Riding With An Outlaw

James Gilbert Jenkins was a professional criminal having a long history of highway robberies and murders.  It was reported that he had killed eight white men and ten Indians throughout Missouri, Texas, Iowa, and California.  While living in Napa City, California, Jenkins became acquainted with Patrick O’Brien in order to establish a sexual liaison with O’Brien’s wife.  Mrs. O’Brien, a lusty, attractive woman with a strong will, goaded Jenkins into murdering her husband, or so he later said, although Jenkins’ willingness to murder needed no encouragement.  Jenkins got drunk, marched into O’Brien’s home, and shot him, but he was caught almost immediately and quickly confessed.  Mrs. O’Brien denied having anything to do with the murder and was released.  Jenkins was convicted and sentenced to death.  Before he was hanged, Jenkins lamented his sloppy habits and the fact that he had gotten drunk, believing that if he had been meticulous in his killing of O’Brien, he never would have been caught.  His last words on the scaffold were:  “That whisky that I drank the morning before I shot O’Brien was what caused me to do it when I did, and in so careless a manner.”  To learn more about James Gilbert Jenkins and other bad guys of the Old West pick up a copy of Outlaw Tales of California.  For more information visit www.chrisenss.com.