The Death of Warren Baxter Earp : A Closer Look

Rating:
Summary: Speculative conspiracy theory, not history
Review: In this gargantuan volume, Michael Hickey presents a conspiracy theory in the aftermath of the death of Warren Earp (Wyatt's brother) that would perhaps do credit to a JFK assasination buff, but hardly qualifies as good history. To accept his conclusions, in my opinion, requires the reader to discard logic and common sense. There is a wealth of primary source material presented, and for that I will give the book two stars, but I do not advocate that anyone read this book in the expectation of learning the truth.

Rating:
Summary: This certainly is not a biography, but has some small merit.
Review: It seems that this writer continued his characteristic practice of employing researchers. But the rub is, to quote Bacon on the school-men who are famous for speculating on how many angels could repose on the head of a pin: "From an infinite agitation of wit, they produced not very much matter." Implicit in Bacon's criticism is that such investigations overlook a lot, such as that many even in his day questioned the existence of angels. And even many that didn't question that would wonder why angels would waste their time sitting on a pin. Many, we may be sure, also didn't give a damn one way or the other. And drawing a parallel may suggest why this book doesn't rate high in Amazon's sales record.

The main theory of this author that Wyatt Earp avenged his brother's death by stalking and ultimately killing all those he suspected had a hand in it, falls short of tenable in that the killer named by the coroner's jury, who was not seriously trying to hide out since he lived under his own name, was allowed to live for years and die a natural death.

Certainly Wyatt and his brother Virgil (and even his brother Jim whom history has perhaps consistently underrated) would have looked into the matter, and undoubtedly did, and stories of old timers, for what they are worth, which is sometimes quite a bit, state that at least brother Virgil was seen in the area not long after the killing took place.

It is a worthy speculation that Virgil, and perhaps Wyatt, after personal local inquiry, which would have gone beyond that in the record today, concluded as anyone would who read no more than the recorded testimony of the coroner's jury, that Warren - a great pain in the neck even to his own family - was asking for what he got. In view of this, it is unlikely that either of those two rather careful men would jeopardize their futures by entering into a blood feud simply because a malodorous family member had been killed. Wyatt's last wife said that Virgil was evasive about the matter when she asked him directly. Possibly he thought the Earp Brothers were expected to have exacted vengeance and would be criticized if they hadn't.

As a criticism of this book's touted thoroughness, one wonders how that "legion" of researchers, who led to the author figuratively dragging in the history of every yellow dog roaming the streets the day of the killing, missed the fact that Warren had been married. Or that he made a college try at killing his partner in Spokane, Washington in days of yore.

We know why they didn't try to scout up the living descendants of his wife for whatever they might contribute? But think what they missed. Was he a wife beater? Why did the marriage break up? Does he have surviving relatives? Was Warren so malodorous that even his wife's family would not have said anything good about him? They certainly should have been given a shot at the record if they could be found. The above are questions that might have been answered. Does that family have old letters from the other Earps explaining that they looked into Warren's "offing" and deemed it justifiable?

C'mon. This is not a biography and is actually a rambling speculation about a killing that only attracts notice since the deceased was a brother of a man who achieved wide spread but "questionable" fame.

Carefully examined, the life of Warren Earp makes obvious that he wouldn't have deserved a biography for any reason. As much would have been concluded about his brother Wyatt if those who wrote of him knew in time that he had stolen horses, that he was a notorious whore master and pimp who, moreover, had deserted his wife of at least a decade for a wiggly little thing. As for the deserted wife's legal status, she certainly qualified as a common law wife. The "wiggly little thing" confirmed that in the eyes of her collaborators on her aborted biography, who said that she still evinced guilt over the deserted wife, who later committed suicide, and that her guilt was PRONOUNCED even after the passage "of all those years." Over fifty at the time. (Letter extent in a private collection.)

This book is not worth the price, certainly not as what it claims to be, but has some merit for independent research of frontier characters and matters. It is not in my opinion a "must" book for Western buffs' libraries, or even for many libraries of any kind. It ranks as curiosa and not much more.

Rating:
Summary: Another Trail of Vengeance for Wyatt Earp
Review: Recent years have seen the emergence of someone who has proved to be a relentless pursuer of the truth, an historical researcher of the first order: Michael M. Hickey. In the early 1990s, Hickey published no less than three books looking in great detail at the thirty-second "O.K. Corral" gunfight and then, in 2000, produced a volume that has really given Earp historians something to think about. "The Death of Warren Baxter Earp: A Closer Look" puts forward the proposition that, subsequent to the shooting down of Wyatt's youngest brother, Warren, in an Arizona saloon in the summer of 1900, Wyatt went on yet another "trail of vengeance" and killed all those whom he held responsible.

This enormous book of 759 pages is the most exhaustively researched book yet on the doings of Wyatt Earp - and in an area of his life about which little is known. Aided by a small army of field investigators from all over the States, Hickey has come up with an extraordinary story which, if true, puts a whole new light on the character of Wyatt Earp. This is a truly fascinating read and is the sort of history we Earp enthusiasts want, packed full of primary source material, expertly, and entertainingly, edited.

David Ashford, England