Manslaughter Conviction and Later Life
In June 1883, Spence was working as a deputy sheriff in Georgetown, New Mexico, when he buffaloed Rodney O’Hara, killing him. He was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to a 5-year term in the Yuma Arizona Territorial Penitentiary for the death (see photograph above, taken of him as a prisoner). Less than 18 months later he was granted a full pardon by the territorial governor. He operated a goat ranch south of Globe, Arizona near the Galiuro Mountains with his old friend, Phin Clanton, and ran mule teams that were used to bring supplies into the Globe area. Phin Clanton died in 1906, and Spence married Phin's widow four years later on April 2, 1910, using his real name of Elliot Larkin Ferguson. He died in 1914 and is buried in the Globe, Arizona cemetery, in an unmarked plot next to Phin Clanton.
Read more about this topic: Pete Spence
Famous quotes containing the words manslaughter, conviction and/or life:
“I wonder what subtle form of manslaughter is next on the program. Am I to be dropped into a vat of molten steel and become part of a new skyscraper, or are you going to ask this female to kiss me again and poison me to death?”
—Ernest Lehman (b.1920)
“It is my conviction that women are the natural orators of the race.”
—Eliza Archard Connor, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 9, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)
“He who does not accept and respect those who want to reject life does not truly accept and respect life itself.”
—Thomas Szasz (b. 1920)