Mountain Meadows Massacre: Collected Legal Papers (2 vols.)
University of Oklahoma Press, 2017. First printing. Hardcover/dust jacket. 1056 pp. The editors of this two-volume collection combed public and private manuscript collections across the United States to reconstruct the complex legal proceedings that occurred in the massacre’s aftermath. The documents they unearthed, transcribed and presented here, cover a nearly forty-year history of investigation and prosecution—from the first reports of the massacre in 1857 to the dismissal of the last indictment against a perpetrator in 1896. Volume 1 tells the first half of the story: the records of the investigations into the massacre and transcriptions of all nine indictments, eight of which never resulted in a trial conviction. Volume 2 details the legal proceedings against the one man indicted to go to trial, John D. Lee. Lee’s trials led to his confession and conviction, and ultimately to his execution on the massacre site in 1877, all documented in Volume 2.
“Richard E. Turley, Janiece L. Johnson, and LaJean Purcell Carruth have done a great service in offering the Mountain Meadows Massacre papers to the general public. The editors present the documents with an even hand, and the introductions carefully analyze each source.”
—Thomas G. Alexander, author of Brigham Young, The Quorum of the Twelve, and the Latter-day Saint Investigation of the Mountain Meadows Massacre. New. Item #29079
Price: $130.00