Murray caught; on his way to San Diego. He gave up like a cuss. Terrible excitement. Parties have started out to catch and lynch him. Will keep them back all I can . . . —Thomas Weller, deputy constable, July 1889.

A surprise telegram announcing the capture of an “assassin” came as a huge relief to all San Diegans. Only days before the county had been stunned by the slaying of Charles Wilson, the popular City Marshal of Oceanside. Now the “cold-blooded murderer from Texas”–as the newspapers called him–was in the hands of a posse and on his way to a jail cell in downtown San Diego.

The story of Killing the Marshal.