Cooper, Silas: 1906

Mrs. William Conway swore that her husband fired the shot that killed Silas Cooper, due to jealousy, the previous Monday. On May 21, 1906, she had gone to Mr. Cooper’s house after he asked her to help him move some items in his home, but he was not there when she arrived. She waited for him until his arrival. When he came home, the two went for a walk about 9:00 p.m. As the passed the alley at Twenty-fourth Street, she told him, “Here comes Will; you better be careful.”

Conway put his hand in his pocket, and warned Cooper again. He laughed it off, saying, “Oh, he won’t shoot; if I wait till he shoots me, I will never die.”

Conway caught up with them. He cursed Cooper and demanded to know if the other man was trying to take his wife. Mrs. Conway ran away, but near the alley she turned, saw her husband draw a revolver, and brandish it in Cooper’s face. She saw him shoot him; the coroner stated the bullet went in his nostril and through into his brain.

A.H. Lord, who owned a slaughterhouse at 2327 Eighth Avenue, heard the shot, and Mrs. Conway rushed into his business. She cried, “Close the door, my husband will kill me!” Mr. Lord questioned her, and she told him her husband had just shot Cooper.

S.M. McCurdy and S.C. Mauk were sitting at Shriffier’s grocery store at Eighth Aven and Twenty-fourth Street when they heard the shot. They ran to the corner, where Conway confronted them. He looked at the two men and exclaimed, “That (blank) will not bother me anymore.” He walked across Eighth Avene. McCurdy and Mauk saw that Conway was dead and pursued the killer. Conway walked toward the culvert, and then began to run with the witnesses pursuing. He lost them at the culvert.

The Mirror reported on May 28 that a colored man passing through Altoona on his way to Pittsburgh told a friend that he had seen and talked with William Conway, in Harrisburg on Friday in the market house. The man, a plasterer by profession, repeated the same story to police, stating that he had known Conway for years.

William Conway was blamed for another murder in July. Henry Evans, a foreman of car inspectors for the railroad was shot in Bennett. The report stated that the negro (Conway) was caught robbing a car and was being led away when he jerked loose and shot Evans with a revolver. Another inspector hit the assailant on the head with a hatchet, but the man still got away. A posses searched until midnight, tracking him by his bloody wounds, and several times got close enough to shoot at him. He disappeared in the bushes in the mountains.