November 2nd, 1870. North of Abilene, Kansas.

Respected lawman T J Smith, nicknamed "Bear River Smith," is brutally murdered while serving an arrest warrant for murder. The desperados responsible, Andrew McConnell and Moses Miles, flee on horseback. 

Thomas J. Smith, Police Chief, Abilene, Kansas

image from Kansas Memory site -- Kansas State Historical Society https://www.kansasmemory.org/

This is a wonderful site with hundreds of images related to Kansas history. Great pictures of the Old West.

Sources

The links to the sources used for this case are listed below.

There’s a very good book called Abilene Lawmen, by Larry Underwood (available on Amazon). I really like the way it paints a picture frontier life in Kansas cow towns like Abilene. There’s also an episode of American Lawmen called “The Two Fisted Marshal of Abilene” on PBS, that reenacts the events of this case. There’s a version on youtube – (if you don’t mind constant ads)

If you google “Thomas Smith Abilene,” there are a number of websites about his life and death. There were a couple that I really www.truewestmagazine.com and www.legendsofamerica.com. The primary newspapers that had relevant articles were the Abilene Chronicle (now the Reflector-Chronicle) and the Topeka Commonwealth (which was bought out by the current Topeka paper, the Capitol-Journal.)

Finally, as always, I googled and wiki'd and went through genealogy sites.

https://www.amazon.com/Abilene-Lawmen-Smith-Hickok-1870-71-Missouri/dp/1886225400

American Lawmen (Ep7 of 8) The Two Fisted Marshal of Abilene | PBS America https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwKL-CySGGY

https://www.truewestmagazine.com

https://www.legendsofamerica.com

Gunsmoke Podcasts (I found a couple on Stitcher – search for "Gunsmoke")

TV Show: https://www.cbs.com/shows/gunsmoke/

Radio: http://www.oldradioworld.com/shows/Gunsmoke.php

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/4356/thomas-james-smith

https://www.kansasmemory.org/item/228477/page/1

http://www.kancoll.org/articles/tomsmith.htm

http://www.abilenecityhall.com/index.aspx?NID=605

http://www.abilene-rc.com

https://www.cjonline.com

https://newspaperarchive.com/

https://www.ancestry.com/

https://www.newspapers.com/search/

https://www.genealogybank.com/

https://wikipedia.org