Johnson County Executions of 1903

Fred Underwood and George Durham were hanged at Clarksville (Johnson County) on June 19, 1903, for the murder of a sheriff during a bank robbery.

Johnson County sheriff John Powers, age thirty-eight, was asleep in his room in a building adjacent to the Bank of Clarksville at 2:30 a.m. on February 5, 1902, when he was awakened by the sound of an explosion. A gang of robbers had broken into the bank and blown up its safe. Powers rushed to the scene and “attempted to capture the gang single handed and was killed after emptying two revolvers,” a newspaper account said, though he was actually mortally wounded in an exchange of gunfire in which he shot one of the crooks.

Investigators developed several suspects in the crime. George Durham and John P. Dunn were arrested in late February in Wichita, Kansas, where Dunn was being treated in a hospital for a gunshot wound he claimed was inflicted by a jealous girlfriend. While Durham was extradited to Arkansas, Dunn remained in the hospital, from which he escaped in early April.

A grand jury indicted Durham and Dunn, along with Jim Wallace and Fred Underwood. Wallace was arrested in Oklahoma City in May, and Underwood was captured in Evansville, Indiana, on July 26, where he was arrested on a vagrancy charge. Both were returned to Arkansas, where trials were held in early December 1902. Wallace was “tried and released for want of evidence,” but after testimony showed that Durham and Underwood had been seen in and around the bank in the days before the robbery, they were convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to hang on February 5, 1903—the one-year anniversary of the crime. A newspaper reported that, as the sentence was read, “Durham was very nervous, but Underwood stood still and hardly batted his eyes.”

The execution was postponed when the pair won a stay while the case was appealed to the Arkansas Supreme Court, but Associate Justice James E. Riddick affirmed the lower court on May 2, 1903. Governor Jeff Davis set June 19, 1903, for their execution.

Underwood and Durham were held in the Clarksville jail, where they “spend most of their time reading the bible.” As the scaffold was being built, it was clearly visible from their cells, but “the appearance of the place upon which they will be executed does not seem to affect the men much,” the Arkansas Gazette reported. While neither man had previously talked about the robbery, Underwood on June 18 confessed that it was his idea and that he had led Dunn, Durham, and “Smiling Joe” Clarke in the heist. (Clarke would later receive a twenty-one-year sentence after pleading guilty to second-degree murder.) While admitting that he deserved to hang, Underwood said that while he had shot Powers, Dunn had loosed the fatal round; he unsuccessfully urged clemency for Durham.

On the morning of June 19, 1903, the two men received last rites from a Catholic priest. They left the jail at 10:54 a.m. and walked to the gallows, where each delivered a short speech in which they thanked their jailors for the kind treatment they had been afforded. At 11:10 a.m., the Gazette reported, “Sheriff King sprang back the lever and with a sound like two stones grinding on each other, the men shot to their deaths.” The Fort Smith Times wrote that “the two men rebounded and drew up their legs and twisted rapidly around for a few minutes when their limbs relaxed and they hung still.” Durham was declared dead in ten minutes, as was Underwood after seventeen and a half minutes. They were buried in Fort Smith’s Catholic cemetery.

Dunn remained elusive. A Florida man wrote to Johnson County officials in November 1902 and claimed that he killed Dunn in a shootout and wanted the $11,000 reward being offered. The Arkansas Democrat reported in mid-April 1903 that “the Indian police” had captured him in Barstow, Oklahoma, which turned out to be false. A month later, a Georgia sheriff thought he had captured the fugitive, and Pulaski County lawmen thought they had him in June 1904; the latter suspect turned out to be a gambler. Dunn was reported to be living openly in Fort Worth, Texas, in May 1905, and a March 1906 report that Dunn was arrested in Mankato, Minnesota, fell through. Governor Xenophon Overton Pindall renewed a $1,000 reward for Dunn’s arrest in 1907, and a 1908 article said he was living under an assumed name in Krafft, Oklahoma. The last sighting came in March 1913, when the Johnson County sheriff was reportedly heading to Kansas City, Missouri, to see if a robber arrested there was actually Dunn.

