J. Frank Dalton - Robert Ruark Interviews Dalton in June 1949 About The Jesse James Murder Hoax

Robert Ruark Interviews Dalton in June 1949 About The Jesse James Murder Hoax

Ever since the time of the murder on April 3, 1882, there has been a small but steady stream of witnesses and researchers who believe that Jesse James faked his death in 1882 and then adopted the alias "J. Frank Dalton" (among several other aliases). The majority of those who subscribe to this "murder hoax" theory believe the real murder victim was Charles "Charley" Bigelow, an undercover Pinkerton detective who was posing as Jesse James and committing robberies - thus incurring the wrath and vengeance of the real Jesse James. This theory holds that there was a "murder hoax conspiracy" involving several people (all close friends of the real Jesse James), who conspired together to murder someone, and who then all swore before the investigating officials that the murder victim was Jesse James. The goal of the conspirators was to manipulate and/or "control" the murder evidence in such a way that the law enforcement and judicial authorities involved in investigating the murder would certify that Jesse was legally dead, thus setting Jesse James free.

In 1949 J. Frank Dalton was living in a cabin on the grounds of Meramec Caverns, courtesy of Lester B. Dill who owned the caverns. In June 1949 the journalist Robert C. Ruark interviewed Dalton there, and then published some of what Dalton told him in a series of 3 newspaper articles which were published in early July 1949 in newspapers across the United States. Following is what J. Frank Dalton told Ruark concerning the Jesse James murder hoax. This information is excerpted verbatim from Ruark's article titled "Uncle Jesse Looks and Acts Like Real James" (The Evening Independent, St. Petersburg, Florida, July 9, 1949, p. 10):

"Stanton, Mo. - The old man who looks, acts, and talks like Jesse James, and who claims, at 102 years of age, to be Jesse James, says that the man who was killed and buried as Jesse James was a fellow named Charlie Bigelow.

. . . The old man says he had him a string of runnin' horses, and two come down with distemper. 'I fetched 'em to St. Joe to isolate 'em,' he said. 'I had a house there I was not usin' for a spell - not until after some runnin' races at Excelsior Springs. This fellow Charlie Bigelow looked enough like me to be my twin, and he was huntin' a house. I told him and his wife they could use my place for a spell, until after the races, and he moved in.

One day I was out in the barn doctorin' my horses when I heard a gunshot in the house. When I heerd that gun go off I knowed it wasn't no play-party, because we argued with guns in them days. I run into the house and there was Bob Ford, standing over Bigelow with a gun in his hand and blood on the floor. I said to Ford, 'Looks like you killed him, Bob,' and Bob says, 'Looks like I did, Jesse.' Then I says, 'This is my chance, Bob. You tell 'em its me you killed. You tell my mother to say so, and you take care of that Bigelow woman. I'm long gone.'

The old man says he got on one of his horses - a good horse, a four-mile horse - and he lit out. He says he went to Kansas City to Memphis, to New Orleans, where he took a boat for Brazil. He kicked around South America for a spell and came home, and then went to Mexico. He settled later in Oklahoma, and claims to have been elected, under the name of J. Frank Dalton, to the territorial legislature. He later moved to Texas."