Latest / The Mind of a Man / (1887) The Macabre History of the Butch Cassidy Clan in the Wild West _ Banned from History Books

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(1887) The Macabre History of the Butch Cassidy Clan in the Wild West _ Banned from History Books · The Mind of a Man

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to this journey through one of the most disturbing
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: cases recorded in the history of the American West. Before
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: we begin, I invite you to leave in the comments
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: where you're watching from and the exact time you're listening
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: to this narration. We're interested to know to what places
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: and at what times of day or night these documented
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: stories reach. The year was 1887. While most historical accounts
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: of Robert Leroy Parker, better known as Butch Cassidy, focus
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: on his exploits as the charismatic leader of the Wild Bunch,
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: few have uncovered what transpired during the winter of 1887
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: in the remote valleys of southern Utah. What you're about
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: to hear has been systematically removed from official accounts, redacted
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: from public records, and deliberately omitted from history books. It
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: was in December of that year when the first disappearances
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: were recorded in the small settlement of Circleville, Utah. Located
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: in the Sevier River Valley, approximately 165 miles south of
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: Salt Lake City, Circleville was a modest Mormon community established
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: in 1864. The Parker family had settled there when Robert
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: was just a boy. By 1887, Robert was 21 years
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: old and had already begun his descent into what would
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: become one of the most notorious criminal careers in the
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: American West. The winter of 1887, was particularly harsh in
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: southern Utah. Snow drifts reportedly reached the second-story windows of
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: some homes, and temperatures remained well below freezing for weeks
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: at a time. Isolation was a natural condition of frontier life,
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: but that winter, the isolation became something far more sinister.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: According to documents discovered in 1965 during renovations of the
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: Pute County Courthouse, Sheriff James Wattis noted in his personal journal,
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: that between December 1887 and February 1888, seven individuals vanished
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: without explanation from Circleville and the surrounding homesteads. The journal,
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: which was immediately archived following its discovery, and has since
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: been reported lost during a transfer to the State Historical Society,
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: contained entries that paint a disturbing picture of what may
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: have been the earliest activities of what locals had begun
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: calling the Cassidy clan. The first to disappear was Jonathan Morley,
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: a 52-year-old blacksmith who had reportedly had a heated disagreement
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: with Robert Parker over payment for shoeing his horse. Morley
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: was last seen leaving his shop on December 12th. His
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: wife reported that he never returned home for supper. A
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: brief search was conducted, but the assumption was that he
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: had become disoriented in a sudden snowstorm and perished from exposure.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: His body was never recovered. Three days later, Eliza Morley,
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: Jonathan's nineteen-year-old daughter, also vanished. She had gone to collect
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: eggs from their hen house early in the morning. When
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: she didn't return, her mother found only a single dropped
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: egg in the fresh snow, and footprints leading away from
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: the property toward the tree line. The footprints were accompanied
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: by a second set, described in Sheriff Wattis's journal as
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: unusually large, made by a man's boot. In a previously
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: overlooked entry from Sheriff Wattis' journal dated December 16, 1887,
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: he writes, Mrs. Morley claims to have heard a scream
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: just after dawn, but the sound was brief and might
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: have been the wind. I examined the tracks myself. The
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: girls' footprints showed no signs of dragging or struggle until
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: they reached the tree line. There, the snow was disturbed
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: in a manner suggesting she had fallen or been forced
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: to the ground. Most concerning was the discovery of a
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: torn piece of fabric matching the description of the shawl
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: she had been wearing, wrapped around a low branch as
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: if placed there deliberately. When I attempted to remove it
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: as evidence, Mrs. Morley became hysterical. Claiming it was marked
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: in some way I could not discern, she insisted it
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: be left where it was. Against my better judgment, I complied.
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: By Christmas of 1887— The Morley case had become the
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: quiet concern of the small community, but it wasn't spoken
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: of openly. The Parker family, despite Robert's growing reputation for
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: minor thefts and troublemaking, was well respected. Robert's father, Maximilian Parker,
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: was a stern but fair man who had served as
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: a town elder. No one dared suggest that Robert might
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: be involved in anything as serious as the disappearance of
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: their neighbors. The Circleville town records, kept by clerk Thomas Blackett,
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: note an unusual incident during the Christmas service at the
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: local church. According to Blackett's meticulous documentation, Robert Parker and
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: four companions entered the church late, taking seats at the back.
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: Their presence caused a noticeable discomfort among the congregation. Blackett wrote,
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: The young men appeared to have come directly from riding,
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  Speaker 1: their clothes still bearing the dust of the trail despite
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: the snow. Most curious was their demeanor, neither reverent nor disrespectful,
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: but watchful, their eyes moving from person to person as
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: if searching for someone specific. Mrs. Morley, upon noticing their arrival,
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: left the service immediately. Several others followed shortly after. The
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: minister's sermon, which had been focused on the theme of forgiveness,
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: shifted abruptly to a discussion of judgment and divine retribution.
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: The true nature of what happened during those winter months
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: remained buried until 1934, when an elderly Thomas Harrington provided
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: a written testimony to a field researcher from the Federal
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: Writers Project. Harrington, who had been 16 years old in 1887,
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: claimed to have witnessed something that had haunted him for
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: nearly five decades. According to Harrington's account, which was initially
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: collected as part of Oral Histories of Frontier Life, but
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: was subsequently removed from the official collection, he had been
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: hunting rabbits in the foothills west of town when he
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: observed Robert Parker and four other young men leading a
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: bound figure through the snow toward an abandoned mining shaft.
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: Arrington claimed he hid behind a fallen pine and watched
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: as the group disappeared into the mine entrance. He reported
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: hearing terrible sounds that he couldn't bring himself to describe
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: even 47 years later. In a section of Harrington's testimony
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: that was redacted from even the unofficial copies, but was
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: referenced in a letter from the field researcher to his supervisor,
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: Harrington allegedly described seeing the group emerge from the mine
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: several hours later. They were carrying what appeared to be
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: small bundles wrapped in cloth. The field researcher wrote, Harrington's
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: description of these bundles is so disturbing that I cannot
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: in good conscience include it in the official record. He
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: seems convinced that they contained personal items taken from the victim,
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: though he admits he could not see clearly from his
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: hiding place. His certainty is based on what he observed next.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: The men arranged the bundles in a circle on the
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: snow and stood around them, heads bowed, while Parker spoke
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: words Harrington could not hear. Harrington described it as, not
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: like any prayer I ever heard in church, but something
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: older and colder. After this ritual, the bundles were collected.
