2-329-672 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Robert Ford, the killer of the outlaw Jesse James, c1880s (1954). By 1882, with his gang depleted through deaths, arrests, defections and retirements, Jesse James believed that Robert Ford and his brother Charley were the only remaining colleagues he could trust. In fact, the Ford brothers had already decided to claim the bounty placed on James's head by Missouri Governor Thomas T Crittenden. On 3rd April 1882, Robert Ford shot James and killed him. The brothers were initially charged with murdering James and were sentenced to be hanged but were pardoned by Crittenden two hours after the verdict was returned. Robert Ford was himself murdered 10 years later. A print from the Pictorial History of the Wild West, by James D Horan and Paul Sann, Spring Books, London, 1954.