Ben Kuhl

Ben Kuhl was from Michigan.^[5] In 1903, he was jailed in Marysville, California for petty larceny, and had also been sentenced to 1 to 10 years in Oregon for horse theft. Kuhl arrived in Lander County, Nevada in 1916 and lived in a tent with two others drifters, Ed Beck and Billy McGraw. He worked as a cook at the OK Mine for about a month before he was fired for attempting to jump another man's mining claim. He was arrested for trespassing in Jarbidge.^[6]

The Jarbidge Stage Robbery occurred on December 5, 1916, just before 6:30 PM. The mail wagon from Three Creek, Idaho, drawn by two horses, was ambushed. Searcy was killed by a .44 caliber slug to the head, and about $4,000 was stolen.^[1] While the money was never recovered, almost fifty pieces of evidence were collected. Kuhl, Beck, McGraw, and another acquaintance, B.E. Jennings,^[7] were caught soon after the incident occurred. Most of the evidence against Kuhl was circumstantial. However, there was a bloody palm print on a letter from the wagon's mail pouch;^[8] and Kuhl became the first American convicted of murder based on a palm print. His death sentence was commuted to life in prison at the Nevada State Prison in Carson City, Nevada, but he was paroled on May 7, 1945.^[9]

Kuhl was slender and nearly 6 feet (1.8 m) tall; he had light blue eyes. His wife, Minnier (nicknamed "Minnie"), and a son lived in Salt Lake City, Utah;^[9] she divorced Kuhl after the conviction. His mother lived in Kalamazoo, Michigan; his father in Walla Walla, Washington. Kuhl is thought to have died of pneumonia or tuberculosis in northern California, possibly Sacramento or San Francisco, within 6 to 12 months of his release.^[10]

• Ben E. Kuhl - The Complete List of Old West Outlaws