Clevenger Family Murder
Arizona Silver Belt
February 27, 1892

John A. Johnson, sentenced for life for murdering the Clevinger 
family in the Buckskin Mountains , Yavapai County, was first 
sentenced to death along with his partner and fellow murderer, 
Wilson.  Wilson confessed to the entire bloody work and Johnson's 
sentence was committed to life imprisonment in 1887 but he was 
recently pardoned out of prison along with eight or nine of the 
same stirpe.  The daughter of the murdered Cleveningers, who was 
present at the time of the murder, maintained to the last that 
Johnson, the man now free, was equally as guilty as Wilson who 
was hanged.  In this connection the Courier heard a story from 
a fairly reliable source which runs thus:

Wilson and Johnson were both in the cell, having been sentenced 
to death, awaiting the dread hour when both should expiate their 
crimes on the gallows.  They put their heads together and 
concluded that it was folly for both to die when one could 
save the other by confessing to having done all the bloody 
work himself.  They played a game of cards to decide who 
should sacrifice himself to save the other.  The black man 
held the wining hand and Wilson abided the dread agreement 
and died on the scaffold to save a fellow murderer as well 
as to satisfy the law.

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