The Tragedies of John Dilling Harkins

      His sister killed herself. His brother was convicted of child rape, and murdered in prison. Two of his sons were shot to death by police. His wife was killed in a car accident. John Dilling Harkins had more than his share of tragedies. 

     

     Dilling, as he was called, was a little boy when his father Asbury was conscripted into the Confederate Army from their Gilmer County, Georgia home. Asbury was captured and held as a prisoner of war until his release in January 1864. Some years after the war he moved his family to Indiana, then Missouri, then to Montgomery County, Kansas. By that time, Asbury’s four children - Mary Ann, George, Dilling and Columbus - were all adults. In 1887, Dilling, at age 26, married a neighbor girl, Mary Ann “Mollie” Patchett. In 1892, Dilling’s niece Nancy, known as Nanny, married Mollie’s brother Andrew. 

     Just days before Dilling and Mollie wed, Dilling’s brother Columbus, known as “Lum,” was acquitted in a trial for theft from his employer. The family and Coffeyville newspaper strongly backed him. But the following year, he was in jail on bastardy charges brought by a neighbor girl, Rebecca Detre, after the birth of her son Albert. This time he lost and was excoriated in a nearby newspaper for the way in which he attempted to drag Rebecca through the mud at trial. Lum’s father and brothers guaranteed his child support payments and sold several acres of farmland to pay what he owed Rebecca. This set a pattern over many years of arrests with various outcomes, with Dilling supporting his brother. 

The Grass Widow

     The Harkins farmed in Parker Township. Dilling's sister Mary Ann and her husband Robert Robertson lived on the farm next-door. Robert died in 1889 when their only child, Nanny was 15. Probably after Nanny married, Mary Ann remarried to a man about whom nothing is known except that his last name was Blanton, and that things did not work out between them. The newspaper described Mary Ann as a “grass widow.” The term ‘straw widow’ is alternately used. Grass or straw widows were women whose husbands were away for prolonged periods of time, or the husbands left and weren’t coming back. She wasn’t quite in a marriage, but she wasn’t really widowed either. Forced to support herself, Mary Ann worked as a live-in housekeeper for William V. Herrick, who was the superintendent at the Coffeyville newspaper printing press. 

     Just after noon on a February Sunday in 1899, the Herrick children, who ranged in age from 12 to almost-five, returned home from their grandparents’ house. They didn’t see Mary Ann in the front rooms and she didn’t answer when they called. They went into the kitchen where they saw a horrifying scene that sent them running to a neighbor’s. She was at the kitchen table with an eight-inch butcher knife plunged into her body to a depth of five and a half inches, beginning above the breastbone. 

     Mary Ann had suffered from the “grippe” - flu - for about a week and had not seemed herself mentally. She left two notes for her daughter Nanny, one placed on a new gingham apron, telling her good-bye and that her soul was soon to depart. Nanny and little Bennie Herrick, age eight, were each paid a dollar for their testimony at a coroner’s inquest (equivalent to about $36 today). The determination of the inquest was that this was premeditated suicide. Mary Ann’s body was taken to her brother George’s house for the funeral. She was buried in Elmwood Cemetery in the family plot. She was only 43.

Delaware

     In 1904, George Harkins began to struggle with his health. He would be diagnosed with Bright’s disease, a now-archaic term for a condition that causes kidney failure. In 1907, he went to Eureka Springs, Arkansas hoping for healing. Instead, he collapsed in his wife’s arms and died there. Now Dilling’s only surviving sibling was Lum. 

     That year, Oklahoma became a state and Dilling and Mollie moved to the boomtown of Delaware in Nowata County, Oklahoma. It swelled to over 4,000 residents that year as gas and oil were discovered, but dropped back to about 650 by 1910. Lum was doing well there as a cattle rancher and horse doctor. Two of Mollie’s older brothers also lived in Nowata County as did her Patchett cousins, George, Melissa, John and Reuben.

Lum

     In 1912 Lum was accused of the triple murder of a pregnant 15-year old girl, Elsie Adams, and her two friends, Arvey and Sophronia Hurst. Everyone knew Lum had been keeping company with Elsie. Only after an autopsy showed she was pregnant did Lum say that she was his fiance. Cocaine, whiskey and cyanide was found in their stomachs and the little house they stayed in was set on fire, but after two trials, Lum managed to walk free. He had also gotten a 1905 federal murder trial dismissed. When out on bond, he stayed with Mollie and Dilling. 

     He may have gotten off on triple murder charges but people in Delaware widely believed he was guilty. In 1915 they were outraged when he was accused of raping a little 12-year old girl. He was nearly lynched by a crowd of hundreds who gathered at the county jail, except for the quick-thinking sheriff who had already spirited him out and transferred him to another county. January 1916, Lum was finally convicted and given a 50-year sentence at the state penitentiary in McAlester. He was 51 when he went to prison, leaving a 25-year old wife and two children, two-year old Juanita and Columbus, Jr., two months old. 

