Some weeks before, the Myers Fisher ranch on Clear creek had been burned--houses, stables, etc.--and Fisher had come to the conclusion that the fire had been caused by an incendiary, and he offered a reward of $400 for the capture and punishment of the perpetrator of the crime. Cook looked into the case, and he became convinced that the fire had been caused by accident, and would have nothing to do with it. This was the case which he gave Griswold, who was glad enough to get it. In the hope of receiving the reward offered, as it afterwards developed, Griswold then began to lay a plot which was simply hellish in design.
It so happened that Fisher, the owner of the ranch, had had some trouble with one James O'Neal, a man who lived some twelve miles away, near Littleton, and, although O'Neal was a quiet and law-abiding man, Griswold determined to fasten the crime of incendiarism upon him. He also discovered that there had been a fire on another ranch near that of Fisher's, owned by a man named Patrick. To this man and his sons he went with his story. Knowing that he could never convict O'Neal, he asked the Patricks if it could be proven--as he afterwards stated in his confession--that O'Neal had fired both places, they would consent to the capture and lynching of him. They were willing. He brought them what they considered sufficient proof of O'Neal's guilt, which Griswold had procured in his own peculiar way.
Griswold and George Patrick, son of the old man, then came to Denver and swore out a warrant before James S. Taylor, then a justice of the peace in Denver, under false names, for O'Neal's arrest, Griswold getting himself appointed a special officer. He accomplished this by stating to the justice that he had seen Cook, who was then sheriff, which was not true, and that Cook had stated that he was unable to go out to make the arrest. The constable he declared he could not find. He further represented that it was essential that O'Neal should be arrested that night, and at last succeeded in making it appear necessary that he and his friend should be sent upon the mission. Their statements proved to be false in every respect, as will appear, and were the first clue which the detectives had when it came to looking up the case.