John Lancaster Pope
Marriages
Adeline B. (Barrow) Pope - October 20, 1904
Kentucky
Obituaries
Eagle Valley Enterpirse page 1 - March 27, 1931
WRIGHT COMMENCES SERVING LIFE TERM
Saturday morning Lee Wright, convicted in the district court of Eagle county last January of the murder of John L. Pope of Louisville, Ky., was taken to Canon City by Sheriff Wilson and turned over to the warden of the state penitentiary to commence serving a life sentence for the crime.
Accompanied by his wife, Mr. Wilson made the trip to Canon City with his prisoner by automobile. When sentenced by Judge Bouck a few weeks ago, Wright was very abusive to everyone connected with his prosecution, but on the trip to Canon City from Glenwood was very submissive and had but little to say.
Eagle Valley Enterpirse page 1 - November 28, 1930
SHERIFF WILSON AND DISTRICT ATTORNEY LUBY SOLVE DEATH OF MAN FOUND IN WELL
DEAD MAN IDENTIFIED AS JOHN L. POPE OF LOUISVILLE, KY.
LEE WRIGHT ARRESTED IN MISSOURI CHARGED WITH MURDER
Accused man waives preliminary hearing and is refused bond by the Court - information from Kentucky City may shed further light on Wright's identity.
The death of the man who was found in an abandoned well near McCoy in this county on November 10, is no longer a mystery.
Last Friday Sheriff W. M. Wilson took into custody at Hamilton, Mo., Lee Wright, alias E. R. Philips, charged with the murder of John Langsford Pope, the name the dead man has been identified by, and returned him to Eagle county to face a charge of murder.
The story of the unravelling of this crime and the running down of the man charged with it, and the identification of the man who had been dead since in September, reads like a regular detective thriller. When the body was found it was generally conceeded to be another one of those mysteries which would go unsolved and soon forgotten. But those who so thought did not reckon on the ability of our sheriff or his faculty of sticking by a job once commenced until it was finished.
The only possible clue found about the body of the murdered man, was a slip of paper on which had been written whar purported to be a suicide note. This note reads as follows:
"I will jump head first. I am tired of this old world so good By to all." "BOB."
This note was written on the back of a miner time check from which the heading had been torn. But on the bottom of the slip was the printer's imprint as follows: "Pioneer, Inc., Takoma - 194107". Through this imprint it was learned that the time check was issued by the Wilkeson Coal & Coke Co., of Wilkeson, Wash., on March 15, 1930, to Lee Wright, a miner. From this start, within 72 hours time, Mr. Wilson had traced every movement of Wright up to the time of his arrest by the Missouri sheriff Wednesday of last week, on request of Wilson. The trail led through most of the Northwestern states into Colorado, back into Montana and then to Oak Creek. After the date of the crime the trail led across Colorado, into Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, to Tennessee, and back into Arkansas and again into Missouri.
Wright has admitted knowledge of the killing, but maintains that he did not actually commit the crime. His story as told to the sheriff is to the effect that he and Pope had been traveling and working together, and fell in with an organization of gangsters which Wright has tried to make the sheriff believe control this section of the country. At Salida he claims that he was held a prisoner under threat of death over one night, during that time Pope disappeared and the next morning members of the alleged gang appeared with Pope's car and other personal belongings. A bed roll and tool kit, Wright says, was thrown into a river somewhere, and he, Wright, through some generosity on the part of the alleged "gang", became the possessor of the other property of the dead man. In Del Norte, Colo., Wright sold the car, a late 1929 Ford coupe, at the Ford garage. He posed here as Pope, and waited there two days while the dealer wired up the secretary of the state of Kentucky, where the car was registered, to check up on whether or not the title was clear. When arrested in Missouri there was taken from the prisoner a watch, Catholic rosary, a razor, and he was wearing a suit of clothes, all of which the sheriff says Wright admitted as having belonged to Pope. Another mine time check from the Wilkeson Company was also found in his possession, and the sheriff has a letter written by the prisoner to a woman, the writing in which corresponds very closely to that of the "suicide" note. The woman in the case, who was held in Missouri for questioning by Mr. Wilson, identified the writing on this note as being that of Wright, who was admittedly the woman's lover.
