Marion Hedgepeth, also known as the “Handsome Bandit,” the “Debonair Bandit,” and the “Montana Bandit,” was a dapper-dressing outlaw train robber, hired gun, and killer who operated throughout the American West.

Marion Columbus Hedgepeth was born to John and Sarah Ann “Sallie” Cotten Hedgepeth in Prairie Home, Missouri, on April 14, 1856. When he was 15, he ran away from home and worked as a cowboy out west. By the time he was 20, he was an outlaw, having robbed trains and killed in Colorado and Wyoming.

Though his crimes were typical of other Old West outlaws, his appearance wasn’t. He was described as always having a gentlemanly appearance, wearing a bowler hat and a diamond stickpin, and his shoes were highly polished. He was dark-complexioned, stood about six feet tall, and had wavy hair. Despite his swell appearance, Hedgepeth was a deadly killer and one of the fastest guns in the Old West.

In November 1883, Hedgepeth was sentenced to seven years in the Missouri State Penitentiary in Jefferson City, Missouri, on the charges of larceny and jailbreaking. He was discharged on February 16, 1889.

Afterward, he went to Kansas City, Missouri, and became a Slye-Wilson Gang of Outlaws member. The gang also included Adelbert Denton “Bertie” Slye, James “Illinois Jimmy” Francis, and Lucius “Dink” Wilson. By 1890, the newspapers referred to the gang as the “Hedgepeth Four.”

On the night of November 30, 1891, the gang robbed the St. Louis & San Francisco Express train of $40,000 in Glendale, Missouri, near St. Louis. In the process, they set off a stick of dynamite and blew into the side of the express car, seriously injuring the messenger.

The gang then fled to Salt Lake City, Utah, and disbanded.

After being relentlessly pursued by the Pinkerton Detective Agency, Hedgepeth was finally arrested in San Francisco, California, on February 10, 1892, and brought back to Missouri to stand trial. Convicted, he was sentenced to 25 years in the Missouri State Penitentiary.

During his incarceration, he would meet serial killer H.H. Holmes and become involved in a plan to swindle insurance money. Later, Hedgepeth informed on his former cell-mate, H.H. Holmes, which eventually resulted in the notorious killer’s capture, conviction, and execution in 1896. For this, the Missouri governor pardoned Hedgepeth 14 years into his 25-year term.

Though he was only 41 when he was released, he appeared to be 60. He was sick with tuberculosis and was described as looking like a skeleton with sunken jaws, deep-set eyes, and his hair thinning and gray. He said he was ready to be good. But that wouldn’t be the case.

In 1907, he was arrested in Omaha, Nebraska, for burglarizing a storage house at Council Bluffs, Iowa. In March 1908, he was convicted and sent to the Iowa State Penitentiary in Fort Madison. He was released after serving one year.

The following would be the end of his career when he attempted to rob a saloon in Chicago, Illinois, on December 31, 1909. Rather than making off with some loot, he was shot by a police officer and taken to St. Anthony’s Hospital, where he died. He was buried on the grounds of the Cook County Poor Farm at Dunning.

As to the other members of the “Hedgepeth Four”:

Adelbert Slye was arrested in Los Angeles, California, on December 26, 1891, and returned to Missouri to stand trial. He pleaded guilty and received a 20-year sentence in the Missouri State Penitentiary. The governor pardoned him in 1905, and he lived in the Buchannan, Missouri, area until he returned to Los Angeles, California, in about 1925. He died on December 24, 1940, in Inglewood, California, and he gave his body to a medical school.

James Francis was killed by a Fort Scott, Kansas policeman, S.B. McLemore, while resisting arrest on January 23, 1892, in Pleasanton, Kansas.

Lucius Wilson was involved in the killing of Syracuse, New York, Detective James A. Harvey on August 1, 1893. Afterward, he was arrested, convicted, and electrocuted on May 14, 1894, in Sing Sing, New York.

 

©Kathy Alexander/Legends of America, updated March 2025.

Also See:

H.H. Holmes and the Murder Castle of Chicago

Highwaymen of the Railroad

List of American Outlaws

Outlaws on the Frontier

Outlaw & Scoundrel Photo Galleries

Sources:

Duke, Thomas; Celebrated Criminal Cases of America, James H. Barry Company, San Francisco, CA, 1910
Kansas City Times, January 4, 1910
Wikipedia