Chief of Police Will Hannah

Will Hannah

Chief Will Hannah was shot and killed while attempting to arrest a man for selling illegal liquor.

Chief Hannah rode to the man's house on horseback and located the man in a ravine at the foot of Mount Rachel. The chief was shot in the chest with a shotgun loaded with squirrel shot by the man as he chased him.

The suspect fled and wasn't located for 26 years when it was learned in July of 1925 he was in jail in Denton, Texas, where he had just been convicted of forgery and was sentenced to 10 years. Chief Hannah's son had been searching for the man ever since he killed his father, when he found an ex-convict who told him all about the man who murdered his father and where he was.

The suspect claimed the admission was not true but he knew the killer and was using his name for an allies and then gave officials his real name. He said he met the real killer a year earlier when he came to Texas looking for his family. He said he soon left and went back to his home in another country that had no relations with the U.S. The suspect, who had nothing to back up his story, was returned to Dalton to stand trial for Chief Hannah's murder. No one in Dalton, who knew the killer 26 years earlier, could identify the man as the killer. On September 3, 1925, was returned to Texas.