Monday evening Sheriff Wilson and District Attorney Luby took the prisoner to Red Cliff where he was shown Pope's body and questioned regarding it. He was perfectly unmoved by sight of the gruesome remains of his former partner. He admitted that it might be the body of Pope and that the hair resembled his. Further he would make no statement.
Sheriff Wilson is due for great credit for his work on this death and murder, which at first appeared so mysterious and unsolvable. However, he is very modest, as usual, and wants to give much credit to various people and agencies where Wright has worked and been. He was shown the greatest courtesy and co-operation all along the line, at every step, so he says. His investigations were conducted by wire and long distance telephone, and without exception he met with instant co-operation. Wilson even went back on the prisoner's life for the past ten years, and found that some ten or twelve years ago he was employed on the Moffat railroad for a period of four years.
Wright has signified his desire to waive a preliminary hearing, and his wish to employ an attorney and prepare for the fight he expects to have against possible life imprisonment or the hangman.
Pope's home was in Louisville, Ky., where he has relatives living. The newspapers and police back there are much interested in the case, and a telegram from the Louisville Times to the Enterprise Wednesday morning intimated that Wright was possibly W. R. Phillips, formerly a contractor of Louisville. This angle of the case is being investigated by the sheriff and district attorney's office.
Eagle Valley Enterpirse page 1 - February 20, 1931
WRIGHT TAKES LITE SENTENCE IN PRISON WITH POOR GRACE
TAKES WRATH OUT ON SHERIFF AND EVERYONE CONNECTED WITH PROSECUTION — GIVEN 30 DAYS STAY TO APPEAL CASE TO SUPREME COURT
Reviling the officers and attorneys who prosecuted him, and even belittling his attorney, Lee Wright took his sentence of life imprisonment for the murder of John L. Pope, with poor grace last Friday, when arraigned before Judge F. E. Bouck in the district court for that purpose.
When Judge Bouck denied the motion for a new trial and pronounced the sentence, Wright broke into a flood of abuse, making Sheriff Wilson the especial target for his tirade, stating that he had been railroaded to prison. He then said that little had been done to save him from his fate by defense attorneys, and completely lost any sympathy he might possibly have had from any one who heard him. Judge Bpouck rebuked him for his remarks, by calling his attention to the fact that he had undoubtedly perjured himself in at least two instances while on the witness stand, and thus discrediting his entire story of coercion by a gang of murderers. Judge Bouck, in his remarks, reminded the prisoner that his attorney had done everything that was possible to save him, and was to be commended for his handling of a very difficult case.
Sentence conferred on the prisoner by Judge Bouck was confinement in the state penitentiary at hard labor for the rest of his natural life.
Attorney Meehan then made a motion for a stay of judgment for sixty days in order to prepare for an appeal to the supreme court. The court granted the request, but cut the time to thirty days. Unless Wright can raise money to make the appeal within that time he will be taken to Cano City next month to commence serving his time. In the meantime he is being closely confined in a solitary cell in the Garfield county jail at Glenwood and every precaution taken to guard against his escape. The prisoner stated that if he was free so he could get it, he had $700 cached out with which to pay expenses of the appeal. When first arraigned in court and questioned regarding his ability to employ an attorney for his defense, Wright swore that he had no means and would be unable to raise money from any source.
Eagle Valley Enterpirse page 1 - December 5, 1930
MURDERED MAN'S BODY IDENTIFIED BY RELATIVES
THREE PEOPLE MAKE IDENTITY OF BODY FOUND NEAR McCOY CERTAIN AS THAT OF J. L. POPE-REMAINS VIEWED BY SON-IN-LAW AND FORMER EMPLOYER.
The chain of circumstantial evidence against Lee Wright alias E. R. Phillips, charged with the murder of John L. Pope near McCoy last September, is being tightened up by the efforts of the sheriff's and district attorney's offices since Wright was arraigned on the charge last week and remanded to jail without bond.
