On a late summer evening in 1926, the life of Will Carper, a male resident of the Texarkana, Arkansas, area, was violently cut short. The tragedy that befell him and his family on August 17, 1926, was not an isolated incident but an encounter with a man who was already a notorious outlaw and killer, William Kenneth "Kinnie" Wagner. Known as "The Texas Kid" from his early days as a skilled shooter in a traveling circus, Wagner had descended into a life of crime that would leave a trail of bodies
across multiple states.
The Carper family's fatal interaction with Wagner occurred on a farm near Texarkana. During a dispute, Wagner, already a fugitive with a price on his head, shot and killed Will and his brother, Sam Carper. A third brother, Bob Carper, was also shot and wounded in the attack but survived. Wagner himself later declared, "I would have gotten Bob, but it was so dark I couldn't see to shoot straight." The brothers were unarmed when they were killed. At a preliminary hearing, Bob Carper described the events that led to the fatal shooting of his brothers.
At the time of the murders, Wagner was already wanted for killing law enforcement officers in Mississippi and Tennessee. He had been sentenced to death in Tennessee for killing two officers and wounding a third in April 1925, but had staged a daring jailbreak and escaped. His criminal career began with bootlegging and escalated to murder, making him one of the most infamous figures in the South. His proficiency with firearms, honed in the circus, had become a deadly tool in his confrontations with the law.
In a surprising turn of events, a few hours after killing the Carper brothers, Wagner, stating he was "tired of being hunted," walked into the office of Miller County Sheriff Lillie Barber in Texarkana and surrendered. His decision to give himself up to a female sheriff was seen by some as a grand gesture, adding to his notorious legend. A preliminary hearing was held in Texarkana, where Wagner was ordered to be held without bail for the murder of Sam Carper. Witnesses included the surviving brother, Bob Carper, and other family members who identified the bodies and described the wounds.
Despite being charged with the murders of Will and Sam Carper in Arkansas, Wagner was never brought to trial in that state. Miller County had the first claim on the notorious gunman, but authorities ultimately decided to turn him over to Mississippi, where he was wanted for the Christmas Eve 1924 killing of Deputy Sheriff Murdock McIntosh. In Mississippi, he was tried, convicted of murder, and on October 31, 1926, sentenced to life imprisonment at the infamous Parchman Farm.
William "Kinnie" Wagner would become almost as famous for his numerous escapes from prison as for his murders. He managed to break out of Parchman on multiple occasions, only to be recaptured each time. His life of violence and defiance finally ended not in a hail of bullets, but from a heart attack on March 9, 1958, while he was still an inmate at Parchman. For the family of Will Carper, justice came not from a trial for his murder in Arkansas, but from the life sentence his killer served for another crime, ensuring he would never again be free to harm another family.
