A Lethal Legacy

Don't let the title scare you. This is not as serious as it sounds. I would just like to tell you about something curious.

We have all heard the name Jesse James, right? Famous American outlaw from the wild, wild west. While he was kicking and screaming, he rode around with the gang known as the James- Younger Gang. One of the other members was a man named Robert Ford. He was a trusted friend of James, and the two spent time together, robbing banks and whatnot.

But when the gang's luck started turning south, and the bounty on James' head was growing, Robert Ford saw his chance. He would kill Jesse James and claim the reward. And so he did. He shot James and started touring the US, reenacting the shooting.

Robert Ford became known as "the man who killed Jesse James".

While that story is amazing by itself, which is why a movie was made about it, starring Brad Pitt as Jesse James, that's only the beginning of the curious tale I want to tell.

After the killing of Jesse James, Robert Ford became a businessman, and opened a saloon. When the saloon burned down he moved the business to a tent until he could rebuild. One day, a man named Edward O'Kelly walked into the tent with a shotgun. He said "hello, Bob", and fired the shotgun at Ford, who died right then and there.

With that, O'Kelly became "the man who killed the man who killed Jesse James".

As justice was a little more easygoing back then, O'Kelly was soon out and about again. A few years after killing Ford, O'Kelly ended up in a fight with a policeman named Joe Burnett. After O'Kelly got a hold of Burnett's gun and tried to shoot him, Burnett was able to shoot and kill O'Kelly.

Hence, Burnett became "the man who killed the man who killed the man who killed Jesse James".

Unfortunately(?), Burnett was not killed by anyone. He died of much more natural causes. The legacy could potentially go on until today, but it didn't. That's probably a good thing.

Although this is a story about the loss of human life, I cannot help myself. I think this is pretty curious, and even quite funny. How the legacy of a murder can be passed on by killing killers. It's just another example of why the stories of the Wild West still sticks with us. It was a formative time in the US, and it was shaped by men like Jesse James, his killer, his killer's killer, and his killer's killer's killer.

I never thought I would write a sentence like the one I just wrote. I'm glad I did, though.

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