In the summer of 1902, the town of Jackson, Kentucky, was gripped by the long and bloody Hargis-Cockrill Feud. Town Marshal James Cockrill, a 26-year-old male, found himself at the center of this violent conflict. On the afternoon of July 21, 1902, while standing in front of a local store, he was ambushed. Shots were fired from a second-story window of the courthouse, striking Cockrill multiple times.
He was taken by train to Lexington for medical treatment but succumbed to his injuries shortly after arriving.
The man suspected in the shooting was Curt Jett, a notorious figure known as the 'Wild Dog of the Mountains,' who was deeply enmeshed in the feud. Tensions had escalated earlier that year after an incident involving Marshal Cockrill and his brother, who was also a police officer. Following an altercation that resulted in the death of a local judge's brother, the Cockrills became targets. In the days leading up to James Cockrill's murder, a doctor who had testified in favor of Cockrill's brother was also assassinated.
After shooting Marshal Cockrill, Curt Jett fled into the mountains. He was later apprehended and charged not only with Cockrill's murder but also with the assassination of a prominent local attorney who was killed in the same location as Cockrill a year later. Jett was convicted of both murders and initially sentenced to death, though his sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment.
During his trial, Jett implicated a local judge and the sheriff in the plot to kill Cockrill, claiming he had been hired to carry out the assassination and that they had aided in his escape. While the judge and sheriff were acquitted of the criminal charges, they were later found liable in a civil suit filed by the attorney's wife. Curt Jett was eventually paroled in December of 1918.
