Jarbidge, Nevada’s most infamous murder is fodder for modern mystery
An old Nevada murder lies at the heart of a modern mystery in Deception at the Diamond D Ranch.
History has forgotten Fred Searcy, but not the man who murdered him.
On the morning of Dec. 5, 1916, Searcy loaded his wagon full of mail in Rogerson, Idaho, and headed for Jarbidge, Nevada, about 65 miles south and west. He carried a load of letters and $3,200 in payroll (about $90,000 in today’s dollars).
By 6:30 p.m. Searcy would be the victim of the final mail stage robbery in United States history, and his killer would become the first person on the planet to be convicted of murder using a palm print.
Now, more than 100 years later, this piece of real-life history serves as a clue in the Rocky Mountain mystery, Deception at the Diamond D Ranch.
Who was Fred Searcy?
Fred Searcy had only been driving the mail for a month before his murder. His death certificate, filed more than two months later on Feb. 28, states: “Searcey (sic) was a white, single male, occupation stage driver, who died about 6:39 p.m. on Dec. 5, 1916, of a gunshot wound through the head inflicted with murderous intent.”
Questions about Searcy’s age, residence, birthplace and parents were answered with question marks. “No one knew anything about him,” his death certificate concluded.
More recent genealogical research uncovered that Searcy was born in September 1883 in Jackson County, Mo. In December 1908 he married Nellie Burstow in Hardman, Ore., and in the 1910 census they were listed as farming there. They divorced, however, in 1915 after she left him, and he moved to southern Idaho alone.
Lonely and trying to settle into a new home and line of work, Searcy was only 33 when he was murdered by a mining camp itinerant named Ben Kuhl.
Who was Ben Kuhl?
This plaque on the historic Jarbidge Jail tells some of the Ben Kuhl story.
Ben Kuhl was six feet tall, had light blue eyes and grew up in Michigan. By the time he arrived in Jarbidge, Nevada, he’d already had a number of run-ins with the law.
He went to jail in Marysville, Calif. for petty larceny, was convicted of stealing a horse in Oregon, tried to jump another man’s mining claim in northern Nevada (Oklahoma Mine – check?) and was arrested for trespassing in Jarbidge.
He would also become the last man to rob a mail stage in the old West and the first person anywhere to be convicted of murder using a palm print.
Kuhl ambushed Searcy’s mail stage as Searcy arrived in Jarbidge, shot him in the back of the head with a .44 and made off with the mail.
At first light the next morning, locals searched the area around a bridge crossing the Jarbidge River and found a wadded up black overcoat. Weighted with rocks in the river were a blue bandana, a sack containing $182 in coins and a white shirt.
In all, there were close to 50 pieces of evidence ranging from a slashed mail bag to a letter stained with a bloody palm print. The $3,200 in cash was missing, and nobody knew what was missing in the torn-open first class letters strewn about. The sack containing $182 was the only money ever recovered.
Herein lies the connection to my fictional story, Deception at the Diamond D Ranch. The three grand in missing cash was interesting, but my imagination went wo work on what could be missing from those torn-open first class envelopes.
The Ben Kuhl trial
The old Jarbidge Jail where Ben Kuhl was held after his arrest.
Ben Kuhl’s trail started in September 1917, and while most of the evidence against him was circumstantial, the bloody palm print on an envelope led to his conviction.
He was sentenced to death, but the sentence was commuted and he served a life-term at Nevada State Prison in Carson City, Nevada. He was paroled in 1945 and died a year later in California.
How do Ben Kuhl and Fred Searcy relate to a modern-day mystery?
Caution, spoilers ahead.
Deception at the Diamond D Ranch is a mystery set in 2015, long after the events described above took place. But the story, which features a U.S. Park Service ranger and the prospects of a new national park, takes place in the same landscape that Kuhl’s crimes were committed. Specifically, the mystery leans into some of the questions about Ben Kuhl’s robbery that were never answered.