     The Harkins family tended to be supportive of each other. Maybe they believed Lum’s protestations of innocence to the very end. Families often do. Still, it had to be very stressful to deal with. Surely they did not foresee that this was just the beginning of family encounters with the law.

     

John Jr. 

     It was around 7:00 p.m. near Woods’ store east of Delaware, a September evening in 1918. Mrs. Ben Robinson, her baby and her hired hand were riding along in her horse and buggy. Twenty-one year-old John Dilling Harkins Jr. was driving towards her in an automobile. The law was clear about how motorists were to treat horse-drawn vehicles. They were to give them the right of way, doing everything to avoid spooking the horse, even pulling over on the side of the road until the horse passed. John hit the horse and buggy head-on. The three passengers tumbled from the buggy, nearly killing Mrs. Robinson and her baby. The horse had to be shot to put the poor animal out of its misery. 

     It was the first time John Dilling Harkins, Jr. made the news. If he faced any consequences from the accident, it was not reported in the newspaper.

     In September 1919, John married Mary Frances Schooley, who was just 16. They were married in Wyoming, and Mary’s father signed an attestation that his daughter was over the age of 17. In fact, Mary would turn 17 in November. Mr. Schooley also verified that all three of them lived in Wyoming. Any residency in Wyoming must have been brief because all were back in Nowata County, Oklahoma in a few months. John and Mary moved in with John’s parents in Delaware, and their first baby, Estella, was born January 9th, four months after the wedding. They lived with his parents, and he worked in the oil field. 

Lum, Again

     In August 1920, Lum was back in the news again. He was working at the brickyard in the prison with 120 other prisoners when he was stabbed in the heart by convicted murderer Charles Walker. He died instantly. At trial, Walker and other witnesses testified that Lum lost $1.85 to Walker in a poker game. He paid the dollar, but owed 85 cents. Walker had pressed Lum about it, then threatened him. He made good on his threats as the two were loading bricks into a boxcar.

      Dilling came and picked his brother’s body up. He was buried in the family plot at Elmwood Cemetery in Coffeyville next to his parents. 

A Break-In

     On a Sunday night in January 1921, four friends broke into the Farmers’ Supply Store in Delaware. They ranged in age from 17 to 23, John Dilling Harkins, Jr. being the oldest. The others were Cecil Ryning, Cecil Guthrey, and Harry VanBibber. They stole shotguns, rifles, revolvers and ammunition, plus an automobile casing, the goods estimated at a total value of $760. This would be equivalent to nearly $12,000 today. A few days later, some of the goods were found on the Ryning family’s farm. The county attorney managed to secure confessions that implicated the four. They were arrested on charges of second-degree burglary and held on bond of $3,000 each – about $45,000 in 2023 value. 

     This was the beginning of John Jr.’s life of crime - or at least, the first time it made the news. For several years, he was either the luckiest criminal, or the most unfortunate, depending on how one looks at it. The unfortunate part: he kept getting caught. The fortunate part: the charges never seemed to stick. 

     In late January the three younger boys waived their right to a preliminary hearing. They were bound over to district court for trial and their bonds were fixed at $5,000. John asked for a change of venue to the nearest justice of the peace, which was granted. 

     In March Cecil Guthrey pled guilty in court. He was sentenced to two years in the Oklahoma State Reformatory in Granite. After the jury left the room, Harry VanBibber entered a plea of guilty. John’s trial was continued until April.      

      John’s trial took place in June 1921, with Cecil Ryning testifying against him. Amazingly, the jury couldn’t agree. In October, a new trial date was set for November. It was postponed until March 1922. The trial ended in a hung jury again. John, alone of the four, walked free.

McKinley

     April 25, 1922, John’s second child was born. He was named John Dilling Harkins III. That was a happy occasion, but the Harkins family would soon be in mourning.

     McKinley, known as Kinney, Kenny or Kenley, was Dilling and Mollie’s youngest son. In 1920, he was living with his older sister Eva and her husband Charles Paxton in Tulsa. He worked as a pumper in the oilfields, where Charles was superintendent. On a Saturday night in July 1922 he was back at his parents’ home in Delaware. A friend, Lee Roy Stephenson, - Lee - came over, and around nine o’clock the two jumped into Dilling’s Ford touring car and headed to the home of W.J. Inman, Lee’s brother-in-law. Lee later testified that they went over to Inman’s home to make mash. Inman testified that Lee asked him about making mash and whether he could get away with it. 

