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ALL OF BAKER County was outraged by Pleasant Armstrong’s deed. Sheriff Harvey Brown had his hands full keeping Armstrong from the more vengeful members of the local populace long enough to deliver him for trial. On one occasion, he had to lock the murderer in the county-courthouse vault while a very large lynch mob — 150 angry citizens — trooped through the office and jailhouse looking for Armstrong. Baker County, in 1903, was still a frontier community without a strong law-enforcement presence; residents were accustomed to taking care of themselves, and vigilante action had long been a part of that. The lynch mob was frustrated that night, but they didn’t intend to give up. Brown ended up having to essentially smuggle his prisoner to Portland for safekeeping. He was kept there until the day of his trial, when he was brought back to Baker City, with a substantial and well-armed force of sheriff’s deputies on guard, to stand trial. In court, Pleasant told his story between heavy sobs. There was barely a dry eye in the court after he was done. But, not a single person in the court had any doubt of his guilt, either. He had done it, he told them — he freely admitted he had done it — and he seemed to almost welcome a death sentence, to expiate his crime. He couldn’t explain his shooting of Minnie, he said; that had not been what he’d intended to do. A woman named Cora Rockwell, though, thought she could explain it. Shortly after the trial — which, of course, resulted in a guilty verdict and sentence to hang — she started visiting the sheriff with a startling story. She claimed to be a former agent with the United States Secret Service, and said she was working on a case involving a local gang of murdering hypnotists called the “Blue Beard Family.” The idea was, the mysterious hypnotist either impelled Pleasant to shoot Minnie or shot her himself and hypnotically convinced the somewhat-thickish young man that he had. Rockwell added that this gang of hypno-Crips was responsible for three other murders in Baker City, and said she would lead officers to the bodies if they would follow her. The newspapers don’t say if they did so or not; if they did, no bodies were found, but being as there had not been three matching disappearances in Baker City during the time she specified, they may not have bothered. Ms. Rockwell was referred to the Oregon State Hospital in Salem. As for Pleasant, he had no use for her excuses. “Keep that woman out of here with her dope dreams,” he said to Deputy Bill Lachner.
PLEASANT ARMSTRONG WAS ready to go, as ready as any convicted murderer has ever been. The last 24 hours of his life almost seemed like a celebration of his coming departure as he dined with relish on a sumptuous turkey dinner, enjoyed a good cigar, and played for his visitors on his violin. Ministers and reporters came to see him and he met them all with forthright good cheer. He had been baptized into the Catholic faith a day or two before, and he spent a lot of time with the local priest, being shrived and preparing himself. The morning of his execution, Pleasant ate a hearty breakfast of ham and eggs before stepping up onto the gallows platform. “I had a sweet girl once whom I dearly loved — Minnie Ensminger,” he told the watching crowd, standing on the platform with the noose about his neck. “I killed her and I stand ready to die for that crime.” And, a few minutes later, so he did. As a side note, I have been unable to learn anything further about Cora Rockwell or her gang of hypnotist-gangsters. If any reader happens to have more details on her, I would love to know more.
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