Thomas Sandall, Jr.

2nd Great Uncle

The following are transcribed newspaper accounts of the murder of my uncle Thomas Sandall, Jr.  The Sandall family had suffered through a lot of  trials and I am glad that my grandparents, Thomas and Ann, were not alive to go through this.  They had died a few months prior to this.  As you can see it was the "crime of the century."  They tried and convicted a man but the evidence was never reported against him.  I find it interesting that nothing was stolen.  The person knew where the key was to get in.  Only Thomas Sandall was killed.  The owner of the Farners' Union was involved in the case the whole time, assisting the Sheriff.  I wonder what the outcome would have been today.

The Farmer's Union, located in Layton, Utah. It was one of the earliest mercantile businesses on record in Layton. (Provided by the Layton City Heritage Museum)

The Nightwatchman at the Famers’  Union Brutally Murdered, on Tuesday Night While on Duty

Davis County Clipper   31 March 1899

     Thomas Sandall the nightwatchman at the Farmers’ Union in Layton, was killed some time during Tuesday night.  He was sleeping at the store as he had done for the past five or six years when the terrible tragedy occurred.

     He came into the store Tuesday evening to take possession for the night, before Messrs. James Ellisou and Thomas O’Brien, two of the clerks, left the store to go home for the night.  Everything was in the usual condition when they left.

     In the morning, these same two clerks, were the first to arrive at the store.  James unlocked the door, entered the room  but stopped to remove a cowbell that was hung on the inside door knob to give the alarm if an one should turn it, while Thomas passed on into the room and consequently was the first to behold the ghastly sight.

     They found his dead body lying upon the floor at right angles with his cot, his feet being about a yard from the same.  He was lying on his back, with his hands by his side and his bare feet pointing toward the ceiling, with the whole of his face about the right cheek bone shot in.  A quart or two of blood was on the floor around his head.  He had on such clothing as he, no doubt, usually slept in and the bed clothes were in about the condition that anyone would leave them on getting up in the morning.  His rubber boots stood at the side and near the head of the cot.  When they first got a glimpse of the dead man, the clerks thought he must have committed suicide but when no weapon could be seen in the room and it was noticed that the double locks on the back door were unlocked and that the piece of 2X4, which is used as a prop against the door, and a string of sleigh bells, had been removed, they could see that it was not a suicide.  Looking closer they noticed two no. 12 shot gun wads and some No. 4 shot lying upon the floor near his head, then they concluded that he had been killed by a burglar or burglars.

     The affair is terribly shrouded in mystery.  The position of the body with respect to the bed makes it difficult to imagine what position he was in when he was killed and it is also difficult to imagine how any one could have entered the store as the doors and windows were all securely fastened.  It is also hard to understand why the store was entered as nothing was carried off except Mr. Sandall’s revolver.  The till, however, had been visited but there was not money in it.

     It is very difficult to imagine how a person could have entered the store for, as had been stated the doors were all well fastened.  It would have been possible for a person to have raised an iron grate to a cellar window into which coal is shoveled, and to get into the room by first passing into the cellar, but this is hardly probable as a blot, which holds the grating that would have had to be removed, was in place as usual in the morning when it was examined.

     It is barely possible, either, that any one could have entered the store during the day and have concealed himself.

     As to who committed the crime the evidence rather points to local than to trancient parties.  The fact that a shot gun was used; that only one very familiar with the building and surroundings would have known about the grating to the cellar window; and the particular location under the granary where they keys to the front door were thrown, is weighty evidence that it was some one local.  The keys , referred to, were found in a sort of a small pit bellow and at the back of the granary, and strangers would not have been very likely to have thrown them in that identical spot.  An empty shot gun cartridge shell was also found under the granary but there was nothing significant about that.

     Sheriffs Abott and Howell, the latter of Salt Lake county, spent nearly all day Wednesday in Layton, searched the Gipsy camps near James Bennett’s and inspected everything very carefully but did not find any clues to work on, at least nothing was made public.

     A coroner’s jury consisting of Henry Ellis, Elijah Ellison and Samuel Norman, was empaneled by Justice A. B. Cook.

     As soon as the jury had taken the evidence that could be gleaned from an examination of the body, it was removed to his home.

     The funeral services will be held at the family residence today at 1 o’clock.

     The deceased was born in England May 1 1845; subsequently moved to South Africa where he spent fourteen years of his life; arriving in Utah in 1860.  In 1866 he went to the Missouri river after emigrants and brought back with him ten rolls of wire that was used on the first telegraph line constructed to connect Omaha with Salt Lake City.

     Mr. Sandall was a quiet, inoffensive man and was well respected by everybody.

     He leaves a wife and seven children to mourn his loss.

     A five hundred dollar reward has been offered for the arrest and conviction of the guilty party or parties.

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Thomas Sandall’s Funeral

Davis County Clipper      7 April 1899

     Funeral services over the remains of Thomas Sandall, who was murdered in the Farmers’ Union store on Tuesday night of last week, were held at the family residence in Layton on Friday at 1 p.m.  Deceased did not belong to any church, but it was the desire of the family that services should be held and that Mr. E.P. Ellison should take charge.  The speakers were Elders John R. Barnes, Alex Dawson, J.W. Thonrley, W.N. Nalder and E.P. Ellison.  The speakers spoke principally concerning the many good qualities that the deceased possessed.  The attendance was exceedingly large, the house would not begin to accommodate all who were present.  One hundred and fourteen vehicles followed the remains to their final resting place in the Kaysville cemetery; this is, without a doubt, the longest funeral procession ever witnessed in Davis county.  The remains could be viewed by all who wished to see them.  The face presented a frightful spectacle when he was first found, but the doctors put the loose pieces back in their places and put in a few stitches that gave the face its natural appearance.

     Sometime prior to the murder, William Sandall, a son of the deceased, had a dream in which he saw his father murdered and saw the parties who committed the deed.  This made such an impression upon his mind that he spent the greater portion of the next day trying to persuade his father to give up the job of nightwatchman, but did not succeed.  The parties he saw in his dream are somewhat prominent local people and he cannot believe that his dream is correct in this particular.

     Mr. Ellison and the officers have all been searching diligently for further evidence to locate the guilty party or parties but very little progress has been made.  Two Ogden men name William Morgan and William Morris, respectively, were arrested on Friday on suspicion but nothing could be proved against them so they were turned loose again.  The man whom we mentioned trying to buy shot gun cartridges at Stewart’s store last week, afterwards bought a box of Mr. Samuel Layton at the Kaysville Co-op.  The description given by the clerks of the man who called for the cartridges tallied exactly.  Mr. Layton also noticed that the man had a companion and that the two rode in an old buggy drawn by a span of ponies.  The clerks agree that neither  Morgan or Morris is the man who bought the cartridges but Morgan admitted that the rig he rode to Salt Lake in was like the one that Mr. Layton saw In front of the Co-op.

     A shot gun was stolen from James Hamlin’s sheep wagon near Riverdale about the time the murder was committed.  The gun took No. 12 cartridges, the same as those bought in Kaysville by the strangers.

     The night of the murder, Henry Williams, of Syracuse, on returning from a lecture in Kaysville, saw two persons standing near a fence a little west of the Farmers’ Union but it was too dark for him to get much of view of them.  This is about all that has come to light thus far.