     Sometime between 10:30 or 11:00, Lee said, he and Kinney left and headed back to the Harkins’ home about ten miles away. In Lee’s version of events they were laughing and talking, driving about 15 to 20 miles an hour on the bumpy dirt roads when someone suddenly stepped from behind a signboard and yelled at them to stop. Lee said, “Who are you?” and without a reply the person began firing at them. Lee continued in a rather self-serving written statement:

     “Before we had time to draw the car to a complete stop, Harkins had been shot loose from the steering wheel. As he fell from the car I arose to my feet and put one foot on the running board of the car and looked back to see what was going on. As the car turned over in a ditch, I jumped from the car, crossed the ditch, crawled under the fence , and still being uncertain to their purpose or their identity, I ran about a hundred and fifty yards and sat down in some weeds. That brought to my mind the many times I had done practically the same thing during my 12 months of overseas service, as a member of the Seventh Division, Fifty-sixth regiment, Third battalion, Company I.”

     Lee saw a search light sweep the area,  then saw a car drive towards town. In a few minutes it returned, then headed to town again. Not being near Kinney, he didn’t know what happened to him, and being afraid for his life, he said, he hurried to his sister’s, who lived half a mile away. He went to bed without doing anything to find out about Kinney’s well-being, or telling his sister about being shot at. In the morning, he went to the Harkins’ house where he said he was surprised to learn of his death. 

     “As to the officers’ report of us returning fire, there were positively no shots fired other than those fired by the officers,” he wrote. “There was only one gun in the car, and it belonged to McKinley, and it was found by the coroner’s jury not to have been fired, as it contained a full round of loaded cartridges,” he wrote.

     The Harkins family believed Lee. But of course the police had a very different version of events. 

     Nowata police officers James Hendricks and William Ellis got a report around 1:30 a.m. of someone stealing gasoline on the south side of the city. They drove to the reported area, got out of their car and waited. Since police vehicles lacked the light bars of today, they waved their flashlights and called to the driver to stop. They also shone the flashlights onto their badges to show that they were police officers. Allegedly, one or both of the young men yelled, “Go to hell!” and the car sped up. Someone in the car fired two shots at them, so the officers returned fire. Then they jumped in their cruiser to give chase, but the clouds of dust from the road were so dense that they couldn’t see Kinney’s tail lights. 

     They found the car abandoned in a ditch, headlights on. Officer Hendricks heard a groan and found Kinney about 150 feet away. He was face down, and by the time the officer reached him, he was dead, a six-shooter at his side. Kinney had been shot through the heart. 

     In the car were two five-gallon cans of gasoline, a 20-gallon tank of gasoline and a 20-foot piece of rubber hose. Lee later testified that the gasoline was in the car when he first got in at the Harkins’ home. The Coffeyville Daily Journal said, “Young Harkins himself had never been in trouble with the law, it is stated, but he has a brother, John Harkins, who is known to the authorities in Nowata and Montgomery Counties.” 

     At a coroner’s inquest neighbors testified that they heard two shots followed by three shots. The jury ruled that the officers fired in self-defense, and McKinley’s death was described as a tragedy. Certainly it was for the Harkins.

   

Outrunning Bullets

     October 11th, Deputy U.S. Marshal Julius Payne and four other law enforcement officers, federal and county, crept up to an area along the banks of Cedar Creek about seven miles from Lenapah. Hidden in the brush was a moonshine operation. There was a still made of galvanized iron with about a 55-gallon capacity. There were six barrels of mash and 90 gallons of corn whiskey. Two men, John Harkins and Steve Williams, were observed loading a sporty new roadster with whiskey. 

     The officers sprang out of the brush, surprising the two and capturing Williams. John was at the wheel of the car and peeled out as officers shot at him. Marshal Payne told the newspaper John outran “loads of shot and whistling bullets.” And he got away. Afterwards, law enforcement discovered that the roadster had been stolen off the street in the near-by town of Dewey. John left his coat behind at the still, and in a pocket were found seven homemade “crooked” keys that were part of a burglary kit, Payne said. They were fashioned from steel and able to unlock nearly any kind of lock. Williams told them that by noon that day, he would have been marketing 30 gallons of whiskey. He was taken to jail in Vinita, the county seat of Craig County. Officers destroyed the still, barrels of mash and the 90 gallons of bootlegged whiskey.

     Ten days later, Williams compounded his problems by breaking out of jail, along with the seven other prisoners there. He was recaptured in Nowata County. As for John, the newspapers never mentioned him in the case again. The still was on Williams’ land. John somehow got away with (allegedly) stealing a car, operating a bootlegging business and fashioning or possessing keys that could open nearly every lock. 

