In 1918, Amos Henry Ratliff and his wife Beulah along with their daughter Viola lived in Eureka Springs. Amos, in a short-sighted effort to to provide for his family, got involved with a scheme selling mortgaged properties and wound up going to jail.
Ratliff was convicted of his crimes served a two-year sentence, which sent his life spiraling out of control.
Ratliff was born in Lawrence County, Ohio, the son of John H. Ratliff and Christina Webb.
His parents divorced before 1900 and by 1901 his father had remarried and remained in Ohio. His mother Christina Webb Ratliff had moved to Carroll County, Arkansas and remarried to George Washington Evans.
On June 18, 1916, the 20-year-old Ratliff married 15-year-old Beulah Jones, daughter of Henry and Effie Jones, in Carroll County. Together they had one child, daughter Viola Ratliff, in 1917.
Ratliff was convicted of selling mortgaged properties and served a two-year sentence. During that time, his young wife filed for divorce.
After his release, Ratliff returned home to Eureka Springs.
In September 1920, he observed his wife driving out in a buggy with John Barry, a well-known farmer. In a jealous rage, Ratliff shot and killed John Barry.
After being released in bail and exhausting all he money he had to put towards his legal defense so he came up with a plan to rob a woman named Winfred Frazier, "an elderly spinster" who lived four miles outside Eureka Springs.
He broke into her home on the premise of getting enough money from the robbery to, ironically, pay for the defense for the first murder he had committed. When he toid her to put her hands up she wrapped herself in a blanket and sprung from her bed. He fired one shot, killing the woman instantly.
Some news reports of the day indicated that motivation for the robbery was also to obtain money that Amos intended to use for gifts to win back his estranged wife.
However, in his written confession published in The Jacksonian (Cimarron, Kansas) on July 14, 1921 Amos stated that the money was to be put toward notes coming due on another penitentiary charge.
Ratliff said when he attempted to rob Frazier, she pulled a pistol on him, at which point he discharged his shotgun.
Ratliff was convicted of the murders of both Barry and Frazier, received the death penalty and was sentenced to death on September 30, 1921.
Petitions were circulated and presented, requesting that the judge reconsider the harsh sentence. After a brief stay of execution, the judgement was set to be carried out on October 14, 1921.
Ratliff was electrocuted in Little Rock at the age of 25. The Star Progress reported that he walked to the death chamber unaided and that his remains were returned to Eureka Springs for burial.
After his death, Amos's ex-wife married Walter Newton Dowell in Carroll County in 1922 and that union produced eight children. She lived to the ripe old age of 85 before passing in Eureka Springs in 2002.
Amos Ratliff was buried in an unmarked grave in the IOOF Cemetery in Eureka Springs.
