Shot Down! Capital Crimes of Casper, Wyoming

Shot Down! Capital Crimes of Casper, Wyoming

By Charlotte Babcock

Read about Casper’s wild, sometimes lurid, frontier days: the hanging, the beautiful and bad dance hall queen, the adulteries, murders, crimes of passion, a lynching, barroom brawls—they exploded with the birth of the new town of Casper, Wyoming.

Meet the colorful characters and criminal elements from Casper’s past. Notorious dance hall owner Lou Polk; Black Dogae Lee, Polk’s partner in business and pleasure who cut off her nose and then vanished without a trace; Marshall Bill Hodge, who shot an unarmed cowboy; Dr. Joseph Benton, who tried to perform a postmortem on a still living patient and later died in a jailhouse fire set by his own hand; Joel Hurt, a Casper businessman who was acquitted after murdering young Billy Milne for having an affair with his wife; George Edwards who killed two men in unrelated incidents to protect his wife’s virtue; and more.

• 0-931271-52-5 • trade paper • index • bibliography • 160 pp • photos • $13.95 ORDER NOW

Shot Down! Capital Crimes of Casper, Wyoming

By Charlotte Babcock

"Sensational in their own right, these events have been thoroughly researched by the author and are accurately reported insofar as the available facts allow..watch those events unfold before your eyes as you read this wonderful book. It will be a load of fun."
•• Kevin S. Anderson, Casper College Library

Charlotte Babcock

Longtime Casper resident Charlotte Babcock is the author of Shot Down: Capital Crimes of Casper (High Plains Press, 2000), which won the Wyoming State Historical Society’s history book of the year award. She was recognized in 2001 by the City of Casper and the American Association of University Women as a “renowned author, freelance writer and editor.”

She is also the author of The St. Patrick’s Stor and has published award-winning fiction, non-fiction, children’s fiction, poetry, essays, and humor in various anthologies including Woven on the Wind (Houghton Mifflin, 2001 and Crazy Woman Creek, (Houghton Mifflin, 2004), and Wyoming Writing.

She is a founding member of the literary advisory panel at Casper College and has taught classes at the college in writing for children. Currently she writes for Footprints, the college’s alumni magazine, and is working on two new books.

She graduated from Casper College with an associate of arts degree in liberal arts and taught for the Natrona County School District for more than 25 years. Babcock currently serves on the Casper College Alumni Board, a position she has held since the organization began in 1986.