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.
______________________________________________________
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.
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