Sunday two men who knew Pope in the San Luis valley last summer viewed the body of the dead man and were able to identify it as that of Pope. The latter worked on the ranch of Nees Brothers near Center, Colo., last summer, and one of the brothers, E. L. Nees, and J. S. Jordensen, who worked with Pope, were the men who viewed the body Sunday. They not only recognized the remains as those of Pope, but also were able to identify some of the articles taken from Wright at the time of his arrest in Missouri as having been in Pope's possession at the time he worked for Nees Bros.
Tuesday morning Edw. Fischer, a son-in-law of Pope, arrived from Louisville, Ky., and in company with the sheriff officers went up to Red Cliff and viewed the body of the murdered man. He was positive in his identification of the body as that of his father-in-law, despite its advanced state of decomposition. Pope was last in his home in Kentucky some time last summer.
Pope was a widower, his wife being dead, and has two daughters living in Louisville, Mrs. Fischer, and one single, Miss Mary Pope.
While here Mr. Fischer arranged with Mortician Oscar W. Meyer, in whose charge Pope's body has been since its discovery in a well near McCoy on November 10, to have it buried at Red Cliff, instead of trying to transport it back to Kentucky.
Mr. Fischer returned to his home in Louisville Wednesday morning.
Eagle Valley Enterpirse page 1 - December 12, 1930
LEE WRIGHT'S TRIAL SET FOR JANUARY 8 IN DIST. COURT
FORMALLY CHARGED WITH J. L. POPE'S MURDER IN JUDGE F. E. BOUCK'S COURT MONDAY COURT REFUSES TO APPOINT COUNSEL TO DEFEND HIM
FORTY-FIVE JURYMEN ORDERED DRAWN FOR JANUARY 5
Lee Wright, held for the murder of John L. Pope, was arraigned in the district court in Eagle Monday and District Attorney W. H. Luby filed a direct information against the prisoner charging him with the murder of Pope on or about September 26, 1930, and his trial was set down for January 8, 1931.
Wright plead not guilty and asked the court to appoint an attorney to defend him, pleading lack of money for that purpose. This plea was combatted by the district attorney and sheriff, and evidence was produced to show that Wright could find the money for his defense if he would. He is supposed to have a considerable cache of money near Hamilton, Mo., and letters written by him to his common law wife indicated that he did have some source of securing money. Judge Bouck refused to appoint an attorney at public expense for his defense at this time.
Wright was remanded to jail without bond to await his trial.
Eagle Valley Enterpirse page 1 - February 13, 1931
WRIGHT MOTION FOR NEW TRIAL UP IN COURT TODAY
Man convicted of murder will get his last chance - Judge Bouck will hear other court matters at this time also
Lee Wright, convicted in Eagle county two weeks ago of the murder of John L. Pope last September, will again be arraigned in district court, when his attorney, Wm. J. Meehan, will argue his motion for a new trial, made directly after the jury's verdict finding his client guilty was brought into court. The fifteen days stay granted in order to plead the motion was extended by Judge Bouck last week owing to the other matters pressing on the court's time, and Friday, February 13, set for the hearing.
In case the motion is denied, Wright will be sentenced at once. The verdict carries a maximum sentence of life confinement in the state penitentiary. The death penalty is not given in Colorado where conviction is secured through circumstantial evidence.
Eagle Valley Enterpirse page 1 - January 23, 1931
JURY FINDS LEE WRIGHT GUILTY OF THE BRUTAL MURDER OF JOHN L. POPE
Jury out but twenty minutes arrives at verdict on second ballot---Wright's attorney given fifteen days in which to argue motion for new trial.
TRIAL IS ATTENDED BY LARGE CROWDS OF PEOPLE
THE WRIGHT JURY:
Vern Pearch, rancher, Edwards.
Wm. Nash, rancher, Basalt.
Glen Moore, Highway worker, Wolcott.
Chas. S. Free, rancher, Sheephorn.
Chas. Baldauf, rancher, Edwards.
Wm. Smith, rancher, Reudi.
Ed Hendrickson, rancher, Gypsum.
