Store proprietor, Joseph Goldwater:
"These two street views show the location of the Goldwater-Castañeda store (see the circles). Bisbee didn’t have a bank yet, so payroll money and valuables were often kept in the store’s safe. The outlaws were counting on a payroll of $7,000, but the Tombstone stage bringing the money was delayed. If the robbers had fled up the canyon, they would have run into the disabled stage and gotten the money!"
alamogordonews. com, 05/22/2008 04:37:32 PM MDT
"At first the posse that went in pursuit was unsuccessful, partially because of their "tracker" - a man named John Heath. When the frustrated posse returned to Bisbee, two local men - Billy Daniels and a man named Hatch - went out into the desert and found some evidence on their own.
A clue
When Daniels and Hatch arrived at the ranch of a man named Frank Buckle, the rancher had not yet heard of the tragedy. He did however, have an interesting tale to tell the two deputized citizens. He informed them that "five tough ones" had arrived at his ranch two or three days prior and bought some horses.
He recalled that he had seen the quintet once before - in the company of John Heath.
Of course, the deputies' ears pricked up at the mention of Heath's name, but before they could comment, the helpful Mr. Buckle continued, supplying them with the names of all the bandits: Dan Dowd, Omar "Red" Sample, Dan Kelly, Jack "Tex" Howard, and "a Delaney." Daniels and Hatch looked at each other. They had no earthly idea where to find the five desperadoes, but they knew exactly where they could lay their hands on John Heath.
Heath's capture
County Sheriff Bob Paul, along with Deputy Hatch, found Heath lounging in a saloon and closed in on him from two sides. Heath offered no resistance and was promptly dragged off to jail.
There, the officers told a fib and informed Heath that they had already captured Dowd and Sample and the pair had implicated him. Heath bought it hook, line and sinker and promptly snitched on the entire group.
Even with this confession, the lawmen knew that their job wasn't going to be easy. The moment the people of Bisbee discovered that one of the perpetrators - the mastermind, as it turned out - was in the calaboose they would instantly seize him and decorated the nearest tree - or any elevated position - with him.
With this in mind, they quietly moved Heath from the Bisbee jail and transferred him to the more substantial jail at the county seat: Tombstone. Rewards were posted everywhere for the five gunmen. Something had to give, and it wasn't long before something did.
Rewards of $1,500 per man were placed on the heads of the five men still at large. Sure enough, some of the stolen jewelry surfaced almost immediately at Clifton, Ariz., north of Bisbee. Two deputies, named Hovey and Hill, were informed of a man who had been spending money liberally at Clifton and when they approached him, it turned out to be Omar "Red" Sample, in the company of Jack Howard, another of the bandits.
When the desperadoes were confronted, they elected to shoot it out. In the ensuing gun battle, Sample was wounded. Seeing his partner go down, Howard dropped his weapon and raised his hands. In short order, the two killers joined their associate, John Heath, in the Tombstone jail.
After that, things got rather interesting, at least from a legal standpoint. Billy Daniels received word from Mexican friends south of the border that Dan Dowd was at Sabrinal, Mexico, where he had procured employment as a miner. Without the slightest legal authority, Daniels packed his gear and headed for the border. Billy Daniels was a saloon owner and now a deputy who had participated in the shootout in Bisbee and he felt a certain compulsion to see justice done, regardless of the legalities involved.
Not long after, Daniels confronted Dowd in a mine bunkhouse and Dowd wisely chose not to shoot it out, possibly already aware of what had happened to his two comrades at Clifton.
Daniels smuggled Dowd onto a freight train bound for El Paso. It was illegal, but it worked.
That left only Dan Kelly and Bill Delaney.
Dan Kelly and Bill Delaney
Kelly was taken rather easily when he was surprised by deputies as he sat in a barber's chair in Deming.
Delaney was a tad more difficult. Like Dowd, he had decided to take refuge in Old Mexico. Again, Billy Daniels was notified by his Mexican friends (apparently there were a lot of them) of Delaney's whereabouts, and once again he packed up and headed for the border.
This time, however, it was a little more complicated. Delaney was already in jail in Mexico. Nevertheless, when the Mexican authorities heard about Delaney's transgressions, they allowed Daniels to simply walk away with the prisoner. Once again, Daniels slipped his prisoner onto a northbound freight.
It took two months exactly, but on Feb. 8, 1884, all six perpetrators were securely - or so the lawmen thought - incarcerated in the Tombstone jail. The five gunmen all pled guilty, but Heath asked for, and received, a separate trial.
Kelly, Howard, Delaney, Sample and Dowd were all found to be incredibly guilty and on Feb. 11 they were sentenced to hang. Ten days later, on Feb. 21, Heath was also found guilty, but of second degree murder and was sentenced to life imprisonment."
