The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1900-01-21
TWO BROTHERS HANGED
BY A KANSAS MOB.
THEIR CRIME A MURDER FOR PUR-
POSE OF ROBBERY.
sisted the other Had Nothing to
Do with the Crime and the Other
Protested Innocence to the Last.

s FORT SCOTT, Kan, Jan. 2o-George Sill
bee and Ed Meeks, half brothers. who
were convicted Of murder here earlier in
the week. were iynched by q mob In the
county jail yard tonight. At a late hour
their bodies were dangling from two trees
In the yard, the authorities having been so
completely surprised that no effort had
been made to remove the ghastly evidences
Of the mobs work.
Murder Was for Robbery.
The two men who hailed from Kansas
CITY, had been convicted Of murder in the
first degree. their victims being young
German farmer named Leopold Edlinger,
whose murder occurred near this city in
October last. The murderers disposed OF
Edlingers pair of mules, one horse and
wagon in Bates county. Amos Philips,
an accomp,ice of the two brothers in the
crime, was convicted yesterday of murder
in the first degree. The evidence showed
that the three men belonged to a gang of
thieves who had been regularly disposing
of their plunder in Bates county
Mob Wrecks the Jail.
The lynching was the work Of mob
that began gathering in the vicinity of the
county Jail soon after dark. but the pur-
pose of the assembled crowds seems not
to have been suspected until the jail was
attacked. A barb wire trocha that had
been previously built around the jail was
torn down, heavy doors leading to the
prison were battered in and when the mob
came bowling out of the Jail with it's in
tended victims, the interior of the place
looked as If 1t had been wrecked by dyna-
mite.
Defiant to the Last.
George Silbee, the older of the two
brothers, defied his captors until the last.
He placed the moose around his own neck
and died cursing the crowd. Just as he
was jerked into eternity he turned to
his brother with an oath and commanded
him to Idle game" The brother obeyed.
maintaining an outward calm until he
was jerked into the air.
Wanted His Accomplice Lynched.
Before this Silbee shouted to the mob
in defiant tones that he himself shot Ed
linger and that Amos Philips struck
him on the head with an AK. He in-
sisted that his brother Ed did not par
ticipate in the crime.
BE sure and get Philipps." the doomed
man urged Them. shouting to his tor
mentors, he bade them, with curse, to
string him up. The vengeance mani
tested toward the accomplice Philips
was probably due to the fact that Phil
ipps, soon after his arrest, made a full
confession of the crime, though when he
was put on trial he repudiated this earlier
confession.
Pleaded Innocence to the Last.
Ed Meeks was equally fearless In the
hands of the mob, but he did not mani
fest the spirit of bravado shown by his
brother. His last words were:
Hang me IL you will. but I did not
help kill Edlinger George shot him and
Philips struck him with an ak. I did"
The doomed man got no farther in his
statement. as four or five men had him
by the feet, others drew the moose
around his neck. throwing the loose end
over a limb, and in moment he was
strangling to death.
One Victim Escapes Them.
When finally satisfied wiSl their venge-
ance upon the two brothers. the leaders OF
the mob went back TO the jail in search of
old man Philips. In the meantime the
1ailkeepers had secreted him in a room in
che rear Of the structure and when the