Description: Think It is George TAYLOR. Tacoma Officers Believe They Have the Fugitive Missouri Murderer.

Date: May 1 1904

Newspaper published in: Kansas City, MO

Page/Column: 6/2

Tacoma, Wash., April 30.--A diary kept by Bob TAYLOR, the hermit captured near here yesterday, after a battle with a sheriff and posse, makes it appear that he has killed others since February, 1903. One entry in the diary, undated, reads:

"To-day I killed 'Feller' Killon, and ____"

The last word is unintelligible. The sentence may mean "I killed a fellow" and the rest may refer to killing and shooting. The belief is growing that the prisoner is the missing George TAYLOR of Linn county, Missouri, who, after murdering several persons for which he was sentenced to be hanged in 1896, escaped and disappeared and for whom heavy rewards were offered.

Long life as a hermit may have affected his mind, for there is said to be no doubt that he is partly demented, and fear of capture may have led to his deadly assault on the two tramps who applied at his cabin for shelter and his subsequent attempt to kill sheriff DENHOLM and his deputies.

Since George TAYLOR escaped several years ago from the jail in Carrollton, Mo., reports have come from many different places and at many different times that he was in custody there. Hundreds of different sheriffs in all parts of the country have wired the Missouri authorities that George TAYLOR was certainly in their custody. He has been reported in custody in different parts of Texas, Oklahoma, California, Colorado, Arkansas, in the bad-lands of the Northwest and even in the Phillippine islands. Often the wired description would fit exactly that of George TAYLOR.

When TAYLOR escaped he and his brother, Bill, were under sentence to be hanged for the murder of the MEEKS family near Browning, Linn county, Missouri. They killed Gus MEEKS, his wife and their three children. A fourth child, Nellie MEEKS, was left for dead under a straw stack with the rest of the family, but she revived and staggered to a house and told her story. The bodies were found. George and Bill TAYLOR fled and were hunted for months. They were captured in a little village on the White river in Arkansas, brought back to Missouri, tried and convicted. Bill TAYLOR was hanged for the crime.