January 14, 1881
On this day, 20-year-old gambler Michael O’Roarke, a.k.a. “Johnny-Behind-the-Deuce,” shot and killed Henry Schneider in Charleston, Arizona. The rest of the story seems to be part facts, some fables and a lot of speculation in unknown proportions.
Charleston, Arizona, 1880s
The facts were that Schneider was a mining engineer employed by the Corbin Mill, that he wound up dead on this date and that Charleston had a reputation for lawlessness. One version claims O’Roarke and Schneider were engaged in an all-night poker game. Losing heavily, Schneider 
reputedly accused the young gambler of cheating and threatened him with a knife. Wherein O’Roarke (right) shot and killed him.
A second version agrees the two men had a contentious poker game, but that Schneider left after the game, found items missing from his cabin and suspected O’Roarke. Either by fate or design, the pair picked the same spot for lunch the next day. Schneider reportedly confronted O’Roarke about the stolen goods. Wherein O’Roarke shot and killed him.
Apparently Schneider was a popular figure with the local miners, Johnny O’Roarke not so much. His quick temper and reputed fast gun hadn’t won him many friends. Charleston’s lone lawman, Constable George McKelvey, 
arrested O’Roarke but an unhappy mob was fomented by local bad boys and a pair of Earp nemeses, Curly Bill Brocius and Johnny Ringo. (Right)
McKelvey, fearing a lynching, put his prisoner in a buckboard and headed for Tombstone ten miles away with the irate miners just hoofbeats behind. Charleston officials telegraphed Tombstone Marshall Ben Sippy and as luck would have it, McKelvey encountered lawman Virgil Earp (below) on the edge of town, exercising one of brother Wyatt’s favorite horses. The horse had just been recovered after reportedly being stolen by Billy Clanton of O.K. Corral infamy.
Earp put McKelvey and O’Roarke on Wyatt’s horse with instructions to meet up with brother, Morgan, who took the prisoner to Vogan’s Bowling Alley on Allen Street. Shot-gun toting Wyatt’s assignment was to hold off the crowd while Marshall Sippy swore in a heavily armed posse and located a light wagon.
According to the Tombstone Epitaph, the combined constabulary of three Earps, Marshall Sippy, Deputy Johnny Behan and 15 armed guards, persuaded the mob to “bow to the majesty of the law.” The prisoner arrived unscathed in Benson ten miles away and was safely put on a train to the jail in Tucson.
Pima County jail in Tuscon, 1890
But wait, that’s not the end of the story. Two and a half months later, O’Roarke and seven other inmates made an unsuccessful attempt to escape. The jailbreak was foiled and O’Roarke was returned to await trial. But on April 14, he made a solo escape, vanishing, some say, into the mists of history.
Or did he? Other sources claim O’Roarke surfaced in New Mexico, gambling and getting in fights until he was eventually shot dead for cheating.
But wait, there’s more. From here it gets even more confusing. O’Roarke’s killer was believed to be rustler, outlaw and Johnny Ringo’s best friend, Pony Diehl.
But then Johnny Ringo was found dead under a tree in Cochise County with a bullet in the head. He didn’t die with his boots on, it was said. His horse was tied nearby with his boots still in his stirrups. That didn’t sound a bit strange to the locals, however. Leaving your boots on the saddle was a common precaution against scorpions.
Ringo’s death was eventually ruled a suicide but many questioned why a man planning his own demise would worry too much about scorpions.
There was no lack of alternative theories about Ringo’s untimely departure. The “Wyatt Earp did it!” theory held that Ringo was cornered in a canyon and that Earp (right) shot him while he tried to escape. Then there was the alternate Doc Holiday theory that put Earp and Holiday in the same scenario with Holiday firing the fatal shot.
And then there was the jailhouse confession of convicted murderer Buckskin Frank Leslie, (below) who told a guard at Yuma Prison that, yes, in fact, he was actually the one who shot Johnny Ringo. Nobody much 
believed him but Leslie did shoot Billy Claiborne, fellow outlaw and bystander at the OK Corral in 1882. Wouldn’t you know it, in an unverified account, Claiborne’s last words were reportedly, “Leslie shot Johnny Ringo.”
But Pony Diehl claimed he killed Johnny-Behind-the-Deuce O’Roarke because he believed it was O’Roarke who had gunned down his best friend Ringo as payback for organizing the mob that almost hung him.
If he did murder Johnny O’Roarke, Diehl got away with it. He went to prison in 1882, escaped in 1885, was captured and finally released in 1887. He, too, disappeared into the mists of history. Or maybe not. Some claim he was killed in a gunfight the next year.
You just can’t make this stuff up. Or maybe you can. 
While nobody can say for sure who killed Johnny Ringo, the State of Arizona has at least solved the mystery of where he was laid to rest. Ringo’s body was found under a large black oak tree which still remains at his grave site just steps away. It is located on private property in the 
Coronado National Forest some 30 miles from Wilcox. Follow Route 186 southeast to Route 181 which turns sharply to the west.
Unpaved Turkey Creek Road leads to a small park on the Sanders Ranch which is open to the public between 8 and 6. A large green plaque set behind the white gravestone marks the site. A brief biography of Ringo’s short and misspent life was erected by the Cochise Archiological and Historical Society and the Arizona Historical Society. Sturdy shoes are recommended and “watch out for snakes” say the locals.
© Text Only – 2019 – Headin’ West LLC – All photos – public domain or fair use.
*Head On West strives for historic accuracy and uses a number of sources considered reliable. When research differs on significant facts, the various points of view will be cited.