James Daily

Daily Dead

The Victim of the Bellevue Murder
He Dies Sunday Morning after Making a Deposition
How the Cold-Blooded Wretches Were Frightened from their Booty
They are Tracked to the River Bank Opposite the Iowa Side

James Daily, the victim of the murderous attempt at robbery, near Bellevue on Saturday evening, died Sunday morning about 7 o’clock from the effects of the first shot.

Before dying he made a deposition in which he stated the manner of the attack. He was driving along in his wagon behind that of Winters and Ward, when Ward jumped out, came back, jumped into his wagon and sat down by him. Suddenly and without a word of warning, Ward pulled out his revolver and shot him, the ball entering his lungs. Ward then jumped out and fired another shot which glanced off from a bone. Daily’s remarkable strength sustained him and he whipped up his horses and drove down the lane to Patrick’s house, when he was exhausted from the hemorrhage.

His murderers evidently expected that he would fall where he was shot and were panic-stricken when they saw him drive off. They dared not follow where he stopped in front of the house, which would have exposed them.

Dr. Coffman, who went down from this city to attend Daily, told him that the wound was fatal, and he had but a few hours to live. Daily answered that he did not want to die, but would be resigned if he must go. He wanted his horses given to his brother, who lives in Albia, Monroe county, Iowa, where a brother-in-law also resides. Daily was but 23 years of age.

A Catholic priest, who happened fortunately to be staying at Bellevue, was called and gave the dying man the last rites of the church. After hearing the confession the priest said to an officer that this was a good young man.

District Attorney Ferguson went down yesterday morning with Frank Dillon, one of the hostlers at the checkered barn in this city where the three parties to the murder stopped on the previous night. Dillon positively identified the body as that of Daily, although it had turned black and was swollen.

Sheriff Saling of Sarpy county and his men continued to watch the timber in which the murderers were supposed to have taken refuge until the next morning. Then they tracked the men to a sand bar in the river some three miles below this city. Here their team was found unhitched, and the old wagon they had, having been left in the woods, it is believed that the fugitives from justice had got a boat and gone over to the Iowa side, although the fishermen in that vicinity asserted that they had taken over no one.

The coroner in Sarpy county has possession of the murdered man’s team and wagon, and Sheriff Saling has in charge the $80 in money found on his person.

The coroner’s jury found a verdict in accordance with these facts.

The funeral took place yesterday morning, Undertaker Pomroy sending down a coffin and the interment being made in the cemetery at Bellevue.

From the Omaha World-Herald, (Omaha, Douglas Co., Nebraska), dated September 23, 1879