GRANT’S PASS, Or., Sept. 28.—The body of William Dunlap, an old pioneer and miner, was found near his cabin yesterday. The old man had been shot and evidently murdered, as his cabin had been looted.
Dunlap lived alone on Louse Creek, where he has resided for 30 years past, making his living by working his Placer claim. It has been the supposition that he had considerable gold buried in or near his cabin and it was probably to find this that the old man was murdered. He had been dead four or five days when found and the murderer had ample time to escape. Officers are working on the case, but have not the slightest clew.
— Morning Register (Eugene, Oregon), September 30, 1903
William Dunlap was murdered in September 1903, but it took much longer for police to arrest his killers. The body of the gold miner and Civil War veteran was found in the doorway of his remote cabin near Grants Pass in southern Oregon shortly after he was shot and killed.
It took a year and a half for a teenager named Lloyd Ingram to go to police and admit what he knew about the murder. Andy Ingram, Lloyd’s father had put the fear of god into the young man to keep his mouth shut.
Forty-year-old Andy was the “author of the plot” to kill William. As police had surmised, money was the motive for the crime — Andy believed that William had a stash of gold hidden under the cabin floorboards. To help him carry out the murder he enlisted his 26-year-old cousin, Andrew Dodson.
Andrew had the better people skills of the two men, so he befriended the aged gold miner. After a couple of visits to his cabin by the younger man, William was lulled into believing Andrew was really his friend. On the third visit, Andrew brought his rifle and shot the old man in the chest in cold blood. He joined Andy in the nearby town of Grants Pass to establish an alibi, then they returned to the cabin that night. The pair looted the place, but all they found was $12.
It turned out that William was no fool. He kept the proceeds from his mining labors in the First National Bank of Grants Pass.
Lloyd had overheard his father and Andrew planning the murder. He admitted to Andy that he followed Andrew on the day of the crime and saw him enter William’s cabin with the loaded rifle.
After hearing what his son had to say, Andy forced Lloyd to go to the cabin and search William’s body. Andy thought the shock of seeing the dead body would shut the boy up, and it did. He also convinced him that he’d be implicated in the murder if anyone found out what happened. So Lloyd kept quiet, at least for a while.
By 1905, Lloyd was unable to keep his terrible secret any longer. He went to the police and told them what he knew. Andy and Andrew were arrested.
Andrew admitted he fired the shot that killed William, saying his conscience was bothering him so much that he hoped for the shortest route to the gallows. He got it — he was sentenced to hang on August 11, 1905. But he insisted that it was not he but Andy who had planned the murder.
When one man is the brains behind a murder plot but another man pulls the trigger, who’s the “real criminal” wondered a reporter for a newspaper covering the case.
Andy pleaded not guilty and went to trial. His son’s testimony helped convict him of second-degree murder. He got a life sentence in prison.
Andrew didn’t die on the gallows. There was a public outcry over the decision to hang the shooter while the plotter was allowed to live, so the governor commuted Andrew’s death sentence to life in prison. Due to failing eyesight, he was pardoned in 1915 after serving ten years.
Lloyd developed problems as an adult and became addicted to alcohol, opium and morphine. He went to jail for petty larceny. In 1919 he was committed to the California State Psychiatric Hospital in Stockton.
Andy escaped from the Oregon State Penitentiary in 1918. He was recaptured in 1922 while attempting to burglarize a store in Portland and returned to the penitentiary with time added to his sentence. In 1934, 71-year-old Andy was given a conditional pardon. At some point he was again sent back to the penitentiary (apparently his pardon was revoked) where he died of heart disease in March 1948. No one from his family claimed his cremains and they were buried at the Oregon State Hospital Cemetery.
Featured photo: news photo of undated mugshot of Andy (A.M.) Ingram, alias John Watson. Collection of the author.
Captured and Exposed 