Believing the general store's safe contained a mining payroll of $7,000, they timed the robbery incorrectly and were only able to steal between $800 and $3,000, along with a gold watch and jewelry.

for the Copper Queen Mine was delivered to the Goldwater & Castaneda Mercantile store one or two days in advance of the company's payday on the 10th of each month.

Heath immediately partnered with a local man named Nathan Waite and prepared to open a new dance hall.

Heath and Waite opened their dance hall behind the Goldwater & Castaneda Mercantile general store on December 8, 1883, the day the Copper Queen Mine payroll usually arrived.

They tied their horses near the Copper Queen Mine smelter at the end of Main Street and walked to the Goldwater and Castaneda store.

"Tex" Howard, who wasn't wearing a mask, "York" Kelly, and "Billy" Delaney entered the store while the other two remained outside.

[2] While the three Cowboys were inside looting the safe and robbing the customers, "Red" Sample and "Big Dan" Dowd, outside the store,[3] were confronted by citizens who recognized that a robbery was in progress.

Cochise County Deputy Sheriff D. Tom Smith was having dinner with his wife across the street at the Bisbee House.

Deputy Sheriff William "Billy" Daniels, who had come from his saloon when he heard the shooting commence, emptied his revolver at the fleeing outlaws, but missed.

[citation needed] Because he had neglected to wear a mask, "Tex" Howard was quickly identified as one of the robbers.

"Tex" Howard and "Red" Sample made the mistake of returning to their old haunts in Clifton, Arizona.

Daniel W. Dowd and William E. Delaney had, as Heath had seen by their horse tracks, left the others outside Bisbee and traveled to Sonora, Mexico.

On February 18, after their motions for a new trial were quashed by Judge Daniel Pinney, the five outlaws were sentenced to be hanged by the neck until they were dead.

Unable to produce a witness, County Attorney Marcus Aurelius Smith found a prisoner to testify against Heath.

Sergeant L. D. Lawrence, of the 3rd Cavalry, had been indicted for killing two men during a saloon brawl in Willcox, Arizona, and had been incarcerated with Heath and the others since their arrest.

Lawrence swore he had not but three months later, in May 1884, he was represented in his murder trial before Judge Pinney by Smith's private law firm.

He was found guilty of the lesser crime of manslaughter and sentenced to only two years in the Yuma Territorial Prison.

The jailer thought their knock was the Chinese cook bringing breakfast, and the seven men forced the sheriff and guards at the point of their guns to release Heath to them.

Members of the mob then pulled the rope until Heath was suspended beneath the pole, where he slowly strangled to death.

The lynching at Tombstone was covered nationally, reported by The New York Times and the Chicago Tribune as well as by western newspapers.

The February 24, 1884 issue of the Times reported: ... At 9 o'clock on Thursday morning Judge Pinney sentenced John to confinement in Yuma Penitentiary for life for complicity in the Bisbee murders.

Twenty-four hours later the dead body of Heath dangled from the cross bar of a telegraph pole near the foot of Toughnut Street, where it was suspended by a rope...

Arriving at the place selected for the hanging one of the party climbed a telegraph pole and passed the rope over the cross-bar.

[2] After his death, Heath was described as "a notorious gambler, burglar, horse and cattle thief" on February 28, 1884, by The Kaufman Sun in his home town of Terrell, Texas.

[16] Dr. George E. Goodfellow, who had witnessed Heath's hanging, was County Coroner and responsible for determining the cause of death.

He ruled that Heath died from "...emphysema of the lungs which might have been, and probably was, caused by strangulation, self-inflicted or otherwise, as in accordance with the medical evidence.

Sheriff Ward sent out invitations to a select number of people to view the hanging, In addition, a local businessman erected a grandstand of his own outside the jailyard and began selling tickets at $1.50 per seat.

The bodies of the Bisbee bandits were allowed to hang there in the early spring air for nearly half an hour before they were officially pronounced dead.

Then, at 1:45 p.m. the corpses were cut down and “placed in neat but plain coffins” and conveyed to the city morgue, where they were each identified in turn by Gallagher.

The following are the images, as of 2017, of the individual graves of Dan Dowd, William E. Delaney, Daniel Kelley, James Howard and Omer W. Sample in Boot Hill Graveyard in Tombstone.