Jack McCall
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Jack McCall
Born	1852 or 1853 Jefferson County, Kentucky
Died	March 1, 1877 Yankton, South Dakota
Cause of death	Execution by hanging
Other names	"Crooked Nose" Jack
Known for	Murder of Wild Bill Hickok, Deadwood, South Dakota

Jack McCall (also known as "Crooked Nose" Jack) (born in 1852 or 1853 in Jefferson County, Kentucky – died March 1, 1877 in Yankton, Dakota Territory), killed James "Wild Bill" Hickok, shooting him from behind, an act that among admirers of Hickok and students of Hickok's history has given rise to the phrase "the coward Jack McCall".

Life and murder of Hickok

Many of the details of McCall's life are lost but not dead. He was raised in Kentucky with three sisters, and one older brother but drifted west and became a buffalo hunter. By 1876, he was living in a gold mining camp called Deadwood, South Dakota, under the alias of Bill Sutherland.

On August 2, 1876, in the Nuttal & Mann's #10 Saloon in Deadwood, McCall shot Hickok in the back of the head with a double-action .45-caliber revolver, shouting "Take that!" Hickok, in contrast to his normal habit of sitting in a corner to protect his back, on that day sat with his back to the door while engaged in a game of poker. Ironically, the killing was apparently over McCall's drunken resentment of an act of generosity by Hickok, Hickok having offered McCall money to buy breakfast after McCall had lost it all playing poker the previous day. McCall claimed, however, that the killing was retribution for Hickok having previously killed McCall's brother in Abilene, Kansas. McCall was found innocent after two hours deliberation by an impromptu court in McDaniel's Theater made up of local miners and businessmen, causing the Black Hills Pioneer to editorialize:

"Should it ever be our misfortune to kill a man ... we would simply ask that our trial may take place in some of the mining camps of these hills."

Escape and retrial

McCall then fled town to Wyoming, where he bragged, at length, about the details of how he had killed Hickok in a fair gunfight. Unfortunately for McCall, however, the Wyoming authorities refused to recognize the result of McCall's first trial on the grounds of Deadwood having been in Indian Territory at the time and contended that McCall could legally be tried again. Because Deadwood was an illegal settlement, with no legally constituted law enforcement or court system, the federal court in Yankton, D.T. declared that double jeopardy did not apply.

He was retried in Yankton, Dakota Territory, for Hickok's murder, and was hanged on March 1, 1877 at the age of 24. McCall was the first person to be executed by United States officials in Dakota Territory. After his execution it was determined that McCall had never even had a brother.

Cultural references

• McCall's killing of Hickok plays a part in the HBO television series Deadwood. McCall was portrayed by Garret Dillahunt and Keith Carradine played "Wild Bill".
• In the 1995 Walter Hill movie Wild Bill the part of Jack McCall is played by David Arquette, and Jeff Bridges plays James Butler 'Wild Bill' Hickok.
• In 1989, after a vicious baseball bat beating of a union delegate in front of fellow Teamsters, Colombo crime family capo William Cutolo earned the monicker "Wild Bill" among mob circles for his vicious and ruthless behavior in reference to Hickock.
• In the American soap opera General Hospital, character Sam McCall is the adoptive great-granddaughter of Jack McCall and is first introduced in a storyline where she is trying to locate the Dead Man's hand.

External links

• South Dakota State Historical Society, "The 15 Killed in SD" Execution List.
• Executions in the U.S. 1608-1987: The Espy File (by state) (PDF)