Fort Smith Triple Hanging of April 27, 1888

Three men were hanged at Fort Smith (Sebastian County) on April 27, 1888, for murders committed in the Indian Territory (modern-day Oklahoma).

Owen D. Hill and his wife, Vinna, moved to Muskogee in the Indian Territory in February 1887 at the invitation of her mother, who had asked him to help her plant crops. The mother-in-law lived with them for a while before Hill made her leave. Vinna Hill would often visit her mother, and the couple would usually get into arguments afterward. On June 25, 1887, Hill returned home from work and found his wife and child gone. When he went to her mother’s house, Vinna Hill’s cousin met him and said Vinna and the child would be living there from then on. Owen Hill got a shotgun and razor and returned the next day, beating the older woman severely and killing his wife, nearly decapitating her. He headed to Kansas City, Missouri, where he was arrested and brought to Fort Smith. His mother-in-law, who survived the beating, provided testimony that led to his conviction in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Arkansas for first-degree murder.

George Moss, Sandy Smith, and two other men went to the Choctaw Nation on November 26, 1886, with plans to steal a cow. They shot one belonging to Choctaw rancher George Taff, who on hearing the gunshot went to investigate and was shot dead. Moss’s horse began to run after hearing the gunfire, and the other three men fled, leaving him behind. When Taff’s body and Moss’s horse were discovered, Moss was arrested and confessed. He and Smith were taken to Fort Smith, with Smith being wounded when he tried to escape. The other two men were Choctaws and turned over for tribal justice; they were taken by a mob to the place where Taff was killed and were shot to death. Smith died of his wounds on the day of his trial, while Moss was convicted of first-degree murder on September 17, 1887.

Jackson Crow was born and raised in the Choctaw Nation, the son of a Creek father and Black mother. Crow was one of eleven men, one of whom was Choctaw politician Robert Benton, who confronted Charles B. Wilson, a political foe of Benton’s, on August 7, 1884. After a brief argument, Benton and another man shot Wilson to death. Since the other nine men in the group were Choctaw, they were tried in tribal courts and were acquitted. However, Crow, who eluded arrest until December 1886, was not a tribal member and was thus subject to trial in the U.S. District Court, where he was convicted of first-degree murder.

Judge Isaac Parker sentenced all three men to hang on April 27, 1888.

The condemned men spent the night before their execution “in religious service,” and on the morning of April 27 they were “praying, singing, shaking hands, bidding farewell to friends and making preparations to meet their horrible fate.”

Hill’s sister accompanied him to the gallows, where about fifty witnesses had gathered, and he “acted as though he was half crazed and kept up a disjointed harangue of singing, prayer and assurances of his belief in salvation,” while “Moss was quiet, but apparently unnerved,” and “Crow was calm and seemed indifferent.” Moss and Crow both proclaimed their innocence, “but neither, after reaching the gallows, uttered a word except to bid the officers good-bye.”

After religious services on the scaffold, “the ropes were placed, the black caps drawn, the signal given and in a moment the three wretched victims of the law were dangling in mid-air.” The trap door opened at 1:02 p.m. All three men’s necks were broken, and “death took place without a struggle.” They were declared dead fifteen minutes later, and all three were buried in Fort Smith’s Oak Cemetery.

For additional information:
Akins, Jerry. Hangin’ Times in Fort Smith: A History of Executions in Judge Parker’s Court. Little Rock: Butler Center Books, 2012.

“On the Gallows.” Arkansas Gazette, April 28, 1888, p. 1.

Riley, Michael Owen. “Capital Punishment in Oklahoma: 1835–1966, PhD diss., University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, August 2012, online at https://scholarworks.uark.edu/etd/518/ (accessed February 20, 2026).

“Six Men Hanged.” Fort Worth Daily Gazette, April 28, 1888, pp. 1, 4.

“The Wages of Sin.” Arkansas Democrat, April 27, 1888, p. 1.

Mark K. Christ
Little Rock, Arkansas