     October 19, 1922 an article ran in the Coffeyville, Kansas newspaper with the headline, “Mysterious Auto Makes Get-Away From Police Car.” At 4:00 a.m. on the 17th, one of the two Coffeyville police officers on duty in the city saw a Studebaker racing down Walnut Street at high speed. He began pursuit in the police Ford auto that the reporter disparagingly called the “whoopie.” The powerful Studebaker easily outran the slower police car and disappeared in the “maze of streets and railroad tracks south of the Missouri Pacific depot.” The officer went back to the station to get the other officer, and they searched the streets, to no avail. Later in the morning, after the night officers were at home, it was discovered that Maxwell’s Sporting Goods store had been broken into. The burglars used a brace and bit to bore through the back door, then sawed out a door panel. Missing were  eleven guns, “mostly revolvers of a high grade,” sweaters, putts and other “high grade” sports equipment, with an estimated total value of $550 - nearly a $10,000 loss today. 

     In December 1925 a brief item appeared in the Nowata Daily Star: “Harkins Bound Over.” John was brought from Nowata to Coffeyville on a charge of burglarizing Maxwell’s Sporting Goods store three years earlier – the incident with the speedy Studebaker. Bail was set at $2,500; his charge was grand larceny. 

     The trial was just days later. Once again, he walked away free. The case was dismissed on a technicality. The newspaper reported that the only witnesses were Oklahoma residents and “witnesses cannot be compelled to come to Kansas to testify in criminal cases.”     

     The latter half of 1926 was a busy one for John. July 4th he and his partner W.M. Halsey allegedly robbed the Stone Drugstore in Coweta, Oklahoma. A tenant of Halsey’s said that Halsey and Harkins tried to persuade him to go in on the drugstore robbery and heckled him for refusing. (Shortly after the tenant was convicted of another robbery in Leavenworth and sentenced to time in the state prison.)

     Two days later, John, Halsey, and another man named George Ford were removing the back window from the Allan-Mayer mercantile building in Vian when the night policeman came upon them. John or one of his men shot the flashlight out of the officer’s hand and took off in a stolen car. They were captured and arrested a few hours later only after a pitched gun battle with a law enforcement posse. In addition to attempted burglary and automobile theft, they now faced a charge of assault with attempt to kill. 

     Halsey, of Tulsa, was believed to be the head of a theft ring that had been operating in eastern Oklahoma for the past eight months. The Tulsa newspaper said he had once been prominent in oil circles. 

     In addition to his adventures with Halsey, John operated a restaurant in Lenapah until May. His wife Mary said that he had merely been out scouting locations for a new restaurant at the time that he was captured. She bailed him out of the Sallisaw jail where he’d been held; Halsey was unable to make bail. However, authorities quickly picked John up and took him to the Wagoner County jail on the Coweta charge. This time, the newspaper reported, he was unable to make bail. 

     Mary must have been able to find bail money a few days later. On August 26th, John attended a Pentecostal revival in Muldrow. Salvation evidently wasn’t what was on his mind. It was alleged that he went up to the mourners’ bench in a drunken state and began to call the people near him and the preachers “vile names.” (The mourners’ bench began in the Methodist Church. It was, and in some evangelical churches, still is, a simple wooden bench up near the front where people could come and “mourn,” or repent of their sins. After services the minister and lay leaders would come and comfort those there. It was a place to come and get right with God.) John was arrested for public intoxication and bonded out of jail. Less than 24 hours later he was again picked up and jailed on charges of public intoxication. The judge fined him $25 and court costs, which he was unable to pay. He was held in jail. 

     Two days later, he was given a preliminary hearing on the Stone Drugstore burglary case. Bond was set at $1,500, which he was also unable to come up with. Trial in the Allan-Mayer case was set for September 29th.

     As if he didn’t have enough going on, in December the Lenapah and Delaware marshals arrested him on charges from a Muskogee burglary. A Muskogee County sheriff’s deputy came to pick him up, handcuffed him, and boarded the 7:20 morning train to take him to the Muskogee jail. The Nowata Daily Star noted that he was already facing trials on robberies in Sallisaw and Coweta. But somehow, by that afternoon he had convinced Muskogee law enforcement that he was innocent of the department store burglary, and he was released. 

     February 1927: John was back in the news again. “John Harkins of Delaware, who has had a number of “run-ins” with the officers of this and surrounding counties, was arrested today by J.E. Taylor, deputy sheriff, and brought to the county jail,” the Nowata Daily Star reported. This time, he was charged with the robberies of nine stores in Nowata on one Saturday night. He was arraigned before the county judge; bail was set at $1,000, and a preliminary hearing was set in two weeks. He vehemently denied the charges and insisted that he hadn’t been in Nowata Saturday night. That afternoon, he made bail and was released, as were three other men who were his alleged accomplices. He was described in the paper as a “Delaware character.” 

