He Hung 'em High: April 27, 1888 - Owen Hill, George Moss, Jackson Crow

A murder conviction in the wake of domestic violence, the death of a prominent merchant in 1884, and the killing of a rancher on the Red River by a cattle rustler determined the fates of three men who met their end on a rainy April afternoon in 1888.

U.S. Deputy Marshals tracked down Owen Hill, a Black outlaw wanted for the brutal murder of his wife and mother-in-law. His fate was sealed when he wrote to a friend inquiring whether his wife had succumbed to her wounds.

Jackson Crow, a Choctaw Indian, had killed a merchant named Charles Wilson in the Choctaw Nation, while George Moss engaged in a deadly shootout with a rancher while stealing cattle along the Red River in southwestern Oklahoma.

The execution of Hill, Crow, and Moss marked one of only four instances in which three men were hanged on the same day at Fort Smith. The gallows at Fort Smith, reconstructed today as a historical site, bore witness to 87 executions over a 24-year period.