Volume 9 , Issue 44

Fall 1907 - Mob Threatens To Lynch Lawton Wife Murderer

Besides Oklahomans watching the outcome of statehood for this 46th State of the United States, life and death was still evolving. It was Thursday, October 31, 1907, frontpage news, in The Daily Oklahoman, that Oklahoma citizens were reading about murders in the Lawton area. The headlines read: Mob Threatens to Lynch Lawton Wife Murderer - Husband Hacks Woman With Meat Ax Then Bathes Her Face In Carbolic Acid - Militia and Sheriff's Forces, Heavily Armed, Are Guarding Prisoner - John Hopkins, Gambler, of Kingston, Mo., Slays Wife In Most Fiendish Manner.

Lawton, Okla., Oct. 30, 1907 -- "With a mob threatening to lynch John Hopkins, a gambler, who brutally murdered hid wife with a meat ax and carbolic acid here today, Sheriff C. C. Hammonds, his deputies, the city peace officers and a company of militiamen under command of Captain Mackleford are guarding the jail tonight, determined to protect the prisoner even at the cost of bloodshed. "They're quieting down now," said Sheriff Hammonds at 9:30 o'clock tonight, "and I do not believe any attempt will be made to take Hopkins out of the jail. I hope not, anyway, for here are fifteen or twenty of us here and we will keep them busy for awhile anyway should they try to get the prisoner. We will be here all night."

Mrs. Hopkins came here several weeks ago from Kingston, Mo. Her husband had been sentenced to jail there for assaulting her. His sentence expired last Saturday.

Learning that his wife had come to the home of her sister, Mrs. J. J. Gaylon, Hopkins came here. He went to the Gaylon home at 11 o'clock this morning and found his wife here alone.

After a few angry words he attacked her with a meat ax, felling her to the floor and hacking her face and head in a horrible manner.

With his helpless victim lying on the floor, unconscious, he urled open her mouth with the handle of the ax and poured carbolic acid from a bottle into her mouth and eyes.

While engaged in this fiendish work Edgar Gaylon, the 18-year-old nephew of his victim, entered the room and discovered Hopkins bending over the woman. He grappled with him, but Hopkins wrenched himself free and drank the remainder of the acid, falling to the floor unconscious. Mrs. Hopkins died at 6:30 o'clock last night.

That the deed was premeditated, is indicated by the contents of a letter addressed to Hopkins' brother in Missouri, in which he wrote: "I have been treated meaner than I can stand. You will hear from or of me soon -- perhaps for the last time."
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