On this episode of the Most Notorious Podcast, Wyoming's most infamous hired killer, Tom Horn, kills for the final time.

And what it appears is that Willie came to a gate, opened it, went through it, and all of a sudden was confronted by Tom Horn and ran for it.

And came back to the gate, and as he opened it, he was shot twice from long distance, both right through his torso.

The second bullet in particular was certainly fatal.

Welcome everyone to the Most Notorious Podcast, I'm Eric Rivenes. Hope you were doing well, or at least putting on a good face.

I am so pleased to have as my guest today John W. Davis. He is a Wyoming attorney, an old West scholar, and an award-winning author.

His most recent book is called The Trial of Tom Horn, which documents the 1902 trial of one of the more notorious hired killers in the history of the West.

Thank you so much for joining me today.

Thank you, glad to.

So what prompted you to write a book about this case?

Well, I have been writing about the enormous problems with law and order in Wyoming in the late 19th and early 20th century since about 1900.

For whatever reason, I became very interested in that subject.

The obvious source of that, though, is that I practice law in Wyoming for something like 43 years. I did a lot of trial law.

I've always been interested in its history of Wyoming, but especially that, which relates to the effect of law.

And in doing that, I tried to hit the big cases that made a difference in terms of the Wyoming's quest for having a mature society.

And before starting this book, I had written a book about the sheep raid problems in Wyoming.

There were something like 10 men killed in dozens of raids and thousands of sheep, etc.

But I hit that topic.

And then I went to a broader look at all of the major problems that were existing in the West before, say, about 1890.

There were enormous problems with assassination and raids and that kind of thing.

The next book I wrote was about the Johnson County War, the infamous event that occurred in 1892, in which 50 men rode North.

And then they had cattlebearans and their top hands and then some 25 Texas gunmen.

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