By Parker Anderson 

The initial crime had gone unnoticed for months and the victims were not missed. Once the crime was discovered, it became a story that chilled Yavapai County citizens in 1887, and still resonates to this day. 

In January of 1887, ranch hands searching for stray cattle in the Buckskin Mountains near the Utah border, discovered the remains of a burned campsite. To their horror, they saw that earth erosion from the rains had uncovered a human arm protruding from the ground. Digging at the site, the ranchers unearthed two corpses, a man and a woman with their hands and feet locked together, one on top of the other. A coroner's inquest from Kanab, Utah, concluded that the two had been murdered, with their heads bashed in with an axe handle.

Kanab residents came forward and identified them. The victims were Samuel and Charlotte Clevenger, who had previously sold their ranch at Fort Thomas farther south in Arizona, and were headed to Washington with their adopted 14 year-old daughter, Jessie, and two hired hands, a white man named Frank Wilson and a black man named John A. Johnson. As there were only two bodies, Kanab authorities placed Wilson and Johnson high on the list of suspects. There was no trace of the girl. 

The discovery of the murdered couple appeared in newspapers as far away as San Francisco, but it didn't seem to be a Yavapai County issue until Sheriff William J. "Billy" Mulvenon was informed that the crime took place in Yavapai County and his jurisdiction. In 1887, Coconino County had not been formed yet, and Yavapai County's borders extended to Utah. 

So, Sheriff Mulvenon headed to Kanab, Utah, to try to strike the trail of the murderers, even though the coroner had concluded that the Clevengers had likely been dead for many months. Once there, he received a tip that Wilson and Johnson had gone to Bullionville, Utah, and separated. Arriving in Bullionville, residents told him they believed that John A. Johnson had gone to Duckwater, Nevada. Traveling there, Sheriff Mulvenon located him working on a ranch and arrested him. Johnson, hoping for a break, told Mulvenon that Wilson had taken the young Jessie Clevenger to Oakdale, Idaho. 

Determined to get his man, Sheriff Mulvenon traveled to Oakdale, Idaho, and found Wilson and the girl with little difficulty. He brought the three fugitives to Prescott and lodged them in jail, while the city newspapers praised him for his tenacity in traveling all over the country to bring in the murderers. Frank Wilson and John Johnson were both indicted for first-degree murder, while Jessie Clevenger was indicted for being an accessory in the murder of her parents. Both Wilson and Johnson denied their guilt and blamed each other for actually committing the murders. District Attorney J. C. Herndon eventually dropped the charges against the girl in exchange for her testimony. 

Frank Wilson and John A. Johnson had worked as hired hands for the Clevengers for a long time, and it is not known how long they had been planning to turn against their employers. But on the stand, young Jessie Clevenger told a horrible story about how on May 21, 1886, Johnson murdered her father and Wilson dispatched her mother to the great beyond. Following that, Wilson forced her to stay with him as his "wife," and threatened to kill her if she ever tried to escape. She repeated the story verbatim several times, and could not be shaken under fierce cross-examination by defense attorneys, John Howard and L. F. Eggers. 

The jury took only a few minutes to find Wilson and Johnson guilty of first-degree murder for killing Samuel and Charlotte Clevenger. Judge J. H. Wright sentenced both of them to be hanged on August 12, 1887. There were no appeals. 

In the course of the trial, Prescott newspapers revealed that Wilson had once previously been indicted in Pima County for horse stealing, but that his employer, Samuel Clevenger, had helped him out of that scrape. John Johnson was reportedly a veteran of the military, a former member of the 10th (colored) Cavalry in Baltimore, Maryland. 

Preparations were made for the double hanging in Prescott, and Sheriff Mulvenon ordered the rope that was to be used. But in the interim, Frank Wilson unexpectedly wrote out a confession to the murders in which he took full blame for killing the Clevengers, and stating that Johnson had not participated in the actual murders. Prescott residents and the authorities were skeptical over the statement, but defense attorneys Howard and Eggers took it to Territorial Governor C. Meyer Zulick in hopes of getting Johnson's sentence commuted. 

