Beckham County, OK - Deaths: Noah Samples, 1923
Saturday, 01 November 2008
Submitted by: delma25@pldi.net (Delma Tindell)

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SAMPLES, NOAH
(22 Mar 1923, Sayre Headlight, Sayre, Beckham Co, OK):
On Saturday, March 10, Noah Samples, a cattle man residing near Canadian,
Texas, and well known to a considerable number of the older residents of
this immediate section, disappeared, and on Wednesday following his body
was found burried (sic) in the cellar of a deserted house about 18 miles
from Canadian, and in the grave with the body was a scarf belonging to
Mohler, and a piece of rope which had evidently been used to tie Samples'
hands.
Wm. Mohler, a young man known in this section, had been in the employ of
Samples, and was the last man seen with him.  Further examination of
Mohler disclosed that his clothing had a number of blood spots, and that
one blade of a knife found in his pocket had blood on it.
Mohler said that he rode horseback to Canadian last Friday, spent the
night here, and went to Samples' home about 4 o'clock Saturday afternoon,
and accompanied Samples to the farm of J. W. Harrell about seven miles
south of Canadian.  He and Samples left Harrel's (sic) farm about 6
o'clock in the evening, he said, and started to Canadian.  They were
halted near the Elk Creek bridge, five miles from Canadian, by two men
driving another car.  One of the men got into Samples' car and persuaded
him to drive back towards the place where Samples' body was found buried
in the old cellar last Wednesday.
Mohler stated that he and the party got into Samples car and went on by
Zybach, Texas, to Rankin, Okla., where the other parties left the car and
got into a car with another party and that Mohler went to Cheyenne.
 Samples was then forced by the third party declares Mohler, to write a
letter to Samples' wife purporting to be written from Cheyenne, Okla.,
and telling her that he had sold his car and was going to Kansas City,
and would be home within a few days.  Samples wrote the letter, Mohler
states Mrs. Samples later received the letter, bearing a Cheyenne
postmark.  The letter was written by the light of an electric flashlight,
says Mohler, who states that he furnished the paper.
(missing line) and thence to Strong City to the home of Albert Yates, with
whose family he had lived; went to Elk City, and returned to Strong City
and intended to take the train to Cheyenne, but the train was gone.  So he
drove Samples' car to Cheyenne, he said, where he hired John Salyer to
drive the car back to Texas.  He got out of the car near H. M. Ramp's
pasture and walked to Giles Williams' place where his brother Lee was
working.
On Monday Mohler made still another confession, this time admitting that
he alone committed the murder, although his first confession was
substantially correct in other features.
Public sentiment was such at Canadian that Mohler has been removed to the
jail at Amarillo to prevent any possibility of possible lynching.
(www.usgenweb.org): Texas, Hemphill County, Canadian Cemetery:
Noah Samples, Sr.,  (1849-1923)

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