The opportunity finally arrived on the warm morning of April 3. Anxious at being so close to the man they intended to kill, they nevertheless managed to keep cool as they waited for the right moment to strike. Joseph, Missouri, in advance of a planned bank robbery.
In March, James invited the Ford brothers to join him, his wife and two children at their new home in St. After agreeing to help his brother and share in the reward, Charley convinced James that Robert was the man they needed to pull off their next heist. Robert was not yet well acquainted with James, but Charley had worked his way into the outlaw's good graces. Bolton also revealed that her brother had a plan that could prove useful, and on January 13, the governor held another meeting with Robert in a Kansas City hotel room, where they forged the arrangement that promised Ford the reward money and a pardon for all crimes committed in exchange for the apprehension of James. In early January 1882, Bolton met with Crittenden, who agreed to spare Liddil from prosecution for his testimony against the James boys. Terrified at the thought of incurring James' wrath over the killing of his cousin, Liddil determined that it would be safer to get the law involved and asked his mistress to intervene. The two men shot it out at Bolton's home in December, with Robert believed to have stepped in and fired the fatal bullet at Hite. However, his makeshift gang was already coming apart at the seams, fueled by the tension between Hite and Liddil over their competition for the affection of the Fords' sister, a widow named Martha Bolton.
Jesse's response was to thumb his nose at them and stage another hold-up in September along the Chicago and Alton line outside Independence, Missouri.
0 kommentar(er)
