In the late summer of 1845, the community near Cane Hill in Washington County, Arkansas, was shaken by the brutal murder of Jonathan Selby, a well-to-do bachelor of about forty years of age. On the morning of August 12, 1845, a neighbor discovered Selby's body, his head having been horrifically 'chopped to pieces.' The violent nature of the crime spurred an immediate investigation, and suspicion quickly fell upon a local family, the Burnetts.
Crawford and Lavinia Burnett, along with
their son John, became the primary suspects. The motive for the murder appeared to be robbery. Authorities took the elder Burnetts into custody, while their son, John, fled the area. A special session of the circuit court was convened to try Crawford and Lavinia. During the trial, a dramatic and emotional testimony came from within the Burnett family itself. Mary Jane Burnett, the daughter, testified against her own parents, stating that they had meticulously planned the murder and that her brother John, accompanied by his cousin John Sharp, had carried out the gruesome act. She recounted the harrowing detail of having to wash her brother's blood-soaked clothing after the murder. Sharp's testimony corroborated Mary Jane's, claiming that John Burnett had forced him to be present and had used a hand-axe to kill Selby.
The testimonies of their own daughter and nephew sealed the fate of Crawford and Lavinia Burnett. They were convicted and sentenced to hang. Public sentiment was particularly harsh towards Lavinia, who was described by onlookers as the instigator of the entire affair. The trial judge, in his sentencing, condemned her for not only causing Selby's death but also for ruining her own family. On November 8, 1845, in a grim public spectacle witnessed by a crowd estimated at 3,000 people in Fayetteville, Crawford and Lavinia Burnett were executed.
The search for John Burnett continued, with posses venturing as far as Texas. He was eventually located in Saline County, Missouri, by a determined Washington County man named Moses Cook. After his arrest and return to Fayetteville, John Burnett faced a two-day trial. With much of the same evidence and witnesses from his parents' trial presented, he too was found guilty and sentenced to death. On December 26, 1845, John Burnett was hanged on the same gallows as his parents. Before his execution, he proclaimed his innocence, stating he was a 'murdered man' and 'as innocent as a babe unborn' before his life was ended.