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: and the group departed. Harrington's testimony included the names of
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: the other young men, all of whom would later become
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: known associates of Butch Cassidy's Wild Bunch, Elsie Lay, Matt Warner,
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: Tom McCarty, and a fifth man Harrington identified only as
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: the Quiet One with the scarred face. Based on later
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: historical records, this was likely Harvey Logan, also known as
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: Kid Curry, though he would have been only 20 years
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: old at the time. A genealogical researcher working in the
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: 1950s discovered that Harvey Logan's family had a history intertwined
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: with the Parker family dating back to their time in
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: Pennsylvania before either family moved west. According to church records
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: from Meadville, Pennsylvania, Logan's grandmother and Parker's grandfather had been
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: involved in an unspecified community dispute that resulted in both
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: families being asked to leave the congregation. The details of
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: this dispute were never recorded. but coincided with a series
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: of unexplained livestock deaths and property fires in the area.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: Harrington never reported what he saw. In his testimony, he explained,
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: My pa worked for Max Parker. If I'd said a word,
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: we'd have lost everything. And besides, those boys, they weren't
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: just thieves. There was something wrong with them, something in
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: their eyes when they'd come into town, like they knew
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: things about you, things no one should know. The winter
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: wore on, and by February, seven people had vanished. After
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: Morley and his daughter, there was Heinrich Müller, a German
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: immigrant who operated the general store, Sarah Johansson, a midwife
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: who lived alone on the edge of town, the Cutler brothers,
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  Speaker 1: William and James, who owned a small silver claim in
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  Speaker 1: the hills, and finally Sheriff Wattis himself. Müller' s disappearance occurred
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: on January 3, 1888, following what witness accounts described as
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: a disagreement with Robert Parker over credit extended to the
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: Parker family. Mueller had reportedly refused to provide further goods
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: without payment of existing debts. A German-language journal found among
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: Mueller's possessions years later, discovered during the settlement of his
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: estate in 1915, contained entries suggesting he had been increasingly
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: concerned about the Parker family and their associates. In an
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: entry dated December 29, 1887, Muller wrote, translated from German,
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: Young Parker came again today. He did not speak, merely
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: stood at the counter watching me. When I asked his business,
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: he pointed to the ledger where I record debts. I
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: showed him the considerable sum his family owes. He smiled
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  Speaker 1: in a way that made my blood cold and said,
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  Speaker 1: Some debts are paid differently. I find myself checking the
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: locks twice now. The sounds outside my window at night
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: might be only the wind, but I no longer believe that.
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: Sarah Johanson vanished on January 17, 1888. As the community's midwife,
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: she kept detailed records of every birth she attended, including
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: notes on family histories and unusual circumstances. According to testimony
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  Speaker 1: given in 1922 by her niece, Margaret Keller, Johansson had
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: confided that she possessed dangerous knowledge about several prominent families
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: in the area, including the Parkers. Keller claimed that her
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: aunt had created a special coded ledger containing this information,
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: which she kept hidden under a loose floorboard in her cabin.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: After Johansson's disappearance, Keller searched for the ledger, but found
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: only an empty space, and what appeared to be a
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: symbol drawn in ash where the book had been. The
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: Cutler brothers disappeared on January 25, 1888, after reporting a
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: significant silver find at their claim in the hills west
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: of Circleville. William Cutler had come to town the day
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: before to register the claim officially, and purchase supplies. According
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: to the registration log at the county office, the claim
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: was substantial enough to change the fortunes of the entire valley.
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: Cutler was observed drinking and celebrating at the local saloon
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: that evening, where several witnesses later reported he had a
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: cordial conversation with Robert Parker and his associates. One witness,
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: saloon keeper Frank Dobson, stated in a deposition given in
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: 1913 that that Parker had offered to escort the inebriated
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: Cutler home, as his brother James was expecting him at
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: their cabin near the claim site. Both brothers were reported
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  Speaker 1: missing two days later, when neither appeared in town for
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: their weekly supply run. The disappearance of Sheriff Wattis on
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: February 3, 1888, marked the end of what locals would
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: later refer to in hushed tones as the winter of silence.
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: His horse returned to town without him, saddlebags still containing
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: official correspondence, and his lunch pail. A search party found
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: only his badge, half buried in the snow near the
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: same abandoned mine shaft Harrington had mentioned in his testimony.
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: What makes this case particularly disturbing is the methodical way
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: in which any investigation was suppressed. According to county records,
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: a new sheriff was appointed within days, Jason Parker, Maximilian
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: Parker's cousin. the disappearances were officially attributed to harsh winter
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: conditions and possible animal attacks, despite the lack of bodies
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: or evidence supporting this conclusion. A letter discovered in 1963,
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: among the personal effects of Jason Parker's widow, reveals the
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: extent to which the investigation was deliberately misdirected. Written by
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: Maximilian Parker to Jason shortly before his appointment as sheriff,
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: it reads in part, The position will soon be available
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: to you as we discussed. When appointed, your first duty
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: must be to close the inquiries into the recent unfortunate events.
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: The official record should reflect the dangers of winter in
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: this harsh country. Compensation for your assistance in this matter
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: will be arranged through the usual channels. Remember, family stands together,
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: no matter what storms may come. The usual channels mentioned
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: in the letter appear to reference a complex financial arrangement
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: uncovered by bank examiner Walter Hayes during a routine audit
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: in 1901. Hayes documented a series of regular payments from
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: various Parker family accounts to Jason Parker and several other
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: local officials, beginning in February 1888 and continuing for years afterward.
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: Hayes' audit report was filed but never acted upon. He
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: was found dead in his hotel room in Salt Lake
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: City three weeks later. an apparent suicide, though the coroner's
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: report noted several inconsistencies, including defensive wounds on his hands
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: and a broken window that could not be explained. By
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: spring of 1888, Robert Parker had left Circleville, beginning the
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: wandering that would eventually establish him as Butch Cassidy, the
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: notorious outlaw. The families of the missing gradually moved away
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: one by one, selling their properties for a fraction of
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: their value to various members of the Parker extended family.
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: Within two years, nearly a third of Circleville was owned
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: by relatives of the Parkers. Records from the Circleville township
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: meetings preserved in microfilm at the Utah State Archives show
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: a curious pattern of land transfers during this period. Properties
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: belonging to the families of the disappeared were sold at
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: prices far below market value, often with documentation bearing signatures that,
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: according to later analysis, showed significant inconsistencies with known samples.
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: The Byers, in almost every case, had direct connections to
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: the Parker family, cousins, in-laws, and business associates. A ledger
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: from the Circleville Bank, partially destroyed in a fire in 1899,
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: but partially recovered and preserved by a bank clerk named
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: Walter Sampson, contains entries indicating substantial deposits made by Maximilian
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: Parker in the months following the disappearances. According to Samson's
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: sworn affidavit, given in 1922 when he was in his
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: final days suffering from consumption, the amounts far exceeded what
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: a struggling rancher like Parker could have legitimately earned. He
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: came in with cash, Samson's affidavit reads, not just a little,
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: but bundles of it. When I asked its source, as
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: was my duty, He looked at me in such a
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: way that I never asked again. There was something in
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: his eyes, something I'd seen in young Robert's eyes, too.
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: Something that said questions weren't welcome and wouldn't be forgotten.
