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True Crime Historian

Bald Knobbers

True Crime Historian

Richard O Jones

True Crime, Performing Arts, Documentary, Arts, Society & Culture

4.5720 Ratings

🗓️ 30 November 2025

⏱️ 98 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Jump to the AD-FREE Safe House Edition

For this remastered edition, I’ve dug deep into the vault and combined Episodes 7 and 77, both regarding post-Civil War vigilante action in the Ozark Mountains.
  • The Giant Vigilante Captain Nat Kinney
Episode 7. Captain Nat Kinney was a large man, both in stature and reputation, and both seemed to grow to mythic proportions among the citizens of Taney County, Missouri, deep in the Ozark Mountains. Kinney was the king of the Bald Knobbers, a group of Christian citizens who organized to police themselves against the ruffians and hooligans who would interrupt their church services and raid their homesteads. The presence of the Bald Knobbers deeply divided the region between those who would let the law take its course and those who would take the law into its own hands. Music by Carter Bancroft and Alan Patterson.
  • The Botched Execution of Chief Bull Creek Dave
Episode 77 is a sequel to the tale of The Giant Vigilante Captain Nat Kinney, about one of the Bald Knobber masked vigilante groups that sprang up in the Ozark region after the civil war. This story concerns the Bald Knobbers in the adjacent county to Nat Kinney, where once again, and another instance where vigilante justice backfires. It’s a good story and has a lot of action, including an exciting jailbreak. But my favorite part is the heart-breaking report of the artist who ventures into the hills to get sketches of the families of the condemned men just days before their scheduled execution.

Hear More Stories About Botched Executions

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Transcript

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0:00.0

Paulbular.com

0:03.5

Bald Knobber, the giant vigilante Captain Nat Kinney.

0:07.8

The Giant Vigilante Captain Nat Kinney. Bald Knobbers are bound by an oath, not to reveal anything connected with the organization,

0:34.6

to obey the captain or leader in anything he may direct.

0:39.4

This is taken in some lonely spot in the woods on the top of some steep knob or in an old cave at

0:45.6

midnight. He stands in the middle of the circle of bald knobbers, all with their masks on and guns

0:52.1

in their hands. Over his head the limb of a tree stretches, and on that limb a rope hangs down.

0:59.0

A loop is made at one end, and the others pull at the other end until the rope almost strangles him.

1:06.0

Then, standing on his tiptoes, with his right hand held up straight,

1:10.0

with his left hand over his heart, and with a cocked shotgun at his breast.

1:14.6

He swears never to divulge and always keep the secrets of the order, to obey the orders of the leaders at any and all times and any and all things,

1:23.6

failing in which he hopes he may be killed dead by the most horrible methods.

1:29.4

And then the circle of masked men repeat the words, dead, dead, dead, and he is given

1:35.9

the hand of fellowship.

1:50.0

They meet at a certain place and proceed to a house which they have marked for what they term a visit. With railroad ties to be used as battering rams, they can force a door in one blow,

1:56.0

and they generally force both front and rear doors to prevent their victims escape.

2:01.6

He is generally found in bed and dragged out no matter what the weather.

2:06.6

He finds himself surrounded by a mob of men who, while they keep up the most unearthly howling and dancing,

2:12.6

flash dark lanterns upon him.

2:15.6

Every man in the mob has his face covered with a mask.

2:19.3

This mask is just a black bag with holes cut in it for eyes and nose,

2:24.3

and these holes fringed with red.

...

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