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America’s First Serial Killers and Many More Deadly Historic Figures

Khalid Elhassan September 6, 2020 35 min

Train - Train robbery — History's first peacetime passenger train robbery. CBS News

10. The Dirty Ranger

Deacon Jim “Killer” Miller. Legends of the West

Jim Miller got a job as a Texas Ranger, and began to advertise his availability as a killer for hire. Charging $150 per murder, he used his Ranger authority to get away with literal murder. As his reputation grew, so did his fees, until he was eventually charging thousands of dollars per killing. He had no scruples about killing lawmen and is credited with murdering Pat Garret, who had killed Billy the Kid.

The lynching of Killer Miller, far left in black hat, and his accomplices. This Land Press

In 1909, Miller was hired to kill a popular rancher from Ada, Oklahoma, named Allen Bobbit. Miller shot Bobbit, but he lived long enough to name his killer. Miller and three accomplices were arrested, but the evidence seemed weak, leading many Ada residents and friends of Bobbit to fear that his killers might get acquitted. So they formed a mob, broke into the jail where the accused were held, and lynched the deadly Miller and his accomplices in the early morning hours of April 19^th, 1909.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.