Last Friday morning about nine o’clock Frank Bottorff, a timber worker, was killed in an alleged attempt to take the life of Will Parrish, a young farmer living near Deane, this county. Trouble had been brewing for several months by reason of certain domestic misunderstandings between the two men, and when the two confronted each other Friday morning, death could be the only culmination.

It seems that the men had, at one time, worked together and were friendly. However, several months ago, bad feelings arose and in August, Bottorff went to Blair, Nebraska, his former home and the present home of his mother, brother, sister and daughter. In November Parrish married the wife divorced by Bottorff. In the meantime Parrish received a threatening letter from Bottorff saying in substance that Parrish was going to have his light put out like lightening.

Last Tuesday Bottorff came back from Nebraska. He arrived in Monroe and then Thursday came on the passenger from Monroe to Monticello. He went that night to Deane though it is not known how he went.

Thursday night Parrish was awakened during the night by a noise and discovered that his house was on fire. When he ran out to investigate and to extinguish the flames, he was aware of someone running away from the house, having been attacked by Parrish’s dogs. Parrish found hay piled under one corner of his house and it was blazing. After extinguishing the flames he went back into the house and having had his suspicions very strongly aroused he placed his shotgun loaded with buckshot near the front door. There was no further disturbance during the night.

About nine o’clock the next morning Parrish went out on the front porch to get some wood. As he was bending over to pick up the wood, Bottorff raised up just across the fence about fifteen or twenty feet away and told him that if he moved he was a dead man. Parrish saw there was no way of escape so threw up his hands as Bottorff commanded. The latter then began to climb the fence, at the same time trying to keep Parrish covered with his gun. In raising himself over the fence, Bottorff took his eyes from Parrish an instant and that instant was Parrish’s opportunity. He reached quickly inside the door for the gun placed there during the night. When Bottorff looked up Parrish had the gun leveled and as Bottorff raised his revolver, Parrish fired both barrels. Bottorff fell in the yard, death being instantaneous. The charge from the gun had pierced his body in eighteen places; one shot severing the jugular, one piercing the heart, six penetrating the upper right side of his body, the rest tearing the flesh of the arm. Parrish immediately telephoned Sheriff J. W. White, who, with Special Officer Winfred Wilson, went to the scene. Parrish was placed under arrest and brought to Monticello.

The body of Bottorff was brought to the undertaking establishment of E. C. McCullough. The dead man had two revolvers on his person, one a 38, the other a 32 with ammunition for both. In his pocket was eleven cents in money and a deposit slip on the State bank of ,______, Nebraska, Saturday afternoon.

At the preliminary hearing before Squire W. T. Tool, Parrish was represented by Henry & Harris. The state was represented by Hon. R. C. Knox, specially appointed by the county judge, as the prosecuting attorney could not be reached. A plead of self defense was entered by Parrish, and after a short examing trial he was acquitted.- The Monticello, (Arkansas) Advance.

#2-Published in the Enterprise February 2, 1917

The Frank Bottorff Murder

Word came to Blair friends of deceased, the latter part of last week, from Deane, Ark., that Frank Bottorff a well-known form resident of Blair had been shot and instantly killed, by a man named Parish, at or near that place. The particulars of the case, as related here, are that Bottorff’s wife, who was a daughter of Mrs. Oliver Bouvier, born, reared and married to Bottorff at the former home of the Bouvier’s, on a farm near DeSoto. Had left him while living in Arkansas, where they located on leaving Blair a few years ago, and was living with Parish. It is reported that Parish had written Bottorff, after he returned to Blair, a couple of months or more ago, an insulting letter, bragging how he had gotten his wife away from him, to which Bottorff had replied that he might happen around that way sometime and put an end to Parish’s existence. It appears that Bottorff went to Arkansas recently, for the purpose of executing the threat conveyed in his letter and that Parish saw him first when he came to the place they were living and fired two charges from an automatic shotgun into him, causing and instant death. It is reported that Parish had a hearing before the authorities there and was exonerated, on the pleas of self-defense.

Obituaries courtesy of the Washington County Genealogical Society. Newspaper clippings on file in the Blair Public Library at Blair, Nebraska. FindaGrave 113534127