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: Samson's affidavit was filed with the Pute County Clerk, but
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: disappeared from the records sometime before 1930. The only copy
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: was discovered among the personal effects of Judge William Blackburn
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: after his suicide in 1935. The circumstances of Blackburn's death,
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: a gunshot wound to the head while seated at his desk,
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: were ruled a suicide despite several inconsistencies noted by the coroner,
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: including the position of the weapon and the angle of
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: the wound. In the margins of Sampson's affidavit, Judge Blackburn
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: had written a note. This connects to the mineshaft incidents.
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: Parker family purchasing silence. Evidence suggests ritualistic elements to disappearances.
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: Similar cases noted in Hanksville, 1889, Moab, 1891, Green River, 1892.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: Pattern emerging. Will compile full report. No such report was
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: ever found among Blackburn's papers. During the settlement of Blackburn's estate,
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: a locked strongbox was discovered hidden in a false wall
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: of his home office. According to court records, the box
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: contained a collection of unusual items. A silver pocket watch
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: with the initials J.M., likely belonging to Jonathan Morley, a
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: woman's hair comb with several strands of red hair still attached,
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: consistent with descriptions of Eliza Morley, a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles,
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: similar to those worn by Heinrich Meller, a silver thimble,
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: possibly belonging to Sarah Johansson, a silver claim deed with
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: the Cutler brothers' names partially visible, and a sheriff's badge
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: with Wattis' name engraved on the back. Also in the
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: box was a hand-drawn map of the area around Circleville,
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: with the location of the abandoned mine shaft marked with
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: a symbol similar to the one reportedly found where Sarah
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: Johanson's ledger had been. Most disturbing was a small leather-bound journal,
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: its pages filled with what appeared to be observer's notes
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: on the disappearances written in Blackburn's hand. The journal was
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: removed from the estate inventory by order of the presiding judge,
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: and its whereabouts remain unknown. The court clerk who processed
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: the inventory, Harold Jenkins, later claimed in a private letter
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: to his sister that the journal contained accounts so disturbing
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: that they would destroy not only the Parker family's reputation,
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: but the very foundations of law and order in the territory,
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: if they were ever made public. In 1956, Dr. Eleanor Simmons,
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: a historian researching frontier justice systems, attempted to piece together
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: the events of that winter. Her research notes, preserved in
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: the University of Utah Special Collections but restricted from public
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: access until 1967, detail her growing concerns about what she
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: termed a systematic cover-up spanning generations. Simmons noted that land deeds,
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: birth and death records, and even census information for Circleville
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: during this period contained unusual inconsistencies. Names appeared to have
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: been altered, dates changed, and in some cases entire pages
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: were missing from otherwise meticulously kept county ledgers. Most disturbing
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: was Simmons' discovery of a leather-bound journal in the possession
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: of of Martha Wattis, the sheriff's granddaughter. The journal which
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: Simmons was allowed to examine but not copy allegedly contained
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: detailed descriptions of items recovered from the abandoned mine shaft
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: in 1902 when the entrance collapsed during a spring thaw.
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: According to Simmons' notes, the journal entry dated April 15, 1902,
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: listed seven skulls, numerous bones, some with unusual markings consistent
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: with a knife or similar implement. a collection of personal effects,
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: including J. Morley's pocket watch, identified by inscription, E. Morley's
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: hair comb, H. Miller's spectacles, S. Johansson's silver thimble, the
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: Cutler brothers' claim deed, and J. Wattis's wedding band. The
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: entry also noted that these items were quietly buried in
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: the Circleville Cemetery under a marker reading, Only Winter 1887
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: to 1888, and that certain parties with continuing interests in
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: the matter had paid a substantial sum to ensure that
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: no further investigation would occur. Simmons managed to locate this
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: unmarked grave in the Circleville Cemetery during her research. According
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: to her notes, it was situated in the northeast corner
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: away from the other plots, in an area typically reserved
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: for those who died by suicide or were otherwise denied
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: traditional burial. The grave itself was unusual, a simple stone
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: slab with only the date 1897-1888 carved into it, no
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: names or other information. Simmons observed that while other graves
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: in the cemetery showed signs of regular maintenance and occasional visitation,
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: this grave appeared deliberately neglected, overgrown with weeds and shadowed
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: by a gnarled juniper tree that locals claimed had never
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: been planted. but had simply appeared sometime in the early 1900s.
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: More telling was what Simmons discovered when she attempted to
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: examine burial records for the grave. The cemetery registry for
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: that period contained a single page where the entry should
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: have been, but this page had been carefully cut out
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: with a razor. When Simmons questioned the elderly caretaker about this,
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: he reportedly became agitated and asked her to leave, saying only,
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: Some graves are best left untended. Some names are best
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: left unspoken. Dr. Simmons' research came to an abrupt end
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: in March of 1957, when her university funding was unexpectedly terminated.
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: Her subsequent attempts to publish her findings were blocked by
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: what she described in personal correspondence as powerful interests with
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: surprising reach. She died in a house fire in 1959,
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: along with all of her research materials. The official cause
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: was listed as faulty wiring. A former colleague of Simmons,
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: Professor Richard Evanston, attempted to continue her work after her death.
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: In notes from his preliminary investigation, he wrote, Eleanor was
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: onto something significant. The pattern of suppression surrounding these events
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: suggests an organized effort spanning multiple generations and extending far
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: beyond a simple family cover-up. The financial records I've managed
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: to trace... show connections between the Parker family and several
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: prominent banking and railroad interests in the years following 1888.
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: The question is not just what happened in that mine shaft,
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: but who benefited from ensuring it remained hidden, and how
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: those benefits continue to shape our understanding of Western history
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: to this day. Evanston's investigation ended abruptly when he suffered
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: a debilitating stroke in 1960, leaving him unable to speak
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: or right. His family reported that in the weeks leading
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: up to his stroke, he had received several anonymous letters
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: and had expressed concern about being followed. All of his
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: research materials disappeared from his university office the night he
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: was hospitalized in what was officially recorded as a routine burglary,
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: though nothing else of value was taken. Martha Wattis died
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: in 1960. The journal was not found among her possessions.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: A letter from Dr. Simmons to her colleague, Professor James Whitaker,
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: at Yale University, dated February 1959, just weeks before her death,
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: suggests she had uncovered a broader pattern of influence. The letter,
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: which Whitaker kept private until his own death in 1968,
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: contained the following passage, What began as an investigation into
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: frontier justice has led me to a web of connections
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: I scarcely could have imagined. The Parker family's influence extends
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: not merely to local law enforcement and property records, but
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: to state politics, judicial appointments, and even certain federal offices.
