[Little Rock] Old-Line Democrat, April 26, 1860
The Lynching Case in Crittenden County.
About the first of March, two men by the name of William and Phillip Cheek, were hung in Crittenden county, for one of the most atrocious crimes that were ever committed. The circumstances of the case are briefly these, as brought out by the evidence elicited on their preliminary trial before a justice of the peace. The wife of a respectable old citizen named Robertson, prevailed on a man by the name of Phillip Cheek, with the offer of a sum of money to kill her husband. He shot him with a rifle gun, and on being arrested and brought to trial made the following confession: I am guilty of the murder of Robertson, and will show you why, (pulling out and exhibiting $185½ in gold and silver), this money was given to me by Mrs. Mary Robertson, as a reward to hire me to kill her husband; and I did kill him, about the 21st of Feb’y last. I killed him with a rifle gun, discharged through the window of his house.
Wm. Cheek was also implicated in the murder of Robertson; and by his confessions, as well as the testimony of Mary Robertson it was clearly proven that he was a guilty accomplice in the foul deed.
During the examination of these men much excitement prevailed; and when in answer to a question put to Phillip by the prosecuting attorney, asking him where he expected to meet the people then present in another world, replied, “I expect to meet you, sir, in the lowest pits of Hell, if there be such a place!” The indignant feelings of the crowd broke through all the restraints of law, and they seized the prisoners, took them from the officers and hung them both immediately.
Many of the best citizens of the county we are informed, participated in executing this [illegible] upon the wretched victims, and while under no circumstances can such proceedings be justified, still there may be as in the present case, there doubtless were sufficient aggravating circumstances to excuse the deed.
Robertson, the murdered man, was a respectable citizen, had lived in the county for nearly twenty years, and had always been reputed a quiet and honest man. His wife, after the murder, fled. She is about twenty-eight years of age, middle size, light hair, blue eyes, and has lost some of her front teeth.