     He was arrested at the request of members of the Anti-Automobile Thief Association, a group modeled after the Anti-Horse Thief Association. At the preliminary hearing March 1st, members admitted they had little to no evidence against him. His fingerprints were taken when he was arrested and did not match fingerprints at the scenes. His reputation was probably what led to his arrest. The charges were dropped against John, and once again, he was free.   

     But he wasn't free for long. March 20th, John was arrested again. He survived another shoot-out with police - again. This time he and three other men were accused of robbing the Dack Brothers’ Grocery on a Sunday night at the edge of downtown Coffeyville. One of the men, Gilbert Wilson, was captured at the store. The other three, including John, escaped in John’s Chrysler after an exchange of shots with city police. One of the “bandits” was believed to be wounded.

      Two hours later John was picked up in South Coffeyville, Oklahoma. With him in his car was another alleged accomplice, Dewey “Dude” Cooper and his 16-year old sister Freda. Police believed Freda, a high school student, was driving John’s Chrysler the night of the burglary and shoot-out. While police questioned John, Dewey and Freda slipped away and boarded an interurban for Lenapah. Lenapah citizens said they’d seen the Coopers with John Sunday afternoon. Dewey was well-known to law enforcement. Like John, he was out on bond on other charges - in his case, car theft. Only one man, Monia Watters, another “frequent flyer” in the local justice system, remained at large. The next day, Dewey and Freda were arrested.

     This time, John fought extradition to Kansas. Coffeyville police sent requisition papers to the Kansas governor in order to bring him across state lines. On March 24th, a preliminary hearing was held for Wilson and the Coopers. The brother and sister duo voluntarily returned to Kansas. All three were charged with burglary and Wilson was also charged with assault with intent to murder. They were held on a bond of $2,000 each. The Nowata paper said of John, “The prisoner has steadfastly refused to return to Kansas without papers and will not discuss the case with officers.” Police held John’s car, but he got around that. He sold the car to his father for $1. Dilling came and picked it up. 

     It was May before John got out of jail on a  $2,000 bond. After weeks in jail, the charges against Dewey and Freda were dropped for lack of evidence, and they were also released. Wilson was unable to make bond and remained in jail. 

The Ending 

     It was 5:30 a.m., a June morning, and Claude Singleton, the night police officer in Collinsville, Oklahoma was making his last round before going off-duty at 6:00 a.m. He drove through the alley behind Palmer’s Clothing Store in the heart of Collinsville’s business district.  He saw the rear door of Farmer Brothers’ department store open and two men working on chiseling open a safe. Singleton drove a few feet more then got out of his car. As he approached the men, John allegedly “whipped out a .44 caliber revolver and began firing, stepping into the partial shelter of a recess in the store wall,” according to an Associated Press article that ran over the wire service. Four bullets lodged in Singleton’s car close to where he was. Singleton fired six shots, three of which hit John – one in the arm, one in the stomach, and one in the ankle. The other man escaped. 

     A short time later, a man emerged from behind a cotton gin office about half a mile away from downtown to flag down a car for a ride. It was Dewey “Dude” Cooper – who had the great misfortune to flag down an unmarked police car with Singleton and Harve Sims, chief of police. Dewey immediately took off running when he realized who was in the car. Singleton was familiar with Dewey. After a foot chase, the police captured Dewey and he was promptly taken to the Collinsville jail. He was later transferred to the county jail in Tulsa. On the drive to Tulsa, he asked the deputy escorting him if John was hurt. When he was told John was dead, he rode the rest of the way in silence.

     Police weren’t sure at first who lay dead in the alley. John and Dewey were both described as well-dressed, but John had no identification on him, and even the label in his coat was removed. Dewey was also not being cooperative in identifying himself or John. Collinsville is in Rogers and Tulsa Counties; John and Dewey were from Nowata County. But Chief Sims was at least familiar with John, and just recently he’d stopped him driving through town late at night with a young girl. John talked his way out of being arrested, telling the chief that he was Mr. Lloyd Colter, county attorney of Nowata County. Chief Sims said he was a very good talker, very convincing. He didn’t want to put the adjoining county’s attorney in his jail, and as a courtesy let him go. “He hung one on me,” the chief admitted. 

     W.F. Gillespey, the Nowata County sheriff, just happened to be driving home from Tulsa the day of the shoot-out when he saw a large crowd outside Collinsville’s city hall. He stopped to see what was going on. Sims asked for his help, and Gillespey immediately identified Dewey. He went to the undertaking parlor where John had been removed to, and easily identified him also. 

     The men left behind a snappy 1926 light touring car filled with a large amount of merchandise the two had gathered - 54 silk dresses and eight coats, plus all the change in the cash register. The haul had an estimated value of $1,200.  “Where they made their mistake, however, was stopping and attempting to open the safe in the store,” the Nowata reporter wrote. “They evidently worked on the safe for a considerable amount of time, as the door was almost chiseled off.” Opal Farmer, one of the two owners, said the safe contained very little money, only papers that he considered valuable.

