Joseph DeRoche
Joseph DeRoche was held in the jail at Bodie in January 1881. According to a San Francisco dispatch published in the Helena Weekly Herald, about five hundred men took him from the jail around 1 a.m. on January 17 and hanged him at the scene of an earlier killing. The Pioche Weekly Record places the hanging on January 18 and says a crowd carried him away from town before hanging him in front of about five hundred onlookers. The accounts differ on the date and the place, and neither says whether jail staff resisted the crowd or gave up the keys.
Cause of death, as reported: Taken from custody and lynched. A dispatch datelined San Francisco says a crowd of about five hundred took him from the Bodie jail about 1 a.m. and hanged him.
Reported by: Bodie dispatch datelined San Francisco (reporters).