Rounding up outlaws

Book explores historical crimes in state

By Lynn Taylor Rick, Journal staff | Friday, May 09, 2008

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Outlaws don’t usually sit for interviews. They also don’t like to have their picture taken. And tales of their exploits tend to grow more elaborate over the years.

Those were some of the hurdles that Tom Griffith faced while writing “Outlaw Tales of South Dakota.”

“I think the most challenging thing is there are very few definitive accounts of outlaws and their misdeeds,” Griffith said.

Publishing company Globe Pequot Press released Griffith’s new book, “Outlaw Tales,” this month as part of a series of books on historical crime in each state.

Griffith, who owns TDG Communications in Deadwood and has written 46 books, said “Outlaws” gave him a chance to investigate tales he’d heard about for his entire life. Pequot Press had only two requirements. The crime stories had to have happened between 1876 and 1948; and there needed to be a resolution.

“A few of them were so self-evident,” Griffith said. Those included Wild Bill Hickok and Lame Johnny. “I had passed Lame Johnny Creek my whole life,” Griffith said. “I kind of always wondered about him.”

During his research, Griffith learned that Johnny, after his robbery of a stagecoach, was hanged near the creek by vigilantes. They buried him with the rope still around his neck. But he didn’t stay there. Someone dug up his body, removed the head and displayed it around town.

“These are not all pretty tales,” Griffith said.

One of the stories that most fascinated Griffith was of South Dakota’s own Bonnie and Clyde — Benny and Stella Dickson.

At only 16, Stella joined the older Benny on a crime spree in the late 1930s that included a bank robbery in Brookings the morning after Hobo Day festivities. At one point, the teenage Stella reportedly fired her pistol at pursuing police from the window of a speeding car. “Stella and Benny Dickson were remarkable that in her youth, she committed a crime so egregious,” Griffith said.

FBI eventually gunned down Benny, and Stella served time in the federal prison system. After her release, she lived a reclusive life in Kansas. President Richard Nixon eventually pardoned her, and Stella died in 1995. No obituary was ever published.  

“What I was really amazed about is she spent time in federal prison and then led a life of legitimacy,” Griffith said.

There are plenty of other crime stories in the book, including the 1936 New Year’s Eve explosion in Sioux Falls, the landmark case of Chief Crow Dog and the story of cattle tycoon Murdo McKenzie and his murdered son, Dode McKenzie.

Griffith was shocked by the aftermath of many of the crimes and the swiftness of the legal system, with capital offense cases tried more quickly than DUI cases are today.

“Some of them were tried in a matter of weeks,” he said.

To collect the stories for “Outlaw,” Griffith said he relied heavily on historians and history buffs throughout the state. He credits the Adams House Museum, the Deadwood Library, the South Dakota Historical Society and the Siouxland Heritage Museums with helping him with “Outlaw.”

“I could not have known about the majority of these stories without people who love Western history,” he said.

As for his favorite crime story, Griffith finds it hard to choose, although he admits the Stella Dickson case comes close.

“You get attached to all of them,” he said. “They all have these little nuances.”

Contact Lynn Taylor Rick at 394-8414 or lynn.taylorrick@rapidcityjournal.com.