Ben kilpatrick was born in Concho County, Texas on January 5th, 1874 as the third of nine children. As he grew up, he worked as a cowboy. This is how he met Thomas and Sam Ketchum, and William Carver. The group decided that there was easier ways to attain money so they became the Ketchum Gang of train robbers. Along this new journey of being an outlaw he developed extremely good shooting skills and was known to be completely fearless. After a failed robbery, he fled to the Robbers' Roost in Utah and joined what became known as the Wild Bunch in 1898.The gang began the most successful train robbing career in history. On August 29th, 1900, Kilpatrick, along with the other members of the Wild Bunch gang, held up the Union Pacific train at Tipton, Wyoming. This was followed by a raid on the First National Bank of Winnemucca, Nevada on September, 19th that netted $32,640. The following year the gang obtained $65,000 from the Great Northern train near Wagner, Montana. However, it would soon come to an end. Kilpatrick was ambushed by Sheriff Elijah Briant and his deputies at Sonora, Texas on April 2, 1901. However, he was able to escape. Ben and his girlfriend Laura Bullion, made their …show more content…
9 stopped in Dryden, Texas, where Ben Kilpatrick and a friend he met in prison climbed aboard the engine. While Ole Hobek (the friend from prison) stayed with the engineer, Ben went back to the baggage car with David Trousdale, the Wells Fargo express agent assigned to the train. When the Ben and the agent passed by a shipment of iced oysters, Trousdale picked up an ice mallet and hid it in his jacket. Ben Kilpatrick had filled a bag with about $60,000, but as he was preparing to leave, Trousdale struck him on head with the ice mallet and killed him immediately. The official time of the robbery is listed at 12:05 a.m. Afterwards, the engineer re-coupled the passenger cars and continued