MARSHALL TURNS MURDERER

It is sometimes said that the best lawmen were themselves at one time criminals, and therefore knew the mindset of bad actors. No doubt a criminal found his way into Bingham County law enforcement in 1890, when Deputy Marshall Charles Phelps killed H.W. West in the "notorious" Pocatello dive "555".

Phelps absconded after the event, but was apprehended in Helena nearly six months later. Sheriff Ross brought him back to face charges of first degree murder, and he was found guilty of manslaughter and given a four year jail sentence. He was pardoned two years later.

Within a year he was back in jail, facing an assault charge for attacking, along with W.G. Hopson, the Populist Educator (and later The Sentinel) editor Frank Walton. He again served time for that offense.

Back out of prison, he found a way to return in 1897, when he and another man put "knockout drops" in a John Egan's drink in order to rob him once he passed out. The dose they gave, however, was fatal. He was given a life sentence for the event taking place in Utah, but was turned loose by the board of pardons in 1909. Though he momentarily settled down, he had stabbed a man just a year later during a card game in Buhl and was on the run immediately after.

Though papers reported he'd been apprehended at the Canadian border just days later, the reports were premature and he was never found.

Ralph Thurston is the author of The Shanghi Plain: Bingham County's Early History, available at Kesler's Market in Blackfoot and online at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CCCS7XLR?ref_=pe_3052080_397514860