Harold Kemble, painter, Gypsum.
George M. Hartman, rancher, Wolcott.
Dick DaLee, miner, Red Cliff.
E. E. Lea, banker, Eagle
C. A. Hyrup, rancher, Basalt.
Failing to convince the jury of truth of his story that a gang of hudlums [hoodlums] forced him to his part on the slaying of John L. Pope, the Louisville, Ky., carpenter who was killed near McCoy in this county on September 8, last, Lee Wright was found guilty of murder in the district court of Eagle county Friday evening, after the case had been on trial continuously since Tuesday of this week.
Owing to the fact that the conviction was secured entirely upon circumstantial evidence the death penalty cannot be inflicted under the Colorado law, and imprisonment for life is the maximum.
Directly upon the announcement of the verdict of the jury, Attorney Wm. J. Meehan, who defended Wright, made a motion for a new trial and was granted fifteen days by Judge F. E. Bouck in which to plead the motion.
Following this action Wright was taken to the jail in Glenwood where he will be held until this motion is up for argument. If the motion is then denied by the court, Wright will receive his sentence.
No court trial within the past 20 years has excited the public interest in this county which this case has. While neither the murdered man or the murderer were known in this county, the cold blooded brutality of the crime had aroused public feeling to a high pitch, and a desire to clear the fair name of this community of in any way countenancing such crimes within it was strong in every citizen of the county. So the verdict of the jury is popular.
The court room was packed to standing room only at every session of the trial throughout its hearing and as the state's case progressed from the finding of the body, each step building up a perfect chain of evidence of guilt, connecting the defendant directly with the killing without a shadow of doubt, the conviction grew in the minds of those following it that the jury could bring in but one verdict, one of guilt.
When the court convened Tuesday morning no time was lost in starting in on this case, and the task of securing a jury was at once proceeded with. Twenty-five jurors were examined in selecting the twelve men who were to decide the fate of the prisoner. Soon afterward the jury was accepted and sworn in, and the taking of evidence started following the district attorney's statement of what the state would attempt to prove, in asking the jury to convict the prisoner on a charge of murder in the first degree.
Sheriff Wilson had done a wonderfully fine piece of work in ferreting out this case, which had seemed impossible of solution in the beginning, and his work of establishing the identity of a stranger who had been dead for weeks when found, and of fastening the crime onto a man who had put two states between himself and the scene of the crime, apparently leaving no clue behind. His work had been ably seconded by that of District Attorney Luby, who had with consummate skill painstakingly pieced together the evidence produced by the sheriff in such shape that as it was unfolded in court it became a tale of brutal killing on the part of the prisoner so plain that the simplest mind could read it.
The case of the prosecution started with the witness, Louis Stewart of Phippsburg, Colo., who related how he discovered the body in an abandoned well on the old Payne ranch near the state highway four miles west of State Bridge on November 10, 1930, and reported the matter to Sheriff Wilson by telephone from McCoy.
Sheriff Wilson then took the stand and told of taking the body from the well in the presence and with the assistance of Coroner O. W. Meyer and others, and of the finding in the scant clothing that enveloped the body of a note purporting to be a suicide note. Of how through a printer's imprint on the note he traced the source of the bit of paper and definitely established it as part of a time slip issued to one Lee Wright by the Wilkenson Coal & Coke company of Wilkenson, Wash., in March, 1930. Of how from there he traced Wright's movements up to the commission of the crime, and finally, within less than ten days, caused his arrest in Hamilton, Mo. He related the finding in Wright's possession in Missouri articles of personal property, including a gold case watch, two Catholic rosaries, and a suit of clothes which were later positively identified by creditable witnesses as having belonged to Pope during his lite time. He told also and was corroborated by other witnesses, notably Coroner Meyer, of the finding of a coat lying across the body of Pope when it was taken from the well, and which was later proved to have belonged to Wright through the discovery of the vest which went with the coat in a trunk which Wright had left in Salt Lake City and which had been returned to Eagle by the sheriff. This coat and vest, by the way made one of the strongest links in the chain of evidence against Wright.