     The Collinsville newspaper speculated that the bandits' judgment was clouded by liquor, saying that they were not sober or they would have deserted the job before daylight. Their evidence was that several quarts of liquor were found in the touring car, and one bottle was empty.

     John’s death was front page news in area newspapers. The headline spread across the front page of the Bartlesville Daily Enterprise in large type: “Bullets End Career of an Oklahoma Outlaw - John Harkins Shot to Death in Collinsville.” The front page banner headline in the Nowata Daily Star read, “John Harkins Killed By Collinsville Officer - Dewey Cooper Is Arrested.” 

     “The killing of John Harkins brings to an end the notorious career of a man who has consistently evaded punishment on a number of crimes of which he has been accused,” the Nowata reporter wrote. “He has been arrested on innumerable occasions but has always managed to escape conviction. He is at present under bond in Montgomery County, Kan., on a charge of robbing Dack Bros. grocery store in Coffeyville several months ago. He also had charges filed against him in Sequoyah and Wagoner counties recently for robbery, but it is not known what disposition was made of those charges.” 

     The article noted that he was out on bond. So was Dewey. Dewey was convicted of stealing a Hudson Brougham belonging to the editor of the Nowata Daily Star and given a five-year sentence, but he successfully filed for an appeal. His second trial would be in November.

     Two days later, Dewey entered a plea of not guilty. The Coffeyville paper used the occasion to editorialize about John. 

     

     The fate of John Harkins, who was yesterday morning [sic] shot to death in the act of robbing a Collinsville store again brings to mind the unprofitableness of banditry. The bandit business, if it paid big dividends, might be looked upon as something approaching desirability. But of all the occupations available for men, probably no other pays less in proportion to the hazards and the dog’s life one must lead to follow it, even for a brief season….the end is usually to die in prison stripes, or with their boots on, as Harkins died.”

     It was first reported that the bullet wound in John’s abdomen caused his death, but Dr. J.P. Sudderth, who was called to sign the death certificate, found otherwise. The bullet that hit John’s arm passed through it into his chest. Death was probably instantaneous. The newspaper said he was 28; family records say he was 29. His daughter Estella was seven, and his son Johnny was five.

     John’s wife Mary and his father came to Collinsville to take his body back to Nowata County. John was brought to the Benjamin Funeral Home in Nowata, where Dilling left instructions that the public was to be excluded from viewing his son’s body. With a macabre instinct, many had come to the Collinsville funeral home and viewed the body. A “large number of the curious” went to the Benjamin Funeral Home but were turned away. The family delayed the funeral long enough to give his sister Genevieve, who lived in San Diego, time to arrive. He was buried at Elmwood Cemetery in Coffeyville in the Harkins’ family plot, where his grandparents, his brother McKinley and his uncle Lum lay. Remarkably, he was never convicted of the serious charges against him. Other than the time he was locked up in local jails awaiting court actions, he never served time.

Afterwards

      Police Officer Claude Singleton was hailed as a hero. Chief Sims received congratulations from police departments in nearby states for “capturing these bad characters.” The Farmer brothers started a campaign to give Singleton a cash award, which they and the public contributed to.

     Although it was only a formality, John’s trial in the Allan-Mayer robbery was canceled. In October his accomplice in the Stone Drugstore robbery in Coweta, W.M. Halsey, went on trial. Interestingly, it came out in the trial that John paid the difference to the drugstore owner between the money recovered from the robbery and the amount missing. Mary was the only witness for the defense in Halsey’s trial. There was a hung jury, and Halsey walked.  

     Dewey Cooper was tried twice for the Collinsville Farmer Bros. burglary. The first trial in November 1926 resulted in a hung jury. He was also tried in November on the car larceny case with the Hudson Brougham. Dewey had taken the Nowata newspaper editor’s car in “broad daylight” around 6:00 p.m., then got stuck in the mud on a nearby road. Two men pulled him out. One of the men, Bert Teel, testified that John Harkins came to his workplace and bribed and threatened him not to testify in Dewey’s trial. Teel was impressed enough by his message to leave the state and had to be arrested to be returned to Oklahoma for the trial. At the trial, in the morning he positively identified Dewey as the man who paid him to be pulled out of the mud, but in the afternoon he said he wasn’t sure. The judge later brought him back to the stand where he confirmed that Dewey was the man he assisted.

     In February 1928 Dewey’s father paid the balance on fines and court costs Dewey was assessed after his conviction on bootlegging charges. The amount was past due and a suit was filed against him. In January 1929 he was acquitted in the second trial in the Collinsville Farmer Bros. burglary. He was found guilty of the auto theft and the decision was upheld on appeal. 

