon off and on for about twenty years prior to coming to Galena in early 1896. The father, a candy maker who’d immigrated from Switzerland, was considered a harmless, inoffensive old man. But his wife, Nancy, and the couple’s grown sons—Ed, Alonzo, Michael, and George— were considered notorious characters. Alonzo “Johnny” Staffleback was considered a “dangerous lunatic” as early as July 1878, when he went on a spree one night in East Joplin and damaged the property of several neighbors. In the 1880s, the family moved to Mount Vernon, where Nancy filed for divorce from her husband in 1887.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.