Wyatt Earp admitted late in his life to killing Stilwell at close range with a shotgun.

[4] His older brother Simpson "Comanche Jack" Stilwell was an Indian fighter, scout, Deputy U.S.

[3] Frank later staked a claim and worked a mine in Pima County and on November 9, 1879, got into an argument over claim-jumping with Col. John Van Houten.

Frank Stilwell and James Cassidy were charged with his murder but escaped a grand jury indictment for lack of evidence.

[3][7] In the 1880 census he listed himself as 24 years old, and living in Charleston, occupation "keeping livery," and reported that he had been born in Texas.

[8] On September 8, 1881, a passenger stage on the 'Sandy Bob Line' in the Tombstone area bound for Bisbee, Arizona was robbed.

[10] When Stilwell arrived in Bisbee with his livery stable partner, Pete Spence, Tombstone Marshal Virgil Earp, Special Police Officer Wyatt Earp, and Cochise County Deputy Sheriff Billy Breakenridge arrested them for the robbery.

The distinctive boot print and the use of the word "sugar" to describe money was not enough to convict Stilwell, and Judge Spicer dropped the charges for insufficient evidence just as he had done for Doc Holliday earlier in the year.

[14] The Tombstone Epitaph reported "that since the arrest of Spence and Stilwell, veiled threats [are] being made that the friends of the accused will 'get the Earps.

[citation needed] The day after Morgan Earp's assassination, Coroner Dr. H. M. Mathews held an inquest in which Pete Spence's wife, Marietta Duarte, stated that her husband and Frank Stilwell, Indian Charlie, Frederick Bode and an unnamed "half-breed" had returned home only one hour after the shooting, and that her husband had threatened her with violence if she told what she knew.

The Coroner's jury concluded that Spence, Stilwell, Frederick Bode, a man named Fries, and Florentino "Indian Charlie" were suspected in Morgan Earp's assassination.

Wyatt and his assistant deputies Warren Earp, Doc Holliday, "Turkey Creek" Jack Johnson, and Sherman McMaster accompanied Virgil and Allie to the rail head in Benson.

Fearing another attack, they decided to stay with Virgil and his wife aboard the train to Tucson, armed with pistols, rifles and shotguns.

Virgil and Allie were scheduled to catch a train in Tucson for Colton, California, where the Earps’ parents lived.

"Almost the first men we met on the platform there were Stilwell and his friends, armed to the teeth", Virgil later told the San Francisco Examiner.

"[18] Watched over by the well-armed Wyatt and his posse, Virgil and Allie had dinner in Tucson at Porter's Hotel, then reboarded the train.

Wyatt later told his biographers that he saw Frank Stilwell, and another man he believed to be Ike Clanton, armed with shotguns lying on a flatcar.

In a story published on May 14, 1893, Wyatt told a reporter for the Denver Republican he shot Stilwell as he attempted to push the barrel of Earp's shotgun away.

Other accounts reported that Clanton and Stilwell went to the train depot to meet a witness named McDowell who was to appear before the grand jury.

[21] Stilwell's body was found the next day alongside the tracks riddled with two rounds of buckshot, one in his leg and the other in his chest marked with powder burns, along with four other bullet wounds.

"[22]: 247 In a 1926 interview with biographer John H. Flood, Wyatt said that they spotted Stilwell and Clanton armed on a flatcar in the train yard, apparently waiting to ambush the Earps.

[23] In a March 1882 interview with the Arizona Daily Star, Virgil Earp told the reporter "Before Stilwell died he confessed that he killed Morg and gave the names of those who were implicated with him.

Evans witnessed Doc Holliday getting off the train with two shotguns and walk towards the railroad station office and then return without them.

He saw gun flashes and six to ten men standing on the south side of the track at 7:30 p.m. near where Stilwell's body was later found.

[25] One round of buckshot left six holes within a radius of 3 inches (76 mm),[26] and penetrated his liver, stomach, and abdomen, leaving powder burns on his coat.

[27] When Paul arrived in Denver, he served a warrant for Doc Holliday's arrest on charges that he killed Frank Stilwell in Tucson.

[28] The Tucson Weekly Citizen reported on March 28, 1882, that Stilwell "was buried this afternoon, the coffin being conveyed to the grave in an express wagon, unfollowed by a single mourner.

The Southern Arizona Transportation Museum conducts tours of the site and the rest of the Historic Depot upon request.