A controversial Joplin and Picher lawman whose life moved between policing, gun violence, trials, prison, and pardon.
Known forA controversial Joplin and Picher lawman whose life moved between policing, gun violence, trials, prison, and pardon.
William Thompson "Billy" Schmulbach was born in Kentucky in 1874 and later came to Joplin during the lead and zinc mining boom. By the early twentieth century, his name was tied to some of the most turbulent law-and-order stories in the region.
In 1909, Schmulbach shot and killed Joplin patrolman William Smith during an encounter at Eighth and Main Streets. He fled, was arrested in Seattle in 1911, and returned to Missouri for trial. A second-degree murder conviction was later reversed, and he was acquitted in 1913 after a new trial.
Afterward, Schmulbach moved into the rough mining world of Picher, Oklahoma, where he worked as a merchant policeman. The source writing portrays him as both a badge-wearing enforcer and a deeply controversial figure whose methods repeatedly brought him into violent confrontations.
Violence, Trial, And Legacy
The Picher years added to his reputation. Schmulbach was accused of bribery in connection with bootlegging, shot and killed bank robbery suspects Lee Flournoy and Charles Mayes in 1926, shot Roy Epperson while investigating bandits, and killed Hugh Harreld in 1927 before the charges were dismissed.
In 1930, he killed Picher druggist Frank Carlock during a money dispute. This time a jury convicted him of murder and he received a life sentence. He was pardoned in 1936, returned to Picher, and later worked as a guard for the Eagle-Picher Company before his death in 1946.
Schmulbach remains a complicated figure: remembered through newspaper accounts and court records as a man whose public role in law enforcement was inseparable from the violence that followed him.
Source: "The Infamous Life of William Schmulbach v2.docx" and the wanted poster image in the William Schmulbach folder.