Robert Ford

Robert Newton Ford (January 31, 1862 – June 8, 1892) was an American outlaw who killed fellow outlaw Jesse James on April 3, 1882. He and his brother Charley, both members of the James–Younger Gang under James's leadership, went on to perform paid re-enactments of the killing at publicity events. Ford would spend his later years operating multiple saloons and dance halls in the West. Ten years after James's death, Ford was himself the victim of a fatal shot to the neck by Edward Capehart O'Kelley in Creede, Colorado, dying at only 30 years old. While initially buried in Creede, his remains were later exhumed and reinterred in his hometown of Richmond, Missouri. Early years Robert Ford was born in 1862 in Ray County, Missouri, to James Thomas and Mary Bruin Ford as the youngest of seven siblings. As a young man, Ford came to admire Jesse James for his Civil War record and criminal exploits, eventually getting to meet him in 1880 at the age of 18. Ford's brother Charley is believed to have taken part in the James–Younger Gang's Blue Cut train robbery in Jackson County, west of Glendale, Missouri (renamed Selsa and now part of Independence), on September 7, 1881.