WHO MURDERED 16 YEAR OLD LOUIS PRICE IN 1895-PART TWO.

Ten days ago we started to tell of the true story that occurred up Nephi Canyon in 1895. At the time, Louis Price was just 16 years old, helping to take care of his fathers sheep herd, which was in a pocket of grass located three canyons up the Nephi or what is properly called Salt Creek Canyon on the south side of State Rd. 132, East of Nephi. The lad's family heirs are still around, so we will be as sensitive as possible and show the facts as well we have obtained them. The father of Louis was desperately sick from typhoid fever, suffering distress and hallucinations, so Louis prepared to take food and provisions to Ike Cartwright, the herder of the Price flock. Louis was also going to help him move the herd up further the canyon. The boy never returned home Friday night, and the next day they searched and found his dead body, and the first Coroner's jury determined that Louis got off his horse to tighten a loose strap on the pack mule and fell down a hill where a narrow branch had penetrated Louis' abdomen and come out near his back. When they prepared the body for burial, the Coroner's jury were regathered when it was determined  that the victim had been shot with his own gun in the back. Now the officers called it cold blooded murder, with the culprit thinking that if he cremated the body, nobody would know the difference, but Louis was able to crawl a little bit out of the flames where he died. All of Nephi was upset, as the Price family was. The victim was such a well liked kid, The Salt Lake Tribune summarized their emotional turmoil by saying, "Nothing for years has caused so much excitement and cast such a shade of gloom over the city of Nephi as the cold-blooded murder of Lewis Price." "Most residents of Nephi believed the boy's death came as a result of a cold-blooded murderer. Marshal Goldsbrough and Deputy Sheriff Adams and Constable Sparks set out to solve the mystery. Oddly enough, it appeared that two or more people had visited the murder scene before Cartwright found Louis' dead body. One of those people rode a horse with one shoe missing. Authorities followed those tracks to the shabby hut of Nels Jacobson, a squatter who lived in Salt Creek Canyon and survived by doing odd jobs for ranchers'. Officers learned that Jacobson had recently quarreled with the Prices. When the squatter visited the Price home the next day, Charles Henry Price ordered Jacobson to leave immediately. The scorned man compiled and went even further by leaving town by horseback heading north. Jacobson's actions appeared very suspicious, and Nephi's law enforcement officers requested a warrant for his arrest. They wired ahead to towns in Utah County to intercept him. They caught up with him and Sheriff Adams rode to Payson on the train and apprehended Jacobson later that evening on the 10 P.M. train. He spent the night in the the Territorial Jail, and some local citizens clandestinely talked to taking the law into their own hands, and a few of Louis' friends  openly threatened to lynch the luckless squatter. However, Nephi's law enforcement officers swore to protect Jacobson since, as the Salt Lake Herald stated, his guilt was "not clearly apparent to even the most prejudiced". During the night, officers listened to Jacobson's alibi, and it proved to be iron clad. 'He denied the crime, and the Salt Lake Tribune announced Jacobson had been working with a man named Smith from "morning till sundown" on the Ockey farm located farther up the canyon. Although the murder was 136 years, this writer interviewed  88 year old Jimmy Ockey of the Ockey farm, to see if he had heard of his father James H. or grandfather-Heber Ockey, speak of such a worker. It was not known. On the strength of the alibi, Marshal Goldsbrough released Jacobson previous to Oct. 1, the day of Louis' funeral. Hundreds of people attended the slain boys memorial service, one of the largest ever held in 19th century Nephi. Ike Cartwright, the Price family's sheep foreman, acted as the chief mourners. The Salt Lake Tribune summarized the prevailing mood by stating, "Everybody speaks well of the boy." During the funeral, parents and relatives of the deceased, who were now satisfied of Jacobson's innocence, openly expressed exoneration the squatter from any guilt. After Nels Jacobson proved his innocence, Nephi's law men seemed uncertain where to turn to next in their search of Louis' murderer. Suspicion briefly fell upon a Mexican who had been seen around the camp, but that trail also led to a dead end.  As local authorities gather more evidence, their suspicions fell upon Ike Cartwright the man who "found" Louis' body.  End of Part Two.