Dr. L. R. Plaugher, physician of Gilman, testified to having held an autopsy on Pope's body and declared that death undoubtedly was caused by either of two skull fractures and resulting concussions of the brain, caused by heavy blows from some blunt instrument, possibly by a piece of cast iron found near the scene of the crime by the sheriff. Dr. Plaugher stated that the three knife wounds found on the face and neck of the dead man would not have necessarily caused death unless permitted to bleed uninterruptedly.
Carrie J. Holmes, owner of the La Veta hotel in Monte Vista, Colo., produced a leaf from her hotel register containing the signature purporting to be that of J. L. Pope, and identified the prisoner as the person who wrote the name.
I. B. Koger of Kingston, Mo., sheriff of Caldwell county, Missouri, was put on the stand and told of his arrest of Wright in a rooming house in Hamilton, Mo., Wright having been located there by his car, which Sheriff Wilson had identified. He corroborated Sheriff Wilson's testimony about finding the Pope property in Wright's possession, and of the latter's efforts to destroy and get rid of the watch while in the jail.
Granville Allnutt, who was a prisoner in the Missouri jail while Wright was confined there testified as to Wright's efforts to get him to assist in disposing of the incriminating watch, and how it was finally hid by being tied around his body, under his clothing on a string, and how it was discovered there when he was searched by the two sheriff's. He identified the watch offered in evidence as the same one given him by Wright to dispose of. He also identified the suit of clothes which was later to be proven to be the property of Pope, as having been given him by Wright because it had been slightly soiled in the jail.
R. T. Clark of the Gibson Motor Co. of Salida, identified Wright as the man who left a Chevrolet car in their shop for repair on September 26, 1930, and which was taken out three or four days later.
H. C. Johnston, head accountant in charge of payrolls for the Wilkenson Coal & Coke company of Wilkenson, Wash., identified the paper on which the suicide note had been written as the lower portion of a time check issued to Lee Wright about the middle of March, 1930, and as having been made out by himself.
Chas. Graves, Ford dealer of Del Norte, Colo., then told of the transaction for the purchase of a 1929 model A Ford coupe of a man in the latter part of September, 1930, whom he identified as the prisoner. The prisoner represented himself to be John L. Pope, and a telegram sent by Mr. Graves to Kentucky, where the car had been registered before he purchased it, verified Pope's title of the car, so that everything appeared to be regular. Wright told Graves his home was in Louisville, Ky., where he had a family. That he was broke and out of work and would sacrifice the car in order to get money on which to get back home. Graves paid $200 for the car, and Wright went to the courthouse and transferred the title from Pope's name to that of Graves.
Clem Soliz, an employee of the Graves Motor company, told of his accompanying Wright to Monte Vista that evening that the letter might catch a bus from there next morning, they using the Pope car for the trip.
Undersheriff A. B. Koonce told of the conversations with Wright when he was in his custody the day the prisoner was returned from Missouri, in which the latter detailed his journey from Washington in search of work in Eagle last summer, and of his later meeting Pope at the campground in Center, Colo., and of his teaming up with him there.
Ed M. Fischer of Louisville, Ky., a son-in-law of Pope, took the stand and told of identifying his father-in-law's body in the morgue at Red Cliff, and also identified the rosaries and watch and suit of clothes as having belonged to Pope at the time he left his home in Kentucky about August 1, 1930.
The daughter of Pope, Mrs. Edw. M. Fischer, then took the stand and made a splendid witness for the people, as her testimony proved with no doubt that the large rosary offered in evidence as having been found in Wright's possession belonged to her father as did the watch and suit of clothes, and that the smaller rosary had belonged to her mother and her father had carried it since his Wife's death. She also testified to her father's signature, and denied that the names written on the transfer of the car title or the hotel register were in his handwriting.
One of the most instructive and interesting of the witnesses was Geo. H. King of Denver, and one of the foremost handwriting experts of the United States. Mr. King had examined in his laboratory in Denver the writing of the suicide note, that on the title transfer of the car title and of his letters written by Wright, and stated that in his opinion there was no question of each having been written by the same person. In enlarged photographs of samples of letters written on the note and in the letters he demonstrated conclusively to the jury that he was talking with authority, as he explained the method by which he arrived at his conclusions. Mr. King was on the stand for some two hours, and his testimony concluded the state's case.