There were no further reports until February 1930, when a man known by the names “Big Dick Burns” and “Hot Shot Brown” was arrested in Las Vegas and, based on his age and scars on his right side, was accused of being Dunn. Though he denied being Dunn, he was taken to Arkansas to face charges in Powers’s death twenty-eight years earlier. In late March, a judge “ruled the prisoner’s identity…was sufficiently doubtful to permit his release on bond.” There were no further news stories on the case.

For additional information:
“Arkansas Fugitive Caught in Nevada.” Hope Star, February 21, 1930, p . 1.

“Arkansas State News.” Arkansas Democrat, March 21, 1913, p. 9.

“Clarke Pleads Guilty.” Arkansas Gazette, August 14, 1903, p. 1.

“Clarksville Bank Robbers.” Newark Journal, December 19, 1902, p. 1.

“Clarksville Men New Life Lease.” Arkansas Democrat, January 29, 1903, p. 6.

“Court Record.” Arkansas Democrat, December 4, 1902, p. 3.

“Dunn’s Escape.” Arkansas Democrat, April 4, 1902, p. 7.

“Durham and Dunn.” Arkansas Democrat, February 25, 1902.

“Durham and Underwood Sentenced to Hang Feb. 5.” Arkansas Democrat, December 11, 1902, p. 1.

“Fred Underwood Makes a Confession.” Arkansas Gazette, June 19, 1903, p. 1.

“Guilty in First Degree.” Arkansas Democrat, December 6, 1902, p. 1.

“Is Joe Adams John Dunn?” Arkansas Democrat, June 4, 1904, p. 1.

“Joe Adams Is Not John Dunn.” Arkansas Gazette, June 4, 1904, p. 5.

“John Dunn May Be Hanged for Murder.” Hope Star, March 5, 1930, p. 1.

“John Dunn Out in the Open.” Arkansas Democrat, May 20, 1905, p. 2.

“John P. Dunne [sic] Said to Be Nabbed.” Arkansas Democrat, April 14, 1903, p. 4.

“Just a Bit Gauzy.” Fort Smith Times, November 18, 1902, p. 4.

“Man Charged With 28-Year-Old Death Granted $5000 Bond.” Hope Star, March 26, 1930, p. 1.

“May Be John Dunn Again.” Arkansas Democrat, November 27, 1908, p. 7.

“Offer Reward for J. P. Dunn.” Arkansas Democrat, May 28, 1907, p. 7.

“Powers’ Death Will Be Avenged.” Arkansas Gazette, May 3, 1903, p. 3.

“Powers’ Murderer Held.” Fort Smith Times, May 23, 1902, p. 5.

“Scaffold Ready for Murderers.” Arkansas Gazette, June 13, 1903, p. 1.

“Sheriff King Arrives.” Arkansas Gazette, August 14, 1902, p. 5.

“Sheriff King Back from Minnesota.” Arkansas Gazette, March 11, 1906, p. 14.

“Sheriff Thinks He Has J. P. Dunn.” Arkansas Gazette, May 21, 1903, p. 3.

“Shot to Death.” Fort Smith Times, February 5, 1902, p. 1.

“Sure of His Man, but One May Die.” Arkansas Gazette, March 1, 1902, p. 2.

“Swung in the Air.” Fort Smith Times, June 19, 1903, p. 1, 4.

“They Must Die June 19.” Fort Smith Times, May 28, 1903, p. 1.

“Think They Have John Dunn in Jail.” Arkansas Gazette, March 6, 1906, p. 10.

“Underwood and Durham Are Hanged.” Arkansas Gazette, June 20, 1903, p. 1, 2.

“Wallace Trial.” Arkansas Democrat, December 4, 1902, p. 1.

Mark K. Christ
Little Rock, Arkansas