Murder in Montague - Frontier Justice and Retribution in Texas (Paperback)

On a sweltering August night in 1876, Methodist minister William England, his wife, Selena, and two of her children were brutally slaughtered in their North Texas home. Acting on Selena's deathbed testimony, a neighbor, his brother-in-law, and a friend were arrested and tried for the murders. Murder in Montague tells the story of this gruesome crime and its murky aftermath. In this engrossing blend of true crime reporting, social drama, and legal history, author Glen Sample Ely presents a vivid snapshot of frontier justice and retribution in Texas following the Civil War. The sheer brutality of the Montague murders terrified settlers already traumatized by decades of chaos, violence, and fear - from the deadly raids of Comanche and Kiowa Indians to the terrors of vigilantes, lynchings, and Reconstruction lawlessness. But the crime's aftermath - involving five Texas governors, five trials at Montague and Gainesville, five appeals to the Texas Court of Appeals, and three life sentences at hard labor in the state's abominable and inhumane prison system - offered little in the way of reassurance or resolution. Viewed from any perspective, the 1876 England family murders were both a human tragedy and a miscarriage of justice. Combining the long view of history and the intimate detail of true crime reporting, Murder in Montague deftly captures this moment of reckoning in the story of Texas, as vigilante justice grudgingly gave way to an established system of law and order.

General

Imprint:	University of Oklahoma Press
Country of origin:	United States
Release date:	August 2020
Authors:	Glen Sample Ely
Dimensions:	229 x 152 x 10mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Paperback
Pages:	166
ISBN-13:	978-0-8061-6709-1
Categories:	Books > Humanities > History > History of specific subjects > Local history Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > Crime & criminology > General Books > History > History of specific subjects > Local history
LSN:	0-8061-6709-2
Barcode:	9780806167091

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