On July 13, 1890, Deputy Billy had arrested Simon Clark in Stonewall, which is 10 miles southeast of Ada, for introducing whiskey into the Indian Nation.
About 12 miles southeast of Stonewall that night, deputy Billy, Clark and Clark’s cousin, Richard Cochran, who had come along to post Clark’s bail, made camp. The next day the deputy’s body was found with a bullet hole in his chest below his heart and an exit wound between his shoulder blades and the two other men were missing.
Clark and Cochran were arrested on August 19 and claimed that the deputy’s death was an accident. They advised that the deputy’s rifle had been laying on the ground and when he bent over to pick it up his pistol fell out of it’s holster, the hammer striking the rifle causing the pistol to fire.
The two men were charged with his murder.
