Murder in Montague: Frontier Justice and Retribution in Texas

By: Glen Sample Ely

Narrated by: Kevin Moriarty

On a sweltering August night in 1876, Methodist minister William England, his wife, Selena, and two of her children were brutally slaughtered in their North Texas home. Acting on Selena’s deathbed testimony, a neighbor, his brother-in-law, and a friend were arrested and tried for the murders. Murder in Montague tells the story of this gruesome crime and its murky aftermath. In this engrossing blend of true crime reporting, social drama, and legal history, author Glen Sample Ely presents a vivid snapshot of frontier justice and retribution in Texas following the Civil War.

The sheer brutality of the Montague murders terrified settlers already traumatized by decades of chaos, violence, and fear - from the deadly raids of Comanche and Kiowa Indians to the terrors of vigilantes, lynchings, and reconstruction lawlessness. But the crime's aftermath - involving five Texas governors, five trials at Montague and Gainesville, five appeals to the Texas Court of Appeals, and three life sentences at hard labor in the state's abominable and inhumane prison system - offered little in the way of reassurance or resolution.

Viewed from any perspective, the 1876 England family murders were both a human tragedy and a miscarriage of justice. Combining the long view of history and the intimate detail of true crime reporting, Murder in Montague deftly captures this moment of reckoning in the story of Texas, as vigilante justice grudgingly gave way to an established system of law and order.

The book is published by University of Oklahoma Press. The audiobook is published by University Press Audiobooks.

©2020 University of Oklahoma Press (P)2020 University of Oklahoma Press

Critic reviews

"An intricate, dazzling, historical true-crime whodunit...a compelling, propulsive history." (Michael Ariens author of Lone Star Law: A Legal History of Texas)

Great Story!

I live within an hour of Montague, Texas, the center of most of the events in the book. I didn’t know about any of these events, and applaud the author for digging up such a compelling story. I enjoyed all of it. It kind of got confusing when discussing some details in sections of the book, but it didn’t deter me from enjoying it. If you have any interest in Texas history, or maybe a history of the legal system, I definitely would recommend this to you. Enjoy.