Beckham County, OK - Deaths: Meikey Ralston, 1919
Thursday, 02 October 2008
Submitted by: delma25@pldi.net (Delma Tindell)

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RALSTON, MEIKEY
(17 Jul 1919, Thursday, Southwest Press, Elk City, Beckham Co, OK):
Last week the governor paroled Meekey Ralstin from the Granite
penitentiary where he had been sentenced for a life term when a mere boy
of seventeen in 1912.
Mr. Waldorff, who lives five miles west of Carter, and was a keeper at the
Granite pen for some time, invited the young man to his place a week ago
last Saturday when he was paroled, that he might have a rest and
recuperation.  Ralstin was very despondent and felt the humiliation as an
ex-convict.  He went hunting with a shotgun last Saturday afternoon, and
later that day was found dead with a charge from the gun just over his
heart.  The coroner's jury gave a verdict of suicide.
Mr. Ralstin's brother from Wichita, Kansas, arrived Tuesday to claim the
body.
Meekey Ralstin was twenty-two years of age at the time of his death.  He
was living in Alfalfa county at the time of his sentence in 1912.
(18 Jul 1919, Friday, The Carter Express, Carter, Beckham Co, OK):
Commits Suicide
Meikey Ralston, a paroled convict from Granite reformatory shot and killed
himself out on the farm of M. M. Waldrop, five and one half miles east of
Carter, sometime late Saturday afternoon.  Ralston had only been released
on parole about a week when the tragedy occurred.  He came up from Granite
on Thursday and staid (sic) over with Mr. Waldrop till Saturday afternoon.
 Mr. Waldrop and his two grandsons came to Carter at the time while
Ralston staid and intimated that he would go out rabbit hunting.  When Mr.
Waldrop and the boys returned home that night Ralston had not come in, and
although one of the boys went out and looked for him that night, no trace
of him was found till the next morning when his lifeless body was found
about 300 yards from the house, he having shot himself just above the
heart.  A twelve gauge hammerless shotgun was used and death must have
been almost instantaneous, altho it is said that he walked several steps
after firing the shot.  A wire twisted in an "s" shape was found near by
and it is thought that he used the wire in pulling the trigger of the gun
with his foot.
The coroner's jury on Sunday, after a thorough investigation into the
circumstances of the case, found that the deceased came to his death from
gun shot wounds inflicted by his own hand.

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