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: I have traced financial contributions, marriages, and business partnerships that
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: create a network spanning from southern Utah to Denver, San Francisco,
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: and even Washington, D.C. The implications are staggering that a
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: criminal enterprise could so thoroughly embed itself in the very
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: institutions designed to curtail such activity. Most disturbing is the
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: evidence suggesting that this network continues to operate decades after
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: Cassidy's supposed death in Bolivia. The name has changed, but
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: the methods remain. Whitaker's personal journal, now in the collection
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: of his granddaughter, historian Rebecca Whitaker Chen, contains an entry
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: from the day he received news of Simmons' death. Eleanor
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: is gone. The fire too convenient to complete. Her work destroyed.
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: I am now certain that what she discovered was not
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: merely historical in nature, but represents a continuing threat. I
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: will say no more on this matter, nor pursue it further.
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: Eleanor's fate speaks loudly enough. What makes this case particularly
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: unsettling is not just the apparent murders themselves, but the
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: multi-generational effort to conceal them. The power of the Parker
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: family and their associates extended far beyond the small confines
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: of Circleville, suggesting connections to political and economic forces that
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: had vested interests in maintaining the heroic outlaw narrative that
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: would eventually surround Butch Cassidy. In 1964, construction workers expanding
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: Highway 89 near the location of the old mine shaft
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: uncovered human remains. According to a brief mention in the
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: Pute County Gazette, dated June 12, 1964, the bones showed
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: unusual characteristics that prompted the county coroner to request assistance
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: from forensic specialists. Three days later, the same newspaper reported
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: that the remains had been identified as likely those of
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: Native American origin, dating back several centuries. They were reburied
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: without further examination. A former deputy state medical examiner speaking
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: on condition of anonymity to a graduate student in 1968
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: claimed that he had briefly examined photographs of the remains
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: before they were reburied. He stated that the bones showed
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: evidence of systematic and precise trauma, inconsistent with either accidental
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: death or traditional Native American burial practices. He further noted
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: that the remains appeared to include those of at least
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: six individuals. one of whom had a silver filling in
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: a molar, a dental procedure that would have been unavailable
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: to indigenous peoples of the pre-colonial era. The cuts on
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: the bones weren't random, the examiner is quoted as saying.
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: They followed a pattern, almost like ritual markings. Some appeared
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: to have been made while the victims were still alive,
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: based on evidence of healing around certain marks. Others were
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: clearly post-mortem. Most disturbing were the skull fractures. Each skull
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: had been broken in precisely the same location, the left
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: temporal region, with what appeared to be a single, controlled
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: blow from an instrument like a hammer or the blunt
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: end of an axe. This wasn't murder in the heat
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: of passion. This was methodical. The examiner also described finding
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: trace evidence of a substance in the soil surrounding the
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: remains that laboratory tests identified as a mixture of human blood, mercury,
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: and an unidentified organic compound. When he attempted to pursue
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: further testing, the samples were confiscated by officials claiming to
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: represent the state archaeological office. No record of these samples
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: appears in any state archives. The graduate student's thesis, which
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: included this testimony, was never published. According to university records,
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: it was withdrawn due to methodological concerns. The student, Michael Cranston,
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: disappeared shortly after withdrawing his thesis. His car was found
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: abandoned at a rest stop near the Nevada border with
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: no signs of foul play. The case remains officially unsolved.
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: His family reported receiving a single postcard from him months later,
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: postmarked from Buenos Aires, Argentina, stating only, Some histories are
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: better left unwritten. I won't become. home. Handwriting experts later
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: questioned the authenticity of this message. What happened in Circleville
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: during that winter of 1887-1888 represents more than just a
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: series of frontier murders. It appears to mark the beginning
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: of what would become a pattern of behavior for the
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: group that would eventually be known as the Wild Bunch.
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: While history remembers them primarily as bank and train robbers
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: who prided themselves on never killing during their heists, the
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: evidence suggests a darker reality. Between 1888 and 1897, when
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: the Wild Bunch began their more documented criminal activities, at
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: least 23 other disappearances across Wyoming, Colorado, and Utah occurred.
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: share striking similarities with the Circleville incidents. In each case,
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: the victims had some connection, however minor, with Butch Cassidy
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: or his known associates. In each case, investigations were perfunctory
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: at best, often led by local authorities with familial or
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: financial ties to the Parker Extended Network. And in each case,
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: surviving records show evidence of alteration or selective redaction. One
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: particularly disturbing case occurred in Hanksville, Utah, in the summer
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: of 1889. According to local newspaper accounts, a surveyor named
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: Edward Moreland vanished while mapping terrain near the Dirty Devil River.
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: Moreland had been contracted by a Denver-based mining company to
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: assess potential silver deposits in the region. His last known
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: communication was a letter to his employers stating he had
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: encountered unexpected opposition from local interests and mentioning specifically a
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: confrontation with a young man claiming to represent the Parker
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: family holdings. Three days after sending this letter, Moreland disappeared.
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: His survey equipment was found neatly arranged beside his campsite,
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: as if he had stepped away momentarily intending to return.
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: His field journals, which would have contained his observations and maps,
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: were missing. A search party organized by the local sheriff
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: found only a set of footprints leading from the campsite
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: to the river's edge, where they abruptly ended. The sheriff's
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: report concluded that Moreland had likely fallen into the river
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: and drowned, though no body was ever recovered. What the
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: official report failed to mention, but was later revealed in
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: a letter from one of the search party members to
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: his brother, was the discovery of a strange arrangement of
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: stones near the footprints, seven stones placed in a circle
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: with a central stone bearing markings similar to those later
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: found at other sites connected to the Cassidy clan. a
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: curious pattern emerges when these disappearances are mapped geographically and chronologically.
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: They create a rough outline of the movements of Cassidy
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: and his associates during this nine-year period, suggesting that their
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: more famous robberies may have been secondary to other, more
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: disturbing activities. Dr. Calvin Hutchins, a criminologist who attempted to
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: map this pattern in a 1966 study, found that the
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: disappearances occurred in clusters, usually preceding major robberies attributed to
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: the Wild Bunch by one to two weeks. His analysis
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: suggested that these weren't random crimes of opportunity, but calculated
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: acts that served some purpose in the gang's broader criminal enterprise.
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: Hutchins presented his preliminary findings at a criminology conference in
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: Denver in May 1966. His paper, titled Patterns of Disappearance,
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: Reconsidering the Criminal Methodology of the Wild Bunch, was withdrawn
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: from publication following the conference. Hutchins accepted a position at
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: a university in Australia three months later and discontinued his
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: research on the topic. Before leaving the United States, however,
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: Hutchins confided in a colleague, Dr. Margaret Sloan, sharing his
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: concerns about pressure he had received to abandon his research.
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: According to Sloan's notes from their conversation, Hutchins had been
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: approached by a man claiming to represent the Utah Historical
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: Society who had offered him a substantial grant to pursue
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: more productive avenues of research. When Hutchins declined, he began
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: receiving anonymous letters containing personal information about his wife and children,
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: including details of their daily routines that could only have
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: been obtained through surveillance. The last straw, Sloan wrote in
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: her private journal, was finding a small cloth bundle on
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: their doorstep containing a lock of his daughter's hair, hair
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: that had been cut while she slept, without anyone in
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: the household being aware of an intruder. Attached was a
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: note reading simply, Some patterns are best left unmapped. Calvin
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: showed me the bundle. The hair was tied with a
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: thin strip of rawhide and wrapped in a square of
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: fabric that appeared to be cut from an old garment.
