John A. Murrell had his first criminal conviction, for horse theft, as a teenager and was branded on the base of his thumb with an "HT" for horse thief, flogged, and sentenced to six years in prison. He was released in 1829.

Captured by Stewart in 1834 after a reign of some eight years, Murrell was brought to trial before the circuit court in Jackson, Tennessee, in July of that year. He was convicted of African American-stealing and sentenced to a ten-year term in the state penitentiary.

Sep 8, 2019 · Murrell supposedly hid his ill-gotten gains in the caves near the Sabine River, now the Texas border. He and his men were known to venture into Texas on occasion. In 1834, he planned to incite a...

Murrell was convicted the second and last time for the crime of slave stealing, in the Circuit Court of Madison County, Tennessee. He was incarcerated in the Tennessee State Penitentiary in Nashville from 1834 to 1844.

John Andrews Murrell was a small-time thief along the Natchez Trace whose exploits became mythologized during the 1830s and who became widely known as the Great Western Land Pirate or the Rob Roy of the Southwest. The facts of Murrell’s life are rather pedestrian.

Apr 29, 2022 · John Andrews Murrell (1806 – November 21, 1844), the "Great Western Land Pirate" also known as John A. Murrell and commonly spelled as Murel and Murrel, was a bandit and criminal operating in the United States, along the Mississippi River, in the 19th century.

Jan 28, 2016 · Murrell died nine months after leaving prison, and parts of his body were said to have been dug up and stolen. His skull is still missing, but one of his thumbs is in the possession of the Tennessee State Museum.

Feb 24, 2023 · Murrell's criminal activities ranged from house burglary, slave stealing, horse theft, cattle raiding, highway robbery, counterfeiting, murder, and slave insurrection. Murrell's gang operated by stealing slaves, transporting them to the north, and selling them for profit.

He was a notorious horse, cattle and slave stealer, a steamboat hijacker, as well as a murderer—though this was a crime he did not confess to—in the mid- 1800s. He was known as a 'land-pirate,' using the Mississippi River as a base for his operations.

After Murrell died ten years after leaving prison, parts of him were dug up and stolen like icons. His skull is still missing, but one of his thumbs is still in the possession of the Tennessee State Museum.