Rich rancher’s son charged with Dodge City murder

Clutching a suitcase in one hand and a satchel full of cash in the other, Mifflin Kenedy on Oct. 15, 1878 caught the train for Dodge City where his bad-seed son was accused of killing a popular female entertainer. As the owner of the Laureles Ranch, a quarter-of-amillion-acre spread near Corpus Christi, the Pennsylvania Quaker and former sea captain had money to burn and already had spent a sizeable part of his fortune buying Spike’s freedom. But the young hell-raiser’s past escapades could not compare to the world of trouble he had gotten himself into in the Kansas Cowtown. In the looks department 23 year old James “Spike” Kenedy took after his mother, the attractive daughter of a one-time provincial governor of Spanish Texas. Like so many spoiled rich kids before and since, the apple of his wealthy daddy’s eye believed he was above the law and free to do whatever he wanted. An incident in Ellsworth, Kansas six years earlier permanently put that idea in his head. When an argument over a poker hand resulted in gunshot wounds for the Texas teenager and his adversary, Mifflin greased the necessary palms to make his legal problems disappear. Hoping to keep the ne’er-do-well closer to home where he just might settle down, the frustrated father set him up with a cattle ranch in the Panhandle. Rather than take the opportunity to grow up, Spike left the hard work to the hired hands and made straight for Dodge City. He arrived in the “Bibulous Babylon of the Frontier” about the same time as Dora Hand, a 34 year old stage performer from back east who relocated at the urging of her friend Fannie Garretson. An Old West historian outdid himself with this over-the-top description of Dora: “By all accounts, she was a beautiful creature, with a face and voice which gave men strange nostalgic dreams of better days and finer surroundings.” Spike fell hard for the singer and mistook her flirtatious manner for genuine affection. Dog Kelley, the mayor and part-owner of the Alhambra Saloon where Dora sang five nights a week, delighted in bursting the lovesick puppy’s bubble. Humiliated by the revelation, Spike retaliated with his fists only to be beaten to a pulp. When the bruised and battered cattleman spurred his mount out of town, the mayor and everyone else in Dodge presumed he was going back to Texas to lick his wounds. But that was not the case, as a Wyatt Earp biographer later explained: “Jim Kennedy (sic) elected to kill Kelley in his sleep by shooting through the flimsy wall of the bedroom at the front of the mayor’s two-room shack” behind the Great Western Hotel. In the predawn darkness of Oct. 4, 1878, Spike slipped unseen into Dodge, stopped his horse outside Kelley’s shack and fired two shots through the wall where he thought his tormentor was sleeping. What he did not realize at the time was that Dog Kelley had given up his bed to Dora Hand for the night. One of the 44-caliber slugs pierced her side killing the woman instantly. Even though there were no eyewitnesses to the “rideby” shooting, the unanimous opinion was Spike Kenedy had committed the despicable deed. Sheriff Bat Masterson and Assistant Marshal Wyatt Earp at first resisted public pressure to pursue the suspect, but at two o’clock that afternoon the future legends grudgingly gave chase with a large posse at their backs. In spite of the fugitive’s ten-hour head start, they caught up with him the following day. Spike tried to make a run for it, but Masterson knocked him out of the saddle with a clean shot through the shoulder with his 50-caliber rifle. The first words out of Spike’s mouth amounted to an admission of guilt. “Did I kill him?” he asked Earp. Told he had taken Dora’s life instead of his intended target’s, the Texan turned on Masterson. “You ought to have made a better shot than you did!” “I did the best I could,” was Bat’s sarcastic reply. Mifflin Kenedy did not know the identity of the murder victim or the circumstances of the crime until he met in private with Earp and Masterson. His sole concern was whether he had brought along enough money. Judging from the outcome, he had. A brief article in the Oct. 29, 1878 edition of a Dodge City newspaper reported the acquittal of James Kenedy. “His trial took place in the sheriff’s office, which was too small to admit spectators. We do not know what the evidence was or upon what grounds he was acquitted.” Mifflin Kenedy outlived his three sons and one of two daughters. Spike died of natural causes in 1884 while awaiting trial for murder. His death came 12 years after his baby brother was laid to rest and four years before the lone surviving son was gunned down by a jealous husband. The patriarch of the cattle clan went to his grave in 1895 with the knowledge there was no one left to carry on the family name. “Texas Boomtowns: A History of Blood and Oil” will be published by The History Press on Nov. 30! Bartee’s third book will soon be available for pre-orders on his web site barteehaile.com and also by mail!