Submitted by
Ken Gates
The
Galveston Daily News
Monday, August 9, 1886
Rufus Ledbetter
Captured Near Waco
Waco, August 8. Rufus
Ledbetter, the Eddy murderer, was brought here on the 2:15 a.m. train and lodged
in jail.
The
prisoner says the killing of Deputy Sheriff Rice was accidental. He had his
Winchester strapped to the handle of a plow he was using when the deputy sheriff
and his guide surprised him in the field. He drew his Winchester from its
scabbard to kill the guide, who acted the part of a traitor toward him, but
before he could use the gun the deputy sheriff closed in on him, and in the
tussle, which ensued the weapon, was accidentally discharged, the ball taking
fatal effect in the breast of the officer.
The prisoner says he
had been arrested, two or three times previous by Rice and had in each instance
been kindly treated by the officer; consequently he harbored no animosity
against him.
His capture was
affected without resistance at a farm house not many miles distant from the
scene of the tragedy. The officers learning that Ledbetter would come to the
house secreted themselves inside. Shortly afterwards Ledbetter hove in sight
armed with a needle gun, which he leaned up against a tree some distance from
the house before coming up to the gallery. When about fifty yards from his gun,
the officers, two in number, stepped forward, leveled a Winchester and
six-shooter and commanded him to throw up his hands. Realizing that a refusal to
do so meant prompt death, he complied in a second and was arrested.
Ledbetter was taken to
Marlin this morning for incarceration, the crime having been committed in Falls
County.
The lynchers were
moving on Waco, but learning of the change of base, turned the heads of their
horses toward Marlin to summarily dispose of the murderer. The officials at
Marlin were apprised of their purpose and immediately removed the prisoner, who,
it is said, is now en route to Galveston for safe-keeping.