On September 16th, 1844, Frank Worrell was a man on a mission.  Flanked by a group of friends, Worrell  galloped out of Carthage, Illinois on the main road to Nauvoo.   Worrell had enough of the Jack Mormon Backenstos (the term meant a person friendly towards the Mormons though not a Mormon himself).  Worrell believed that, if they were ever going to drive the Mormon people from Illinois, Backenstos had to die.  

Worrell's mission?  Chase down the sheriff and shoot him dead before he could reach the safety Nauvoo.  

On this episode, we discuss Worrell's background as the commander of the Carthage Greys, the guard force at the Carthage Jail.  We explain Worrell's complicity in the murder and the later cover-up at the trial of the alleged killers.  Then, we review the spree of anti-Mormon burnings that started in September 1845 from the perspective of William Draper, one of the victims of the mob violence. 

To learn more about the information in this episode, please check out Dallin H. Oaks & Marvin S. Hill, Carthage Conspiracy: The Trial of the Accused Assassins of Joseph Smith (1979).   

Key words: Porter Rockwell, Frank Worrell, Mormons, Latter-day Saints, Levi Williams, Joseph Smith, Hyrum Smith, mobs, Carthage, Warsaw, Nauvoo.