Salt Lake evening Democrat. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1885-1887, 1885-08-15
A WICKED WIFE
Richard Oliver and Guard Mix Have
q Lively Tussle Out Near the Pen.
Oliver Slabs Mix with PitchfOrk,
and Mix Belts Oliver with
Pistol.
UnsavOry AntecedentS of OliVer-The
Meanest Man in the Sugar
House Ward.

Richard Oliver, an English Saint about
40 years old, lives a quarter of mile
northwest of the Penitentiary, and works
as pants maker for Buckle q Son, of this
city. Oliver is an old-time source OF
trouble in his family, and the neighbor-
hood where he lives. His wife came a
Mormon convert from England about
three years ago, and says she wishes she
had never heard the Mormon gospel that
brought her to her present condition.
She is kind and Woodworking woman,
and has little 5-year-old girl. Oliver is
regular in the practice of whipping her
most cruelty. Last summer the guards
| at the penitentiary were called to the
| house several times to quiet him when on
the war path. Only yesterday morning
this miserable wretch
BEAT HIS WIFE WITH a SHOVEL,
And when half insensible he tried to put
her into large chest and lock her up,
but she got away from him, with her face
and arm cut from the blows he gave her.
Last night when he reached home from
Salt Lake, he found his wife gone with
most of her scanty household effects. He
went raving mad, and began abusing the
wife OF Mr.. M. Mix, guard at the Pen.
| After indulging in all the vile threatening
| language he could give utterance to, he
threatened to shoot Mrs Mix, and ran to
the house for 4 shotgun. The lady shot
a revolver off and gave the alarm to her
| husband at the prison, who came at once,
with guard Parker along with him. Mrs.
Mix was in front of the house and told her
anxious inquirers. the difficulty, when
Oliver, standing near the stable at the
rear, yelled out,
''IT's LIE, OH WHAT A LIARs'
Mix started for him, and asked him what
he meant by that kind of talk, and when
within about five feet of Oliver the latter
rushed for Mix with four-tined pitch
fork, as though to pierce him through the
stomach. Mix caught hold of the fork
and turned the directed thrust aside, but
two of the tines entered his left thigh to
the bone. The blood flowed freely,
while hard tussle ensued. Oliver was
more like wild beast than q man, and
kept swapping his teeth and biting like a
vicious dog. He said
I'LL GIVE IT TO YOU, you ----,"
And second time during the struggle
he made for the fork Their clothes were
partly torn off from them, and Mr.. Mix's
gun started to fall from his pocket, but
he caught it and felled Oliver with blow
over the head. Parker and Mix then
marched the unruly and vicious man to
the prison, where he was confined in
safety over night.
Mr.. Mix and wife came before Com
missioner Mckay this morning and swore
out complaints against Richard Oliver for
the preservation of peace. Mix sets forth
in the complaint that Oliver made an
assault with pitchfork with intent to do
bodily harm, and Mrs. Mix swears that
Oliver threatened to shoot her and tried
to do so. This will call for heavy bonds.
Several persons from the ward where
the affair occurred say that every man
there breads Oliver, and are in for tarring
and feathering him. A number of very
grave charges are also made, which are
too indecent for print, and it is generally
conceded that he is bad-dispositioned
man who needs looking after.