Russell’s Murder
More information is beginning to surface about Russell’s murder in 1893. The Criminal Court of Appeals heard the case of Mayes v. State (Texas) December 16, 1893. The court record from the Southwestern Reporter, Vol 24, is available below as a PDF document. This record focuses on defendant’s appeal of his conviction of second degree murder. Details of the specific case are sketchy since this is an appeal based on the prejudice of a juror in the original murder trial.
This does, however, give us the name of the convicted murderer, Joe Mayes. The original murder trial date, according to other records, may have been August 21, 1893.
UPDATE April 23, 2010
Thanks to the work of Rick Miller, County Attorney in Belton, we now have the Criminal Court records of State v. Joe M. Mayes, cause number 5223: The Evidence taken in Habeas Corpus Hearing, May 5-6, 1893
The PDF below has been resized to be available as a download. This has affected the readability of the document. I am currently working on making a better document available.
I am finding the barber’s (O’Reilly’s) account to be the clearest. Too bad that Joe Mayes let Russell goad him into losing his temper. A cooler man could have defused the alcohol talking and closed the bar/barber shop without a fight.
I worked in a restaurant with a bar for 30 years and was in many similar situations.