Lynching of the Ruggles brothers

John had been robbing stagecoaches throughout California and Nevada with a man called Arizona Pete, and talked Charles into joining him on the outlaw trail.

The brothers stopped the stage on May 12, 1892, and everything went according to plan, until Charles was hit with buckshot fired by a guard riding inside the coach.

More shots rang out, and soon passenger George Suhr, driver Johnny Boyce and guard Amos "Buck" Montgomery were all wounded.

John Ruggles was arrested while eating a meal at a restaurant in his hometown of Woodland, California, by a Yolo County deputy sheriff.

[1] "The recent sentimental attitude of a number of women toward the prisoners as well as the line of defense adopted by their counsel, who has been evidently endeavoring to implicate Messenger [Amos "Buck"] Montgomery [the dead victim] as a party to the crime, had been denounced by a number of persons in the county and it is believed the lynching was due to those causes.