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: Most disturbing was the symbol drawn on the fabric in
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: what looked like dried blood, a circular design with radiating
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: lines that Calvin said, matched symbols found at several sites
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: connected to the disappearances he was studying. Perhaps most chilling
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: is the testimony of James Le Fleur, a former member
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: of the Wild Bunch, who was captured after a failed
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: bank robbery in Telluride in 1889. Le Fleur, facing hanging,
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: offered information in exchange for a reduced sentence. According to
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: court transcripts that were sealed until 1965, Le Fleur described
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: rituals conducted before major robberies, involving tokens taken from those
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: who had crossed them. Before every job, LeFleur is recorded
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: as saying, Cassidy would gather us in a circle. He'd
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: lay out items taken from them that had disappeared, a watch,
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: a ring, a lock of hair. We'd each touch the
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: items while he recited something, sounded like a verse, but
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: not from any Bible I know. Said it gave us
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: power over those who might try to stop us. Said
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: it made us invisible to the law. I didn't believe
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: in such things, but the others did. Especially the kid,
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: likely referring to Kid Curry. He'd get a look in
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: his eye during those times, like he wasn't all there.
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: When pressed by the judge to provide more details about
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: who those who had disappeared were, LeFleur reportedly became agitated, saying,
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: I've said too much already. They'll know. Somehow, they always know.
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: Even in here, they'll find out. LeFleur was found hanged
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: in his cell, The night before he was to provide
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: details to a federal marshal, his death was ruled a suicide.
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: A detail not included in the official court transcript, but
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: noted in the private journal of the court stenographer, describes
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: Le Fleur's final moments in the courtroom. As the prisoner
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: was being led away, he suddenly turned back, his face ashen.
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: He lunged toward the judge, not in attack but in desperation,
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: as if seeking protection. They're here, he said. looking toward
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: the back of the courtroom. He's here! When the judge
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: asked who he meant, Le Fleur pointed to an empty
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: corner of the room and said, Parker, standing right there, watching.
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: Always watching. There was, of course, no one there, though
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: I confess a chill passed through me at his words
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: and the absolute conviction with which he spoke them. The
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: Stenographer's Journal, discovered among family papers in 1972, also contains
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: a curious addendum. found scratched into the wall of Le
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: Fleur's cell after his death. They take more than your life.
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: Below these words was a crude drawing of what appeared
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: to be a mineshaft entrance. The abandoned mineshaft, near. Circleville
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: collapsed completely following heavy rains in 1912. By then, the
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: story of what had happened there had faded into local legend,
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: spoken of only in whispers, if at all. The Parker
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: family's influence ensured that more palatable narratives about Butch Cassidy prevailed.
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: One aspect of the Cassidy legend that has received little
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: scrutiny is the claim that he and his partner, the
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: Sundance Kid, died in a shootout with Bolivian troops in 1908.
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: This narrative, based largely on unreliable secondhand accounts, has been
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: challenged by numerous historians. Some evidence suggests that Cassidy returned
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: to the United States and lived under an assumed identity
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: for many years. A report filed by Pinkerton detective Frank
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: Chapman in 1925, discovered in the agency's archives in 1970,
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: describes an encounter with a man Chapman believed to be
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: Cassidy in a small town in Oregon. Chapman wrote, The
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: subject matches Cassidy's description in all particulars, though aged appropriately
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: for the intervening years. When approached and addressed by the
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: name Parker, he showed no surprise, merely surprise. A wariness!
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: He invited me to join him for coffee, during which
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: he made several references to events only Cassidy could have known.
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: When I inquired directly as to his identity, he smiled
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: and said,' That man died in South America, as you
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: well know.' Upon leaving, he placed his hand on my
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: shoulder and said,' Best let sleeping dogs lie, Mr. Chapman.
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: Some stories aren't meant to have proper endings.' Chapman requested
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: reassignment the following day and never pursued the Cassidy case again.
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: What Chapman's report fails to mention, but was revealed in
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: his personal correspondence discovered among his effects after his death
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: in 1947, was the reason for his sudden abandonment of
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: the case. In a letter to his brother dated three
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: days after the encounter, Chapman wrote, I cannot explain even
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: to myself the effect this man had on me. I
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: have faced hardened criminals, murderers, and madmen in my career
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: without flinching, but something in this man's gaze froze my
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: very soul. When he touched my shoulder, I felt a
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: coldness that lingered for hours afterward. And, though he spoke
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: of letting sleeping dogs lie, his eyes conveyed a different
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: message entirely, that I stood at the edge of something
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: so dark that a single step further would mean my
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: own destruction. I am not a superstitious man, but I
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: tell you now, I will never speak this man's name again,
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: nor pursue him further. Some hunts are not worth the
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: price they demand. In a journal entry dated a week later,
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: Chapman noted, Found a small package on my doorstep this morning.
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: Inside was a pocket watch I recognized as belonging to Johnson,
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: the Pinkerton man, who disappeared in Wyoming in 96 while
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: tracking the Wild Bunch. The attached was a note reading only,
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: Time runs out for those who look too deeply. I
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: have requested transfer to the Chicago office. Effective immediately. When
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: Hollywood immortalized Cassidy in the 1969 film Butch Cassidy and
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: the Sundance Kid, the charismatic, nonviolent outlaw portrayal cemented his
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: place in American mythology. What remains hidden is the psychological
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: reality of the man and his associates, the calculated terror
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: they instilled in small communities, the methodical elimination of those
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: who opposed them, and the network of influence that protected
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: them long after their supposed deaths. In 1965, anthropologist Dr.
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: Raymond Whitaker attempted to interview elderly residents of Pute County
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: about local histories. His recorded interviews, housed in the American
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: Folklore Collection but restricted from public access until recently, include
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: one particularly disturbing account from 93-year-old Sarah Jenkins, who had
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: been a child in Circleville during the winter of 1887-1888. Jenkins,
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: speaking in a barely audible voice, recalled, We were told
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: never to look at them directly. Mother said, If they
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: caught you looking, they'd remember your face. And you didn't
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: want them remembering your face. The night Sheriff Wattis disappeared,
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: I saw them riding back into town. Their horses were
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: different somehow, moving too quiet. And they were carrying something
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: wrapped in canvas, something that dripped a dark trail in
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: the snow. I closed my curtains and didn't look again.
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: Next morning, that trail was gone, like it had never
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: been there. But I knew what I saw. Jenkins went
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: on to describe how, in the days following the sheriff's disappearance,
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: she observed Robert Parker and his associates entering and leaving
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: the Parker family home at odd hours. They'd come and
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: go at midnight, at dawn, always carrying things, bundles, boxes.
