If you haven't read the first three parts or chapters to this as true as can be lead to believe murder, the reader may return to the entries made on Jan 9; 20th and 23th of 2021. For the sake of time, space and this old man's energy, we will go right to the "quick" of what we have been told or can ascertain with written notes or paper clippings and talking with the major source of the saga-D. Robert Carter, who we have been in telephonic communication with and his notes are found with quote marks. Last time we left on with the chief killer of the son of a sheep man to be Ike Cartwright, who had been the chief herder for the Nephi Price Family when the victim was shot in the back with a .45 revolver. But a murder charge was dropped and Ike was a free man for several years. "Around 1921, Mrs. Cartwright, at age 52, gave up her unsavory union with Ike and and began divorce proceedings for cruelty and threats against her, moving in with her 21 year old daughter-Adelaide Wilson and her young family in Payson." Ike continued his violence and quarreled with his son Robert, a resident of Eureka, and took a pot shot at him. "In 1922, the maniacal man sharpened a long butcher knife and made his 12 year old son an offer to slit his mothers throat". Robert Carter, the newspaper guru, said the Salt Lake Tribune and Deseret News had a history of different opinions of things even back then. The Deseret News claimed Cartwright offered his son $15 to cut his mothers throat. The Tribune said it was the father who wanted to die, and he tendered $15 to the son if he would cut Ike's throat or slice his wrists for him". Perhaps both papers were right! Regardless, the son turned the demonic deed down. A year later, Ike learned of his wife filing divorce. He left his job at the Nephi Plaster Mill, which was at the top of Track Street near the mouth of the Canyon. He visited friends until ten, appearing to be nervous. He stopped at the City Meat Market Slaughterhouse and bought a second hand Colt .38 pistol he had previously used to kill cattle for meat. He put it in his pocket and went down to what us old locals call Depot Street and boarded the 1:25 train to Payson. At 2:30 A.M. he walked to his daughters house. He knew his son-in-law, Leslie Wilson was at work in Milford, so he took his shoes off and went in the house through a back window and crawled through the home. He removed his suit coat and folded it inside out, placing it on the dining room table with the inside pocket exposed, as an envelope protruded outward. Ike had scrawled the following three sentences on that envelope: "There is money in the bottom of the stove in the parlor. Things are in the seller. I loved you all to well". He then crawled to where his young son Ted normally slept, but the kid had been at a neighbors. "He then slunk to the second bedroom where Mrs. Cartwright; daughter Adelaide and her two young children slept". Adelaide heard Ike; woke up and saw him with the pistol and grappled with him. The weapon fell to the ground but Ike was able to retrieve it and struck his daughter over the head with it. She screamed and ran to next door neighbors-Mr. and Mrs. Elmer Daniels. Mrs. Cartwright lay in bed with paralyzing fear. Ike took deliberate aim and pumped one slug into his wife's head, just above the eye. She died several hours later. "Satisfied that his wife was mortally wounded, Ike playing the role of a self appointed one man firing squad, placed the muzzle of his own .38 to his forehead and pulled the trigger. He died instantly. According to writer Robert Carter, who wrote for the Daily Herald and access to various other newspaper articles wrote in summary "After acting as a vigilante committee for 27 long years, Ike's guilty conscious finally accomplished something conventional lawmen could not do......it brought punishment to the reprehensible murderer of Louis Price". To this writer, that brings a lot of circumstantial evidence to the culprit who in a cold blooded manner, shot our 16 old victim to death above Nephi. A desperado can be convicted on Circumstantial Evidence, such as a fingerprint, but with Court rulings nowadays, Direct Evidence is best. So, each reader can make their own verdict. For this writer, who has some experience with murder cases, has a ton of other questions such as: what happened to the .44 or .45 Revolver? Was in placed in evidence? Did a modern day law enforcement officer take old evidence and arrest records to the junkyard? Of the still standing Jail where Ike Cartwright was held, is there a secret compartment for old evidence on the little known two bottom floors of that jail? And the final question is what did the "Paranormal Pulse" team discover in the area where the first suspect lived in a hut and below the Plaster Mill where Ike worked. While we wait a written report from the seven people involved with that, we will have to add at least one more chapter, and then perhaps in the Spring or Summer, the "Ghost Hunters" would like to check the murder scene and many other readers would like to hike along. Sometimes hideous history is ghostly and gruesome, but if we can find more evidence, involved families may find some comfort in knowing the truth, the whole truth and well, mostly the truth!