Wright went on the stand Thursday morning and did not conclude his story until the next day. He told a tale which in most details was the same as the completed story related by the state witnesses. He admitted having all the property alleged to belong to Pope and introduced in evidence by the state, and admitted that it had belonged to the dead man. He also admitted selling the car and of having been in company with Pope from some time early in September to the time that the latter disappeared. But - his part was forced upon him by five men driving two cars, three in one and two in another. He and Pope had been working together in the San Luis valley when they started for Routt county to seek work. When near Salida coming west they first were attracted to these cars containing the alleged gang, and he described how they were followed to the campground east of Salida. When Pope and Wright left the campground the following morning they had trouble in getting Wright's car started, but when they did get on the road this gang was on their heels, one car ahead and one behind all morning. West of Salida car trouble again developed and on a hill east of Buena Vista, they were accosted by the alleged gangsters. Wright was taken from his car by two of the men and forced to accompany them off the road near the bank of the Arkansas river nearby. Here he was knocked down three times with a billy of some sort and following the third time his clothing was searched. During this proceeding one of the men pretended to know Wright and so stated to his companion. His money and wallet were then returned to him. But while he was lying on the ground and in a semi-conscious condition he was compelled to write a note, which was dictated by one of the assailants, and which was to later appear in a dead man's pocket 15 miles from there. Pope was also taken into custody by the gang and Wright's car developing further trouble, he was directed to take it to the Gibson Motor company in Salida and leave it for repair. All the time in Salida he was under close watch, so he stated. From Salida the party then started west Wright in Pope's car chained by the leg to the steering post with one of the alleged gangsters driving, while Pope was taken in the gangster's car. They passed through Wolcott, where they purchased oil and gas, and State Bridge, near where they camped for a time in the cedars at the top of the hill for a time. Later in the day they drove past McCoy and left the state highway and drove onto a side road where they camped. But Pope and his custodian had disappeared in the Pope car, he having been transferred to it during the day after passing State Bridge, and Wright testified that he never saw his companion again. The man who had been with Pope returned alone about dark and the party returned to the eastern slope. Wright says the only answer he received to his inquiry concerning Pope was that "he was alright."
At this point Wright was urged to join "the gang," and act as driver of their car. To which proposition he says he at first gave an evasive answer. He was told that the job of disposing of Pope's car had been delegated to him. He was told where to sell it, he says, and was forced to do their bidding under penalty of death, and his every movement was closely watched at every stage of the game. After the sale of the car he was followed, and one of the men was waiting for him at the hotel in Monet Vista and that they took a short walk and the $200 received for the car was turned over. He was chaperoned back to Salida where he got his car which had been repaired in the meantime. He was told which route to take wast - U. S. Highway No. 40 North from Colorado Springs - and he was followed as far as Concordia, Kan., being stopped several times and importuned to become one of the gang. These men disappeared mysteriously, as mysteriously as they came into the story, at Concordia, after they had presented the prisoner with a roll of currency, how much he could not say as he stated he never counted it. He continued into Arkansas where he was for a time with relatives, so he claimed, and then went to Hamilton, Mo., where he was working when arrested.
That was the story with which Wright hoped to clear himself of the charge of murder. It was told without hesitation or doubt at any point. He never failed in its telling, and under the skillful examination of his attorney, Wm. J. Meehan, it came from his lips like a story learned by heart. Nor under the cross-examination of the district attorney was it shaken in any material detail.
Evidently the story was too smooth for the jury. At about five o'clock in the evening the case was given to the jury and within twenty minutes they were back in the courtroom with a verdict of guilty, having only taken two ballots.
Grand Junction Daily Sentinel page 1 - January 24, 1931
Contact EVLD for full obituary.
Grand Junction Daily Sentinel page 7 - January 22, 1931
Contact EVLD for full obituary.