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: Once I saw them with a wooden chest that took
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: three men to carry. They brought it in empty. and
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: took it out full. It was too heavy then, for
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: even the three of them. They struggled with it. In
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: a portion of the interview that was apparently edited from
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: the official transcript, but referenced in Whitaker's research notes, Jenkins
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: described a night, in late February, when she was awakened
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: by what she thought was singing coming from the direction
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: of the Parker house. It wasn't like any singing I'd
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: ever heard, she reportedly said. The words weren't in any
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: language I knew, and the voices— They didn't sound quite human.
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: Too hollow, somehow. Too cold. I put my pillow over
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: my head to block it out, but it seemed to
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: get inside me anyway. When I finally fell back asleep,
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: I dreamed of the mine shaft. In the dream, it
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: wasn't just a hole in the ground. It was a mouth,
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: and it was speaking those same words I'd heard in
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: the singing. When Whitaker attempted to follow up on Jenkins' account,
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: he discovered she had been moved to a private care
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: facility in Salt Lake City. The facility administrators denied him access,
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: citing her fragile mental state. She died three weeks later.
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: No death certificate was ever filed, and requests for information
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: about her burial have been met with administrative silence. Another
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: of Whitaker's interviews with 87-year-old Frederick Garwood, a former miner
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: who had worked claims near Circleville in the late 1880s,
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: provided additional context for the abandoned mine where the disappearances
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: allegedly centered. That wasn't just any mine, Garwood stated. It
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: had a history even before the Parker boy and his
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: friends took an interest in it. It was started by
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: a fellow named Jeremiah Blackwood around 1870. He was digging
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: for silver, but found something else. He never said what exactly,
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: but he stopped using hired help after the first few months,
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: started working alone, became real secretive. Then one day... He
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: sealed up the entrance and left town. Just walked away
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: from what everyone thought was a worthless claim. When asked
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: what he thought Blackwood had found, Garwood became evasive. Some
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: things are best left buried. All I know is, when
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: the Parker boy reopened that mine, things changed in Circleville.
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: People changed, got quiet, started keeping to themselves. You'd see
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: them in town, going about their business, but something was different.
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: like they were just going through the motions. And their eyes!
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: There was something missing in their eyes. Garwood's account included
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: details that were later corroborated by land office records. Jeremiah
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: Blackwood did indeed file a claim for the mine in
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: 1870 and abruptly abandoned it a year later, despite initial
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: assay reports suggesting the presence of silver. What the official
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: records don't mention, but was found in Blackwood's personal journal,
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: discovered in the archives of a Portland, Oregon, historical society
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: in 1971, is his final entry before abandoning the claim,
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: May God forgive me for what I've uncovered. I have
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: sealed the entrance as best I can and will depart tomorrow.
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: I leave this warning to any who might follow. There
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: are depths to which men should not descend, secrets the
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: earth keeps for good reason. What lies in that darkness
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: should remain there undisturbed I have seen it only once,
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: but it sees me still in my dreams. The question remains,
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: what actually happened in that mineshaft? The fragmentary evidence suggests
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: something beyond simple murder. The unusual markings on the bones,
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: the ritual collection of personal items, and the extreme measures
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: taken to conceal these activities point to something more systematic
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: and psychologically disturbing than the actions of typical frontier outlaws.
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: Some researchers have suggested that Robert Parker's transformation into Butch
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: Cassidy may have been more than just a name change
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: to evade the law. The psychological break implied by adopting
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: a new identity coincides with the events of that winter,
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: suggesting a more profound transformation, perhaps a recognition that there
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: was no going back from what had been done in
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: that darkness. Cassidy's childhood friends interviewed decades later as part
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: of various historical projects, consistently described him as having been
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: a different person after that winter. Joseph Meeks, who had
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: attended school with Parker, told an interviewer in 1932, Bobby
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: Parker was a normal boy. Mischievous, sure, but not mean,
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: not cruel. But after that winter, the winter when the
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: Morleys and the others disappeared, he was different, harder, colder,
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: like something inside him had been hollowed out and replaced
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: with something else. His laugh wasn't the same. It didn't
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: reach his eyes anymore. Another childhood acquaintance, Mary Lawson, provided
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: a similar account to a local historian in 1940. The
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: change in him was so sudden it frightened us all.
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: Before that winter, he was just a boy with a
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: bit too much spirit. After, there was something about him
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: that made even the dogs in town grow quiet when
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: he passed. His own dog. A hound he'd raised from
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: a pup. Wouldn't go near him anymore. Just cowered and whined.
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: Animals sense things we don't, my grandmother always said. They
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: see what's really there, beneath the skin. The few surviving
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: letters written by Cassidy during his later years, particularly those
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: sent from South America, where he allegedly fled after faking
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: his death, contain cryptic references to the winter work and
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: debts paid in full. One letter, sent to his sister
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: Lula Parker Bettinson in 1925, includes the phrase, What comfort
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: I take is in knowing that none who wronged us
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: drew another breath to speak of it, in that, at least,
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: we were thorough. The letter was promptly destroyed by Bettinson,
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: according to her grandson's testimony to a historian in 1963.
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: She allegedly told him, Some things are best left buried
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: with the bones. Another letter, discovered in the personal effects
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: of Matt Warner after his death in 1938, offers perhaps
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: the most disturbing insight into the psychological state of the
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: Cassidy clan during this period. Written by Cassidy to Warner
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: in 1899, shortly before the formation of the Wild Bunch,
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: it reads in part, I am troubled, Matt, by dreams
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: of the shaft. of what waits there still. Sometimes I
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: think I hear them, even now, all these years later.
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: Their voices carried on the wind, asking why, as if
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: they didn't know, as if they hadn't pushed us to
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: it with their judgments, their small-minded decency. What we began
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: there can never be undone. And perhaps that's as it
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: should be. We are what the shaft made us. Remember
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: the oath we took, in blood and bone. Never speak
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: of it, never return to it, and never stop. Warner
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: apparently kept this letter hidden in a false bottom of
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: his trunk, discovered only when the trunk was sold at
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: auction following his widow's death. The buyer, recognizing the historical
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: significance of the letter, turned it over to the Utah
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: Historical Society and where it was promptly classified and restricted
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: from public access. Its existence came to light only through
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: a clerical error in 1967, when it was briefly listed
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: in a catalogue of the Society's holdings before being removed.
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: A forensic analysis of the letter, conducted surreptitiously by a
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: graduate student with access to the archives in 1968, revealed
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: several disturbing details not apparent in the text itself. The
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: paper showed traces of an unusual residue, which tests identified
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: as a combination of mineral compounds consistent with those found
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: in the soil near Circleville, specifically in the area where
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: the mine shaft had been located. More disturbing was the
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: discovery that the ink used contained traces of human blood,
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: a practice occasionally found in personal correspondence of a highly
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: emotional or significant nature during the 19th century. but usually
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: reserved for love letters or death notifications, not ordinary communication
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: between associates. The graduate students' findings were documented in a
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: personal journal that was later acquired by a private collector
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: of Western memorabilia. The collector, who has requested anonymity, allowed
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: limited access to the journal for this investigation, noting that
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: they had received anonymous offers to purchase it for sums
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: far exceeding its apparent historical or financial value. The legacy
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: of the Cassidy clan extends beyond their criminal exploits. It
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: reaches into the very way history is recorded and preserved.
