By Gene Watson
For The Independent

The man's hands went high above his head. Deputy Sheriff Bill Cords removed a pistol from the man's front pants pocket. The man turned toward the police chief and said, "I expected you to shoot me; I was ready to die."

Moments before, the man, identified as Edward Kinney, had entered the alley door of Peter Sorenson's saloon, which faced North Locust Street just south of the Koehler Hotel. Kinney went directly into the main barroom. With out speaking to anyone, he pulled a pistol from his pants pocket and began shooting toward several men standing together.

At the first shot, the men moved quickly out the front door. Charles Meyers was shot in the back as he went through the door. He staggered a few feet and collapsed, dead in the middle of North Locust Street. It was 4 o'clock in the afternoon of July 15, 1915.

Kinney began walking west down the alley between Locust and Wheeler. He was followed down the alley by a group of men from the saloon. He would periodically stop and turn and wave the handgun at the group. At the west end of the alley Chief Snodgrass and Deputy Sheriff Cords confronted him.

The officers took charge of Kinney and marched him toward the Hall County Jail. The group following them increased in size as more and more men and some women joined.

Someone in the crowd yelled, "Get a rope." Chief Snodgrass tightened his grip on the prisoner.

They were able to make it to the jail without interference. Hall County Sheriff Gus Sievers, who also managed the jail, decided he would take no chances. The prisoner was placed in a solitary cell. An additional guard was posted just outside the cell armed with two pistols and a sawed-off double-barreled shotgun.

Sheriff Sievers declared, "No one is going to mob my prisoner."

The officers learned that Kinney had come to Grand Island from Doniphan on the shuttle train earlier on the afternoon of the shooting.

They determined that Kinney had purchased the revolver that afternoon at Guenthers store for $6.50. Guenther told the officers he did not notice anything unusual about Kinney. Kinney had told him he had two dogs he wanted to get rid of.

The officers believed Kinney walked north on Wheeler from Guenther's, entered the west end of the alley and went in the back door of Sorenson Tavern. The shooting, the officers believed, occurred within minutes of purchasing the revolver.

The officers could pretty much reconstruct the circumstances of how the shooting took place. What they had difficulty with was why the shooting occurred.

Hall County Attorney Benjamin J. Cunningham knew he did not have to prove motive to successfully prosecute Kinney for murder. He had over 30 witnesses. But in the interest of being thorough and to understand as much as possible what happened, he sought to find out why such a brazen killing occurred in broad daylight in the middle of downtown.

Kinney had been working as a carpenter in and around Doniphan for about the last two years. Snodgrass and Sievers went to Doniphan to interview people who knew Kinney.

They discovered that Kinney was a frequent patron of the local tavern so that was where the officers started.

Interviewing patrons at the Doniphan tavern, Snodgrass and Sievers found some men who had witnessed an argument between Kinney and several other men. The witnesses thought the argument was over the men accusing Kinney of giving beer to some young men, who were not of age to drink, who came into the tavern.

Two days later, the day of the shooting, one of the witness said Kinney had been in the tavern and he heard Kinney tell another man that he was going to go to Grand Island to get even with the men he had argued with.

Returning to Grand Island, the three lawmen, Snodgrass, Sievers, and Cunningham interviewed Kinney at the jail. Kinney quickly confessed and readily acknowledged what the witnesses in Doniphan had reported. He told the three lawmen that the only thing they didn't reveal was that one of the men he argued with had called him a vile name. Kinney said he was not going to take that from anyone.

Kinney than shocked the three men interviewing him by saying he had shot the wrong man. He said he was aiming for a man named Cook. He was the man who had called him a vile name. He said he did not go into the tavern with the intent of killing Meyers.

The county attorney wrote out Kinney's confession, and after reading it Kinney signed it. Kinney said to the officers: "Just like in the alley, I was ready to die. I'm ready to go to the penitentiary and do time."

The three men returned to the sheriff's office to discuss what they had just learned. A man had been shot to death in broad daylight in downtown Grand Island, with dozens of witnesses. The reason for the shooting was one man had called another an unpleasant name and the killer claimed he had killed the wrong man!

Witnesses remembered a man named Cook being in the saloon at the time of the shooting, but had not seen him around town since.

Cunningham felt the crime was first-degree murder and started to prepare a complaint as such to be filed with the court. Kinney was facing the death penalty. In 1915 Nebraska the method of execution was still "death by hanging."

In September, County Attorney Cunningham announced that an agreement had been made with Kinney and a trial would not be necessary. Kinney waived a preliminary hearing in county court and was bound over to the district court. In district court he entered a plea of guilty to second-degree murder.

District Judge Hanna sentenced Kinney to life in the state penitentiary.

Epilogue

Less than two months after entering the Nebraska State Penitentiary, Kinney was declared insane and confined to an asylum, where he remained for the remainder of his life.

Photos available:

Photo of Gus Sievers, Hall County sheriff, 1912-1917. (You should have a photo of Sheriff Sievers in your system from a previous story) Photo from the authors' collection.

Photo of downtown area where the shooting occurred. Available from the Stuhr Museum. Newspaper copy enclosed.