The Prescott Courier, in printing Wilson's confession, reported that he had stated that Jessie Clevenger helped bury the bodies. From jail, Wilson wrote to the Courier: 

"Ed. Courier-Dear Sir: In your paper of 10th instant there is an article headed 'Wilson's Confession.' I did make statement in which I admitted that I killed Clevenger and his wife and that I alone am responsible for the crime of which Johnson and myself are convicted, but I never said that Jessie Clevenger helped me to bury the bodies of Clevenger and his wife. I never even mentioned her name in my statement. If you will correct that mistake you will greatly oblige a murderer. Frank Wilson." 

The Courier printed the letter, but did not fully retract its previous statement. 

In talking to the press, he also stated that Frank Wilson was not his real name, but refused to divulge his true identity so his family would not be disgraced. If he was telling the truth, his real name has never been discovered. 

After the deathwatch began, members of the clergy, including Father Gubitosi, W. L. Allbright, J. C. Houghton, and Reverend C. C. Wright called at the jail, but Wilson, professing no belief in God, refused to see them. Johnson, however, took solace from their visits. Mrs. Bishop from the Holiness Mission also visited, but was treated scornfully by Wilson. 

On the morning of their execution, Jessie Clevenger asked Sheriff Mulvenon to allow her to speak to Wilson. He agreed (this would almost certainly not be allowed today), but the conversation reportedly resulted in the girl accusing Wilson of having lied about Johnson's innocence. Wilson remained very calm all morning, smoking cigars while awaiting the noose, while Johnson was more fearful of his impending death. 

Governor Zulick came up from Phoenix to attend the hangings. At 12 noon, the time for the hangings, Zulick handed Sheriff Mulvenon a reprieve for Johnson. The convicted killer would have until September 23 to file appeals and/or obtain further evidence to clear himself. Upon hearing of this last second reprieve, John A. Johnson broke down and wept. 

Frank Wilson was taken into the gallows yard on the courthouse plaza accompanied by Sheriff Mulvenon and Deputy Hickey. Asked for his final words, Wilson repeated that he alone murdered the Clevengers, bid goodbye to everyone, and stepped onto the death trap while the lawmen pinioned him. Sheriff Mulvenon pulled the switch and Frank Wilson swung into eternity at 12:12pm. His body was then removed and taken to Citizen's Cemetery for burial (it should be noted that records for the cemetery do not list him as an inhabitant, but that doesn't necessarily mean he isn't there somewhere). Between 1875 and 1925, there were eleven legal hangings in Yavapai County. Wilson was number six. 

On August 30, 1887, only a couple of weeks after the hanging, the 15-year-old Jessie Clevenger gave birth to Wilson's child, a girl. It is not known whatever became of them. 

When John A. Johnson failed to provide further evidence of his innocence by the September 23rd deadline, Governor Zulick reprieved him again until October 22, 1887, and following that Zulick gave in to doubt and officially commuted Johnson's sentence to life in prison. This decision evoked outrage from many in Yavapai County, who did not believe Wilson's statement that Johnson was only an accessory after the fact. 

John A. Johnson spent a number of years in Yuma Territorial Prison, and was eventually paroled. Contrary to popular belief, pardons and paroles were just as easy to get back then as they are today. Following his release, Johnson drifted around for a while, reportedly getting into petty scrapes with the law. For example, he returned to Prescott for reasons unknown and was arrested for vagrancy and threatening his landlady, Mrs. Grisalda, in April of 1907. His eventual fate is not known. 

In the years following the hanging of Frank Wilson, Prescott old-timers often speculated over Wilson's confession. Some of them concluded that, while in jail awaiting execution, Wilson and Johnson played a game of "seven up," with the loser agreeing to swear an affidavit exonerating the other. Whether that is true or not is one of those things that will never be known for certain. 

(Parker Anderson is an active member of Sharlot Hall Museum's Blue Rose Theater.) 

Our readers' thoughts... 

A correction should be made- In the seventh paragraph: "Frank Wilson and John A. Johnson had worked as hired hands for the Clevengers for a long time, and it is not known how long they had been planning to turn against their employers." I have John A. Johnsons military discharge papers from Fort Thomas, A.T. He was discharged February of 1886, the Clevengers left their ranch shortly after. So Johnson couldn't have worked for Clevengers for any more than a week, if at all. 

In a whole, its a Great Article! 

SSwapp
September 18, 2007


Sharlot Hall Museum Photograph Call Number:(po1664pa)
Reuse only by permission.
Sheriff William J. "Billy" Mulvenon, pictured here in 1885, traveled throughout the west to track down the Clevenger killers, Frank Wilson and John A. Johnson in 1887.