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: The systematic removal of evidence, the intimidation of witnesses, the
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: co-option of local authorities, and the careful cultivation of a
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: more acceptable narrative represent a form of historical violence that
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: continues to this day. In 1957, a small independent publisher
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: in Salt Lake City announced plans to release a book
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: titled The Dark Winter, Butch Cassidy's Hidden History, by local
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: historian Gerald Monroe. Before the book could be published, the
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: publishing house suffered a devastating fire that destroyed not only
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: the manuscript, but all the research materials Monroe had collected
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: over a decade. Monroe himself was severely injured in the fire,
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: suffering burns that left him unable to continue his work.
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: The official investigation concluded that the fire was caused by
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: faulty electrical wiring, despite the building having passed a safety
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: inspection just two weeks earlier. In a brief interview given
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: from his hospital bed, Monroe said only, They found me.
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: I don't know how, but they found me. The book
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: is gone. Let it be. Let it all be. He
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: refused to discuss his research further and died three months
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: later from complications related to his injuries. What is known
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: about Monroe's research comes primarily from correspondence with colleagues and
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: notes shared with his editor prior to the fire. These materials,
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: preserved by his editor's widow and made available to select
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: researchers in the 1970s, suggest that Monroe had uncovered a
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: pattern of influence extending from the Parker family to various
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: financial and political institutions throughout the West. Most significantly, He
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: had traced a series of land acquisitions following the Circleville
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: disappearances that eventually formed the basis for several major mining
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: and railroad developments in the early 20th century. One of
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: Monroe's letters to a colleague at the University of Colorado states,
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: What began as an investigation into frontier outlaws has revealed
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: something far more disturbing, a calculated use of terror and
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: murder as tools for economic acquisitions. The disappearances weren't random
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: acts of violence, but strategic eliminations of obstacles to the
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: Parker family's territorial ambitions. Most disturbing is the evidence suggesting
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: that these ambitions weren't limited to the Parkers themselves, but
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: were part of a broader consortium involving several supposedly respectable
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: business interests in Denver, Salt Lake City, and San Francisco.
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: The colleague to whom this letter was addressed, Professor William Hargrove,
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: committed suicide two weeks after receiving it, leaving a note
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: that read only, Some truths are too heavy to bear.
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: What happened in Circleville during the E.T. winter of 1887-1888
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: may never be fully known. The mine shaft is now
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: sealed beneath tons of rock. Most physical evidence has been
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: destroyed or lost in convenient accidents or bureaucratic transfers. Those
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: who knew the truth firsthand have long since passed away.
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: many under circumstances that raise more questions than they answer.
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: What remains are the echoes, fragments of testimony, inconsistencies in
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: official records, the suspicious patterns of power and influence that
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: continue to protect certain narratives while suppressing others. And perhaps
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: most tellingly, the persistent fear that still lingers in the
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: descendants of those who lived through that winter. One such
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: descendant is Marie Wattis Peterson, great-granddaughter of Sheriff James Wattis.
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: Interviewed in 1998 for a local history project, she explained
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: the curious silence that had surrounded her family's history. Growing up,
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: we never spoke of great-grandfather. When I would ask, my
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: grandmother would change the subject. Once, when I was about 12,
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: I found an old badge in a drawer. When I
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: showed it to my grandmother, she became so upset she
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: had to take to her bed. She made me promise
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: never to mention it again, never to ask about him.
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: She said, they're still watching. They're always watching. I didn't
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: understand who they were, but I never asked again. Peterson
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: went on to describe how, even decades later, her family
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: maintained certain unusual habits. Never discussing family history outside the home,
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: changing the subject when Butch Cassidy was mentioned, avoiding Circleville entirely,
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: despite having roots there. It was like an unspoken rule,
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: she said. We don't go there. We don't talk about it.
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: We don't draw attention to ourselves. Most disturbing was her
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: recollection of her grandmother's deathbed confession in 1972. She called
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: me close and whispered, The Parker boy and his friends,
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: they didn't just kill your great-grandfather, they took parts of him,
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: as trophies. And not just him, all of them. They
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: kept pieces. And they used them for something, something I
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: won't speak of even now. But they're still out there.
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: the pieces. And as long as they have them, they
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: have power. I thought it was just the morphine talking,
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: but the fear in her eyes, that was real. Peterson
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: herself became increasingly reclusive in the years following the interview.
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: Neighbors reported that she kept her curtains drawn at all
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: times and installed multiple locks on her doors. When a
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: local historical society attempted to follow up with her for
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: additional information in 2003, they discovered that she had sold
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: her home and moved without leaving a forwarding address. Recurrent
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: whereabouts are unknown. In 2011, a small archaeological survey was
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: conducted near the site of the collapsed mine as part
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: of an environmental impact study for a proposed highway expansion.
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: The survey was abruptly terminated when workers discovered what appeared
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: to be a stone cairn with symbols carved into its surface.
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: Before archaeologists could properly document the find, the cairn was
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: destroyed in what was described as an act of vandalism.
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: No suspects were ever identified. The project supervisor, Dr. Helen Martins,
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: filed a complaint with the State Historical Preservation Office, arguing
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: that the destruction appeared deliberate and professional rather than random vandalism.
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: Her complaint was dismissed due to insufficient evidence. She subsequently
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: accepted a position at a university in New Zealand, and
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: has declined all requests for interviews regarding the incident. One
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: of the workers present at the site, speaking anonymously to
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: a local newspaper reporter, described the cairn as unlike anything
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: I've ever seen. The symbols weren't Native American, at least
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: not any tribe from around here. They looked wrong somehow,
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: like they hurt your eyes to look at them too long,
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: and there was something buried underneath. We saw the edge
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: of it when we moved one of the stones, looked
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: like a metal box of some kind. That's when the
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: men in the truck showed up. They didn't identify themselves,
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: just said the site was being shut down by order
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: of the State Historical Society. They waited while we packed up,
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: then stayed behind. We heard the explosion as we were
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: driving away. sounded like dynamite the newspaper never ran the
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: story the reporter who conducted the interview janet morgan left
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: the newspaper shortly afterward in a private blog post that
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: was quickly deleted but archived by a colleague she wrote
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: 20 years in journalism and i've never been told so
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: directly not to pursue a story No explanation, just a
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: firm drop-it from the editor. When I pressed, he showed
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: me a letter on legal letterhead representing some historical preservation
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: trust I'd never heard of, threatening litigation that would bankrupt
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: the paper ten times over. But it was his face
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: that convinced me. He was scared. Not of lawsuits, but
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: of something else, something he wouldn't name. I'm leaving the paper,
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: but not the story. Some truths need to be told,
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: no matter who wants them buried. Morgan began researching independently,
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: focusing on land ownership records for the area around the
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: mineshaft site. Six weeks into her investigation, she was killed
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: in what police described as a home invasion gone wrong.