     Mary Frances Harkins and her two children continued living with Mollie and Dilling. She would live in their home until her children were grown, remarrying in 1944 to a lodger Dilling took in. 

The Collision

     It was six-thirty in the evening of September 13, 1930; the sun was setting. Andrew Patchett was driving. In the front passenger seats were Dilling and his granddaughter Estella. In the back were Mollie and Andrew’s wife Nanny. Andy and Nanny still lived on a farm outside of Coffeyville and they’d driven down for a visit. Years ago, Mollie and Andrew’s brother Charlie moved to Nowata. They visited at his home, then the group headed to Charlie’s barber shop in the city. They planned to stop in and see him, then head back to the Harkins’ home in Delaware.

     The Studebaker sedan reached the intersection of Cherokee and Willow Streets. Fifteen-year old Anson Paige, Jr. was driving a fully-loaded trunk owned by the Coca-Cola bottling plant in Bartlesville. His father Anson Sr. was his passenger. Later Anson Sr. said the rays of the setting sun blinded both of them. Andrew and Nanny said they didn’t see the truck until it hit them. 

     It hit from behind, striking the rear fender, spinning the car around and shattering the windows in the doors and rear. Safety glass was not yet installed in cars. Mollie and Nanny were slashed by shards of glass, Mollie “severely.”  In the front seat, Andrew, Estella and Dilling were unhurt. The women were rushed to the hospital by ambulance, but Mollie died just as they arrived. In addition to deep cuts, her neck had been broken. She was 61. 

     Anson Paige Sr. said that he and his son were grief-stricken. The manager of the Coca-Cola bottling plant attended Mollie’s funeral. Dilling was remarkably forgiving. He said he held the company blameless, that the accident was just that - an unavoidable accident. 

     Ten days before Mollie’s death, her daughter Genevieve was widowed at 26 when her husband, a Navy aviation pilot, lost control of his plane in a training exercise near San Diego. Mollie and Dilling were set to leave Tuesday for California to be with her – but Mollie was killed Saturday. After Mollie’s funeral, Dilling, his grandchildren Estella and John Harkins III, and his daughter Bess accompanied Genevieve to California. 

     Dilling Harkins lived 22 years after Mollie’s death. He was always described as an upright citizen. His grandson, John Dilling Harkins III, son of the outlaw, grew up to be the chief police radio dispatcher for the city of Tulsa. He was noted for his ability to assemble roadblocks “in a few seconds,” and credited with many arrests, including a 1957 case in which  he coordinated communications for eight hours leading to the capture of two bank robbers. 

     

 Notes: Here's how the Harkins fit in my family tree. Mollie was my great-grandmother Melissa Patchett's first cousin. John Harkins Jr. was her cousin's son.

1. The Harkins were woven into my family tree in other ways. Mollie and Andrew’s older brother Bruce Patchett married Maud May Stoler. She was the only daughter of my great-great-grandmother Agnes Banta. Agnes’ son Clyde Barbour married Melissa Patchett, who was a first cousin of Bruce, Mollie and Andrew Patchett. Melissa is my great-grandmother.

2. I wrote about Lum Harkins’ first two trials in “Lum, Bastardy and the White Caps.” 

3. One of John Harkins, Jr.’s accomplices, Cecil Guthrey, filed for an appeal, got out on bond, and in April 1924 was scheduled at last to appear in court for a retrial. But he had disappeared – whereabouts unknown. Harry VanBibber also was sentenced to the reformatory. In 1923 he was out and arrested for stealing a saddle and set of tires from a rancher. This time, he received a five-year sentence in the penitentiary.

4. McKinley’s friend Lee Stevenson had at least one more run-in with the law after Kinney’s death. In January 1923, Lee was in jail awaiting charges of burglarizing the post office in Nowata.

5. Dewey Cooper’s attorney knew there were many witnesses who saw Dewey in the car. He entered a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity. At a hearing before the Lunacy Commission, his father and wife testified that he was a “periodical drunkard,” and when under the influence, did not behave in a normal manner. His father said he became mean when drinking, and he’d had to knock his son down during an altercation. His wife testified that Dewey drank half a gallon of liquor a day and was “out of his head” when drunk, threatening to kill her on many occasions. Several other witnesses, including his doctor, testified to the same. The commission found him to be sane. Incidentally, when officers searched for Dewey after the car theft, one of Molly’s Patchett cousins - either George, John or Reuben - assisted in the search. They were community leaders in Lenapah, where Dewey lived. Dewey served five years in prison for the auto theft, and continued a life of crime afterwards.

Sources:

 

     “Found Guilty,” Independence Daily Reporter, 27 Dec. 1888, p. 4.

      “A Most Ghastly Suicide – Mrs. Mary Robinson-Blanton Used a Butcher Knife,” Coffeyville Weekly Journal, 3 Mar 1899, p. 8.

