Showing results for "John Wesley" in True Crime

Hardin was an average man - except for his above average gunlighting. A Texan sympathizer to slavery writes about his deeds during life. Some of these deeds are commendable, while some are downright deplorable - just like any other man.

On Christmas Night 1996, six-year-old JonBenet Ramsey was murdered in her family's home in Boulder, Colorado. A ransom note was found, but it was hours before her father, John, found her body in the basement. She had been strangled with a garrote and her skull was fractured. The media sensationalized the tragic death of the "child beauty queen" and public speculation and rumors ran rampant. What followed was one of the most notorious unsolved murder investigations in American history.

John Wesley Hardin! His name spread terror in much of Texas in the years following the Civil War as the most wanted fugitive, with a $4,000 reward on his head. A Texas Ranger wrote that he killed men just to see them kick. Hardin began his killing career in the late 1860s and remained a wanted man until his capture in 1877 by Texas Rangers and Florida law officials. He certainly killed 20 men; some credited him with killing 40 or more.

America has always preferred heroes who weren't clean cut, an informal ode to the rugged individualism and pioneering spirit that defined the nation in previous centuries. After the early 19th century saw the glorification of frontier folk heroes like Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone, a new breed of folk icons inhabited the Wild West, and one of the most notorious and controversial of them all is John Wesley Hardin, still regarded today as Texas' most deadly gunfighter and most famous outlaw.