Pancake Tales from the Texas Dust
© Virginia Marin
...When a group from the church reached Stull's home they found not only the body of John Stull, but also the remains of another man named Smith. This double murder was diabolical. In the improvement of his place, Stull had piled up in front of his gate a large stack of cedar posts. In the commission of the murder, a contingent of the assassins had concealed themselves behind these posts while another contingent, apparently two in number, had slipped around behind the Stull home, had saturated the walls with coal oil and had set the house on fire. Stull apparently had no idea whatsoever that he was to be assassinated. He likely thought that his house was on fire, as a water bucket lay near his body. He had evidently jumped out of bed , run for a water bucket and then to the front to see where the blaze was strongest. As he emerged from his front door he had been shot to death by the posse of men concealed behind the cedar posts.
The assassins had not calculated upon an extra man being there, nor Smith's wife. One of the strangest features of this tale was that while the bodies of Stull and Smith were riddled with bullets, neither of the Stull children who were in the arms of Smith were touched! Mrs. Smith, who was beside her husband received injuries to her legs and the bulk of Smith's person protected Mrs. Stull who was behind him. But it was evident from the surroundings that this band of assassins meant to kill, Stull, his wife and daughters and burn their bodies in the house.
When they found they had a large contract on hand, they refrained from carrying out their original plan. As evidence that they meant to kill all of the Stull family, one of the mob took dead aim at the little girl as she crouched under the kitchen table and sped a bullet through her hair. It cut off one of her raven ringlets which was afterwards picked up from the shed room floor. That Sunday night the moon was full. The assassins worked in a light almost as bright as day. They waited until all of the Stull family were sound asleep and then this terrible crime was perpetrated. The house was never really on fire. The coal oil made a big quick blaze but the wall of the house was not ignited--another strange occurrence.
 |
| Here's the follow-up discussion on this article: | View all related messages |
For a complete listing of article comments, questions, and other discussions related to Virginia Marin's Folklore topic, please visit the Discussions page.