The Coroner’s Inquest — Tombstone, March 1882

Morgan Earp was dead. The shots fired into Campbell & Hatch’s billiard parlor on Saturday night, March 18, 1882, had left the men inside able to describe the shooting, but unable to identify the men who fired from outside. The search for Morgan’s killers therefore began without an eyewitness who could name the gunmen.

March 19 — The Inquest Begins

On March 19, Cochise County Coroner H. M. Mathews empaneled a jury in Tombstone to inquire into Morgan S. Earp’s death. The testimony and verdict were later filed with the clerk of the district court and published by the Tombstone Epitaph in its March 27 issue.

The testimony established the circumstances inside Campbell & Hatch’s. Robert Hatch had been playing billiards with Morgan. Sherman W. McMaster, D. G. Tipton, Pat Holland, Wyatt Earp and Isaac Isaacs were among those present. Their accounts described the shots and the immediate search, but none identified the assassins.

Hatch testified that about eight or ten seconds after the shots he passed through the card room into the back yard. It was very dark and he saw no one. McMaster also went into the back yard and saw no one. Holland entered the passageway after the shots and later searched the yard with McMaster. He also saw no one.

The evidence naming suspects would come from elsewhere.

Marietta Spence

The most direct accusations in the published inquest came from Marietta Spence, wife of Pete Spence.

She testified that several days before the murder Morgan Earp passed the Spence house while Pete Spence was with an Indian identified as Charlie. According to her testimony, Spence nudged Charlie and pointed Morgan out.

“That’s him; that’s him.”

She said Charlie then went down the street ahead of Morgan so that he could get another look at him.

Marietta also described events at her home on March 18. She testified that Pete Spence had been in Charleston and returned about midnight with two men. One was identified in the newspaper as Freis, a German who worked as a teamster. She testified that each of the men had a rifle.

Frank Stilwell and Charlie were also at the house. According to Marietta, Stilwell and Charlie each had a pistol and a rifle. She and her mother had heard the shots in Tombstone. Stilwell and Charlie returned to the house before Spence and the other men.

Marietta described the men as excited and said they appeared to be talking secretly. She further testified that the following morning Spence struck her and her mother and threatened to shoot her if she told what she knew.

Her testimony was damaging, but its limits are important. Marietta did not testify that she saw Spence, Stilwell, Freis or either Indian at Campbell & Hatch’s. She did not see anyone fire at Morgan. Her identification of the men as responsible for the murder was a conclusion she reached from what she said she had observed before and after the shooting.

Wyatt Had Already Asked About Danger

Briggs Goodrich supplied another part of the record. He testified that on March 18 Wyatt Earp approached him and said:

“I think they were after us last night. Do you know anything about it?”

Wyatt then asked whether Goodrich thought the Earps were in danger. Goodrich testified that he had noticed strangers in town whom he believed might be after them. He also related a message from John Ringo concerning the continuing dispute and advised Wyatt to keep off the streets at night.

Goodrich further testified that after the theater was out on Saturday night he saw two men standing on the opposite corner of the street. They appeared to be watching someone. One went toward Fifth Street and the other went down the street. Goodrich could not identify them.

Nothing in Goodrich’s testimony establishes that those two men fired into Campbell & Hatch’s.

What the Witnesses Could Not Say

The surviving testimony is notable for what it does not contain. No witness in Campbell & Hatch’s identified a shooter. The men who went outside immediately after the gunfire found darkness and no assailant. The case presented to the coroner’s jury therefore depended heavily upon warnings, movements, circumstances and Marietta Spence’s testimony rather than an eyewitness identification of the men who fired the shots.

The Jury’s Finding

After hearing the evidence, the coroner’s jury returned a formal verdict. As printed by the Epitaph, the jury found that Morgan S. Earp came to his death in Tombstone on March 18, 1882, from a gunshot or pistol wound inflicted at the hands of Pete Spence, Frank Stilwell, a man identified as Freis, and two Indian half-breeds, one named Charlie and the other unidentified.

The verdict was signed by J. B. McGowan, William Bourland, Thomas R. Sorin, E. D. Leigh, W. H. Ream, Robert Upton and P. L. Seamans.

That finding must be described for what it was: the conclusion of a coroner’s jury following an inquest. It was not a criminal conviction, and the published testimony contains no eyewitness who identified the men named in the verdict as the shooters.

March 17, March 18 — and Freeze or Freis?

The original newspaper preserves a useful documentary discrepancy.

In Coroner Mathews’s certification accompanying the papers, Morgan’s death is described as occurring on the night of March 17, 1882, and one of the accused is called “John Doe Freeze.”

The jury’s actual verdict, printed in the same article, gives the correct date as March 18 and identifies the man as “Freis.” Marietta Spence’s testimony also uses the name Freis.

The difference is present in the period newspaper itself. It should be preserved rather than silently rewritten.

The Investigation Continued

By the time the Epitaph published the complete inquest on March 27, events had already moved rapidly. The newspaper reported that Pete Spence had surrendered to the sheriff and was in custody, with an examination scheduled before Judge Wallace. Frank Stilwell, meanwhile, was already dead, having been killed at Tucson after Morgan’s murder.

Immediately beneath the published inquest, the Epitaph also reported that Deputy Sheriff Bell had arrived from Charleston with Indian Charlie, who was being held on a charge connected with Morgan Earp’s murder.

Those later developments belong to the continuing investigation. They did not change the central limitation of the inquest evidence: the jury named men it believed responsible, but the published testimony did not include an eyewitness who saw those men fire the fatal shots.

Morgan Leaves Tombstone

While the investigation was beginning, Morgan’s family prepared to send his body to his parents in Colton, California.

The contemporary Epitaph reported that Morgan’s body was placed in a casket and that the funeral cortege left the Cosmopolitan Hotel at about 12:30 on Sunday, March 19. The fire bell tolled as the procession departed.

The newspaper reported that his brothers and two or three close friends guarded the body as far as Contention. From there, Morgan’s remains would continue by rail on the journey west.

Tombstone was behind him. The accusations surrounding his murder were only beginning.

Documentation Note

This account is intentionally limited to claims that can be tied to the contemporary record. Accusations against Pete Spence, Frank Stilwell, Freis, Charlie and the unidentified Indian are identified as witness testimony or as findings of the coroner’s jury. No statement in this post should be read as a finding of criminal guilt.

The chronology also requires care. Morgan’s funeral cortege left Tombstone on March 19, while the complete inquest testimony and verdict were not published by the Epitaph until March 27. The March 27 article reported subsequent developments, including Spence’s surrender and Charlie’s detention. Those later facts are included only to show the status of the investigation when the inquest record became public.

Principal Sources

• Tombstone Epitaph, March 27, 1882, p. 2 — “Coroner’s Inquest on the Body of the Late Morgan S. Earp,” including the testimony, Coroner Mathews’s certification, and the jury’s verdict.

• Tombstone Epitaph, March 20, 1882 — contemporary account of Morgan Earp’s murder and the departure of the funeral cortege from the Cosmopolitan Hotel.

• Tombstone Epitaph, March 27, 1882, p. 3 — contemporary account reporting that Morgan’s body was sent toward Colton and guarded to Contention by his brothers and close friends.

• George W. Parsons diary, March 19–20, 1882 — contemporary observations concerning Morgan Earp’s murder and the immediate aftermath.