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: The perpetrators were never identified, and the case remains open.
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: Her research materials were not found in her home, though
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: her laptop and other valuables were left untouched. Local residents
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: still speak of the Parker legacy with a curious mixture
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: of pride and unease. Circleville maintains a small museum dedicated
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: to its famous outlaw son, but notably, the exhibits focus
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: exclusively on his later career as a bank robber. The
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: winter of 1887-1888 is not mentioned. A visitor in 2017
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: reported asking the elderly museum docent about that period. The
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: docent allegedly replied, We don't talk about that winter. Never have,
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: never will. Some stories aren't meant to be told. When depressed,
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: the docent excused herself and closed the museum early that day.
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: The museum itself occupies a curious place in the town's geography.
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: Located on the main street, it sits directly across from
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: the old Parker family home, which remains private property, owned
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: by a trust whose beneficiaries are not publicly listed. The
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: house has been meticulously maintained, but stands perpetually empty, its
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: windows covered with heavy drapes. Local children reportedly avoid walking
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: past it, especially after dark. Behind the house, barely visible
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: from the road, stands a small stone structure that predates
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: the house itself. According to county records, it was originally
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: a spring house, used for keeping food cool in the
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: days before refrigeration. However, architectural historians have noted several unusual features,
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: including the thickness of its walls, the depth of its foundation,
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: and a curious arrangement of symbols carved into the lintel
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: above its door, symbols that bear a striking resemblance to
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: those reportedly found on the cairn near the mineshaft. A
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: folklore researcher who photographed these symbols in 2005 reported that,
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: upon developing the film, she found the images inexplicably blurred,
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: despite all other photographs in the roll being clear. When
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: she returned to take digital photos, she discovered that the
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: lintel had been replaced with a new stone bearing no markings.
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: When she inquired about this at the town hall, she
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: was told that the structure had been renovated for preservation
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: purposes by the historical trust that owned the property. No
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: records of this renovation were filed with the building department.
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: In 2015, a team from a popular paranormal investigation television
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: show attempted to film a segment about the Parker house
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: and the legends surrounding it. They were denied permits by
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: the town council and reportedly received anonymous threats warning them
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: to stay away. The episode was never produced. The producer
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: of the show later shared in an industry podcast that
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: the experience had been unlike any other in his career.
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: We've been denied access to locations before, but never with
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: this level of, I don't know what to call it,
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: except fear. The town officials weren't angry or defensive. They
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: were terrified. One of them took me aside and said,
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: For your own safety, for the safety of your crew,
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: please leave this alone. You don't understand what you're dealing with.
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: When I asked what he meant, he just shook his
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: head and walked away. We decided to respect their wishes,
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: but I still wonder... What could inspire that kind of reaction,
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: more than a century after the events in question? Perhaps
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: the final word on this disturbing chapter should go to
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: Thomas Harrington, the young man who witnessed the Cassidy clan
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: leading someone to the mine shaft that winter day. Near
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: the end of his 1934 testimony, he stated,' I' ve carried
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: this weight for almost fifty years. I've woken countless nights
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: hearing those sounds from the mine.' I never saw what
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: they did down there. But I know this. What happened
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: in Circleville wasn't robbery or ordinary murder. It was something colder,
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: more deliberate. They enjoyed it. And the worst part is,
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: they got away with it. Not just got away, but
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: were celebrated for it. Made into heroes. If there's a hell,
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: they're surely there. But their legend lives on, cleaned up,
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: and made respectable. That's the real crime. that we took
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: monsters and turned them into myths. Harrington died in his
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: sleep the night after giving his testimony. The official cause
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: was listed as natural causes due to advanced age. He
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: was 63 years old. The shadow of the Cassidy clan
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: still falls across the American West, hidden behind the more
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: palatable myths we've chosen to remember. But in the quiet
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: valleys of southern Utah, when winter descends and the isolation
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: grows profound, Some say you can still feel the weight
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: of what happened there, a history too macabre to print
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: in books, too disturbing to acknowledge, but too significant to
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: ever truly disappear. The most troubling question isn't what happened
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: in that mineshaft, or even why it happened. The most
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: troubling question is how the truth could be so thoroughly
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: suppressed for so long, across generations, suggesting a network of
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: influences that extends far beyond what a simple outlaw gang
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: should have been capable of creating or maintaining. As recently
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: as 2019, researchers attempting to access certain historical records related
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: to Circleville and the Parker family have reported unusual difficulties,
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: files that should exist but don't, permissions suddenly revoked, and
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: in one case, a break-in at a researcher's home in
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: which nothing was taken except her notes on the case.
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: The researcher, doctoral candidate Emily Winters, from the University of Colorado,
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: abandoned her dissertation on power structures and historical narrative in
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: the American West shortly after the break-in. She has since
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: declined all requests for interviews, citing personal reasons for her
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: change in academic focus. What we are left with, then,
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: is a shadow history, a collection of fragments, testimonies, and
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: suspicious silences that outline the shape of something that has
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: been deliberately erased. Like a photo with a figure cut out,
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: we can see only the negative space, the absence that
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: tells us something was there. In that negative space lies
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: the true story of Butch Cassidy and his clan, not
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: the romanticized outlaws of film and folklore, but something far darker,
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: a group that instilled such terror that its effects are
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: still felt more than a century later. a network of
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: influence so effective that it could rewrite history itself and
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 1: a series of acts so disturbing that even those who
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: know the truth are afraid to speak it. The winter
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: of 1887-1888 in Circleville, Utah, remains a black hole in
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: American history, a place where truth went in but never
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: came out. What emerged instead was myth, carefully constructed and
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: jealously protected even to this day. As we conclude this
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: journey through one of the most disturbing cases in American
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 1: frontier history, we're left with more questions than answers, more
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: shadows than light. Perhaps that's as it should be. Perhaps
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: some truths are too dark to face directly. But one
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: thing is certain. The history of Butch Cassidy and the
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: wild bunch that appears in books, films, and museums is
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: not the whole story. It may not even be the
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: true story. It's the story that was allowed to survive.
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: carefully curated by hands that have never quite let go
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: of the power they seized in a small Utah town
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: during a long-ago winter. And somewhere, perhaps, the real story waits,
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: in a forgotten archive, an overlooked testimony, or a metal
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: box buried beneath a cairn of stones marked with symbols
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: that hurt the eyes to look upon. Until that story
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: is brought fully into the light, the legend of Butch
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: Cassidy remains incomplete. a sanitized myth concealing a truth too
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: macabre to print in history books.