Among Mr. Wall's neighbors in those days were Mr. J. S. McCool, who now resides on the Platte a few miles below Denver, and Mr. LeFevre. Employed by Mr. LeFevre was a young man named George H. Witherill, while Mr. McCool gave work to one E. E. Wight, commonly then known in the neighborhood as Jack Wight. These two employés became the murderers of Wall, whose sheep and supposed hidden treasure of gold they longed to possess.
Witherill was the younger of the two men, being at that time twenty-three years of age, while Wight was about twenty-seven. Both were doubtless bad enough, but to Wight seems to belong the credit of planning the deviltry. He also appears to have found in Witherill not only a willing accomplice but a pliant tool. Wight had come into Colorado the year before from Iowa, and Witherill had recently arrived from the northwest. He was a native of New York, and had gradually drifted westward until he reached Utah and Dakota. For a while he was engaged as a stage driver from Corrinne, Utah, on the Fort Benton route. Afterwards he drifted back to Laramie City, Wyo., and from Laramie came to Denver. The education which he had received as a stage driver in the then almost savage region in which he operated was not calculated to make a refined creature of him.
Witherill and Wight soon became acquainted and were not long in deciding to appropriate Wall's property which had aroused their cupidity. From the time they first discovered themselves to be of common mind upon this point, they talked over the project continually when they met. Both of them were herders, but for different men, and they frequently contrived to bring their herds together for the purpose of discussing this subject between themselves. They also managed to get days off, when they would stroll about and discuss the matter. They also met at night and debated the fine points, going so far at times as to walk over to Wall's place and survey the premises. The horrible nature of the crime of murder seems to have never entered their minds. The only point which presented itself was the feasibility of their scheme. They were not anxious to kill, but they wanted Wall's property, and after discussing various other plans for getting Wall out of the way, decided, as dead men tell no tales, to murder him in cold blood and take the sheep and whatever valuables might be found.