(Thanks to Meaghan Good of the Charley Project for the guest post. -ed.)

On this day in 1897, Choka Ebin (Eben), a full-blooded Creek Indian, was executed in Perry, Oklahoma for the murder of Laura Anthony. He’d killed her just three weeks before, on May 23, and was arrested that same day. The law required Ebin’s own tribe to try and sentence him, and his own nearest kin to perform the execution — a precaution against the execution initiating a blood feud.

Ebin remained free between his conviction and his execution. He was supposed to die on June 4, but sent word that he was too sick to ride to town, and got a ten-day reprieve. On June 14 he dutifully appeared and turned himself in to the authorities.

He was placed on his knees on a chair, and his father and brother, Riley and Palko, took positions twelve paces back and fired their Winchester rifles.

The bullets hit the target dead center: shot in the heart, Ebin died within seconds. Riley and Palko then put his body in a coffin and took it home to bury. (Here’s a short contemporary newspaper blurb in a pdf)

On this day..

• 2000: Qader Aktar Hassan, Anis Qassem Dahnassi and Fatima Yussef al-Din Sayed
• 1884: Seven anarchists of La Mano Negra
• 1797: Thomas Starr, penknife murderer
• Feast Day of Rufinus and Valerius
• 1816: Philip Street
• 1662: Sir Henry Vane, Commonwealth parliamentarian
• 1972: Sanong Phobang, Thanoochai Montriwat, and Jumnian Jantra
• 2001: Jay Scott, trend-setter
• 1381: Simon of Sudbury and Robert Hales during Wat Tyler's peasant rebellion
• 1441: Corrado Trinci, Lord of Foligno
• 2008: Anandrao Sainu Koram, Naxalite informer
• 1856: Dr. William Palmer, the Rugeley Poisoner