Rensselaer Republican, Volume 21, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 October 1888 — ATTEMPTED WHOLESALE MURDER [ARTICLE]

ATTEMPTED WHOLESALE MURDER

Ay a Whisky Crazed Cowbdy In lewton County. A desperate jshooting affair took place in Northern Newton county on bept. 16, the particulars of which did not become public until the arrest and examination of the person doing the shooting. His game is Jack McDowell and he was engaged in herding a drove of cattle on what is known as the Slater Ranch, and he boarded with the family of G. D. Kifer. On tl}e day mentioned McDowell went ,to Thayer ip company with a man named Harry Coureon and both got howling drunk. After reaching Kifer’s place in the evening, McDowell undertook to thrash Courson, and was prevented by McDowell’s father and by Mrs. Kifer. Jack then choked and struck his father and had just seized Mrs. Kifer by the throat when her husband rushed in and rescued her. Jack made some blood-thirsty threats and started up stairs after his revolver. His father, Mrs. Kifer and his girl, a grass widow named Ida Peterson and several other names, tried to prevent his getting the gun, but without success-. He obtained the weapon, a large six-shooter, but by the time he got down stairs Kifer and Courson had got out of sight. The blood-thirsty wretch began firing at everybody in sight, however. *. - .

The first shot was at Arthur Kifer, a 10 year old boy, but it missed him. Two shots were then fired at M rs. Kifer, who escaped by dropping behind a stove.' He then went out at the back door and Mrs. Kifer ran out at the frbht, and finding the drunken Courson she dragged him into an out-door cellar, and shut the door, just as McDowell feame around from the other side of the house. .He made frantic efforts to force open the dooir but the woman held hfnL. He then tired two shotslhrough the door. The first bdll went through the woman’s arm aud lodged in Courson’s •shoulder. Tfee wowd ju*t abased. Mrs. Kifer’s head. McDowell was arrested one day last,week, and Squire Ray, of Rose Lawn, held him to bail, at SI,OOO, which was furnished.