Patrick McCarty (Execution of)

Patrick McCarty was hanged at Fort Smith (Sebastian County) on April 8, 1887, after being convicted in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Arkansas of the slaying of two brothers, a crime he died denying.

Patrick McCarty was born in Queenstown, County Cork, Ireland, around 1852 and moved to London, England, when he was young. He immigrated to the United States in 1875 and, ten years later, married a woman at Dixon, Missouri.

In February 1886, he was traveling in the Indian Territory with a man named Joe Stutzer, the pair being described as “vagabonds and tramps.” They joined up with John and Tom Mahoney, brothers who had been working on a railroad between Tulsa and Red Fork and were heading to Fort Scott, Kansas, with a wagon, mule team, two mares, “quite a quantity of other loose property,” and their railroad wages.

The group camped for the night about seven miles from Coffeyville, Kansas, on February 16 (some sources say 18). When the brothers fell asleep, McCarty allegedly shot one of them with a pistol, while Stutzer’s shotgun misfired when he shot at the other; he ended up killing him with an axe. They took the brothers’ bodies to the drain of a coal pit, covered them, and left them there before burning a bloody feather mattress and clothing.

The next day, they went into Vinita, Indian Territory, and sold the mules and some harnesses for $125, of which McCarty kept $105, giving Stutzer twenty dollars, the wagon, and the mares. McCarty then headed to Dixon, Missouri, where his wife was living with her father. Stutzer went to Fayetteville (Washington County), where he left the wagon, keeping the mares.

In March 1886, neighbors found the Mahoneys’ remains, as well as their burned belongings. Newspaper reports led their mother to go to the Indian Territory, where she identified their bodies as well as the feather bed, which she had made for them. Witnesses had seen McCarty with the brothers, and he was arrested at Dixon and taken to Fort Smith.

He was convicted of the murders on September 23, 1886, and the Arkansas Gazette wrote that “the evidence against him was all circumstantial, but so strong and well woven together it was impossible to break it,” adding that the crime “was one of the most wicked and diabolical double murders that ever blackened the name of any country.”

On October 30, 1886, Judge Isaac Parker sentenced McCarty, James Lamb, Albert Odell, John Echols, John Stephens, and John W. Parrott to be hanged on January 14, 1887, and “the judge delivered a very impressive address to each of the condemned, admonishing them to prepare to meet their maker by seeking forgiveness for their crimes.” Parrott’s sentence was commuted on January 4, 1887, to five years in prison at hard labor, and McCarty’s execution was respited to April 8, 1887, on January 13. The other men were hanged on January 14.

On April 8, 1887, Father Lawrence Smythe visited McCarty in the jail shortly before 2:00 p.m., after which his death warrant was read to him, and he was escorted to the scaffold, “marching with steady step and ascending the gallow’s [sic] steps with as much coolness as though it were an every day affair with him.” He knelt and prayed with Smythe, who gave him a crucifix before speaking to the seventy-five people within the execution enclosure.

McCarty then addressed the crowd, saying “he was entirely innocent of the crime for which he had been convicted,” before kissing the crucifix and returning it to Smythe and shaking hands with the lawmen on the scaffold. His limbs were pinioned, and a black cap was placed over his head “while he repeated his last devotions.” At 2:08 p.m., “the death trap fell, the body of the wretched criminal going down like a shot, and stopping with that dull, horrible sound that always attends such events.” He was declared dead at 2:38 p.m. and was buried in Fort Smith’s Catholic Cemetery. Though federal lawmen offered a $500 reward, Stutzer was apparently never captured.

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.

“Fort Smith.” Arkansas Gazette, September 24, 1886, p. 3.

“Fort Smith.” Arkansas Gazette, October 31, 1886, p. 3.

“Hanged by the Neck.” St. Louis Globe-Democrat, April 9, 1887, p. 14.

“Parrott’s Neck Saved by President.” St. Louis Globe-Democrat. January 5, 1887, p. 4.

“Paid the Penalty.” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, April 8, 1887, p. 1.

Riley, Michael Owen. “Capital Punishment in Oklahoma: 1835-1966.” PhD diss., University of Arkansas, 2012. Online at https://scholarworks.uark.edu/etd/518/ (accessed June 10, 2026).

“Telegraphic Brevities.” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, January 14, 1887, p. 8.

The Weekly Chieftain (Vinita, Oklahoma), November 25, 1886, p. 3, col. 3.

Mark K. Christ
Little Rock, Arkansas