Illinois in 1844 was a dangerous, violent place -- but it was not without law, and the law had its champions.  After Joseph and Hyrum Smith were murdered in the Carthage Jail on June 27th, Governor Thomas Ford set out on a yearlong crusade (often without allies and wading through considerable political opposition) to bring the killers to justice.  Struggling to find a prosecutor willing to take the case, he finally found an ally in the mercurial, hard-drinking Josiah Lamborn.      

But who were the accused killers?  And what were their motives behind the desperate act of daylight murder?  We explore that and more on this first of a three-part series on the trial of the Carthage killers.

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).