     “C.L. Harkins Fined,” Coffeyville Daily Journal, 23 April 1901, p. 4.

     “Result of a Sunday Fight - Lum Harkins Is Held to Federal Court on Serious Charge,” The Nowata Advertiser (Nowata, Oklahoma), 21 July 1905, p. 1.

     “Veterinarian Arrested in Delaware Murder Case - C.L. Harkins in Jail in Nowata,” Coffeyville Daily Journal, 7 Feb 1912, p. 1. 

     “Arrest in Oklahoma Mystery - C.L. Harkins Was Engaged to Elsie Adams, One of Three Fire Victims,” Chanute Daily Tribune (Chanute, Kansas), 9 Feb 1912, p. 3. 

     “Murder, Says Her Father,” Coffeyville Daily Journal, 12 Feb 1912, p. 3.

     “Arrest in a Delaware Crime - C.L. Harkins Re-arrested,” Coffeyville Daily Journal, 27 Feb 1912, p. 1. 

     “Harkins In Jail - Still Protests Innocence,” Coffeyville Daily Journal, 28 Feb 1912, p. 1.

          “L.F. [sic] Harkins Taken Into Custody For Crime,” Delaware Register (Delaware, Oklahoma), 29 Feb 1912, p. 1.

     “Harkins Bound Over For Trial,” Coffeyville Daily Journal, 6 March 1912, p. 1.

     “Harkins Bound Over - Is Charged With First Degree Murder of Delaware Family,” Lenapah Post (Lenapah, Oklahoma), 7 March 1912, p. 1. 

     “A Bad Accident,” The Delaware News, 5 Sept 1918, p. 1. 

      “Veterinarian Arrested in Delaware Murders, C.L. Harkins in Jail in Nowata…” Coffeyville Daily Journal, 7 Feb 1911, p. 1.

      “Sympathy Won Harkin’s Heart While He Was In Jail,” Independence Daily Reporter, 1 Nov. 1912, p. 6.

      “Will They “Get” Him? C.L. Harkins, Nowata County Man, In Bartlesville Jail Charged in Statutory Offense Against 13-year Old Girl – Mob Stormed Nowata Jail,” Independence Daily Reporter, 18 Sept. 1915, p. 7.

      “Lum Harkins Killed. Former Coffeyville Man Was Stabbed to Death by Fellow Convict at McAlester Yesterday,” Coffeyville Daily Journal, 31 July 1920, p. 8.

      “Lum Harkins Slayer to Die,” Coffeyville Daily Journal, 1 Feb. 1921, p. 6.

      “Cecil Guthrey Gets Two Years,” Coffeyville Daily Journal, March 5, 1921, p. 7.

      “Harkins Jury Disagrees,” Coffeyville Daily Journal, 4 June 1921, p. 8.

      “McKinley Harkins a Victim of Officers; Delaware Lad Shot and Killed by Nowata Policeman While Driving Car Early Today,” Coffeyville Daily Journal, 1 July 1922, p. 1.

     “Harkins Outran Marshal’s Bullets,” Vinita Daily Journal (Vinita, Oklahoma), 12 Oct 1922, p. 2. 

     “Mysterious Auto Makes Get-Away From Police Car,” The Morning News (Coffeyville), 19 Oct 1922, p. 1. 

     “Harkins Bound Over,” Nowata Daily Star (Nowata, Oklahoma), 2 Dec 1925, p. 6.

     “Harkins Is Given Freedom,” Nowata Daily Star, 13 Dec 1925, p. 8.

     “Alleged Coweta Robber Returned From Sallisaw,” The Record-Democrat (Wagoner, Oklahoma), 19 Aug 1926, p. 8. 

     “Harkins Arrested on Charges of Public Drunkeness,” Muldrow Sun (Sallisaw, Oklahoma), 27 Aug 1926, p. 1. 

     “Handcuffed Harkins Taken to Muskogee,” Nowata Daily Star, 10 Dec 1926, p. 3.

     “Harkins Given Freedom,” Nowata Daily Star, 12 Dec 1926, p. 8.

     “Capture Bandit in Coffeyville Store, Three of Gang Escape,” Emporia Gazette, 1 March 1927, p. 8

      “John Dillon Harkins, Jr. Killed By Police,” Democrat-American (Sallisaw, Oklahoma), 1 July 1927, p. 1.

     “Delaware Lady Victim of Auto Accident - Dies On Way to Hospital,” Nowata Daily Star, 14 Sept 1930, p. 1. 

     “Police Radio Figure Dies,” Tulsa World, 23 March 1967, p. 12.

      John Dillon Harkins III, information retrieved from ancestry.com on Dec. 2, 2017 at https://www.ancestry.com/family-tree/person/tree/19772497/person/20161284705/facts

    

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