Vengeance Is Mine: The Scandalous Love Triangle That Triggered the Boyce-Sneed Feud

“Making ’em Believe in Ghosts”: The Beech Epting Murder Trial

192 “Making ’em Believe in Ghosts” The Beech Epting Murder Trial A MONTH AND THREE DAYS AFTER the Fort Worth jury cleared John Beal Sneed for the killing of Colonel Albert Boyce, he was involved in another murder trial. But he was not the defendant in this one. His cohort, Beech Epting, was on trial for his role in the killing of Al Boyce, Jr. Al Boyce was killed on September 14, 1912, in Amarillo, and a Potter County grand jury had promptly indicted Beal Sneed and Beech Epting, jointly, for murder.1 “Wild Bill” McLean once again was captain of the defense team, and he wasted no time in winning three major tactical victories during pretrial proceedings. First, McLean argued for a change of venue to transfer the trial out of Potter County. With considerable water under his paddle, he argued that on account of the sensational nature of the killing as well as the massive publicity that followed, it would be impossible to get an “unpolluted” jury in Amarillo. There was another factor of which McLean was mindful: although a hung jury was a victory for the defense in the first Fort Worth murder trial, nevertheless, he and Beal Sneed were determined to win this trial—12 to 0 for the defense. In Amarillo, sentiment was bitter and split down the middle between Boyce partisans and Sneed partisans. Hence, it seemed most unlikely that any twelve Amarillo jurors could be found who would agree, unanimously, on any verdict. 10 C H A P T E R “Making ’em Believe in Ghosts” 193 Nobody was surprised when the Potter County judge granted a change of venue. No doubt the judge had his own personal reasons for wanting to get rid of that hot potato. Not only would the trial be long, onerous, and unpleasant, but there was another very practical reason for handing the trial off to an out-of-town judge. In Texas, now as then, district judges are elected officials, their jobs dependent on a favorable outcome in the next election. Hence, being caught in the middle of a bitter and divisive battle between two community factions would be a no-win predicament that any sane politician would avoid at all costs. Next, McLean filed a motion to sever, seeking separate trials for Sneed and Epting. He argued, again logically, that very different issues would be presented as to each defendant. The judge granted McLean’s motion to sever. Then the problem arose: which defendant to try first. McLean contended that Epting should be tried first, arguing that if Sneed were tried first a lot of very sordid testimony would probably be aired which, when it became public, would tend to prejudice Epting when he was tried later. That was true . . . as far as it went. But was McLean really as concerned with Epting’s welfare as he was with that of Sneed? As we shall soon discover, it was primarily for Sneed’s benefit that McLean wanted Epting’s head on the block first. Since McLean represented both Sneed and Epting, a very serious issue involving a conflict of interest existed. Every client is entitled to have his own independent lawyer whose only duty is to look out for the client’s best interest. But then Epting, the uneducated and inexperienced tenant farmer, probably was not aware of that. Besides, he had no money to hire his own lawyer anyway. The judge granted McLean’s motion. Epting would be first up to bat. All those pretrial issues settled, there remained only one to be decided. If the trials of Epting and Sneed were not to be held in Amarillo, then where? The Epting trial was transferred to the tiny town of Memphis in Hall County some eighty miles southeast of Amarillo,2 and the Sneed trial was transferred to the slightly larger town of Vernon in Wilbarger County located ninety miles southeast of Memphis.3 Both counties were a part of the sprawling ten-county Forty-Sixth Judicial District of Texas, and that’s the reason that a 194 V E N G E A N C E I S M I N E popular and personable young district attorney named Hugh D. Spencer suddenly found himself as head prosecutor of the two most sensational criminal trials in the State of Texas. A rising young star on the firmament of the Texas Panhandle judiciary...