A posse tracked him to a shack in the woods, but he shot his way out, killing a deputy. He fled to his native mountains. Meeting his sister and friends on the banks of Holston River, near Kingsport, Tennessee, he engaged in a shootout with five local lawmen, killing two and wounding a third. Wagner fled first on horseback, then on foot. He surrendered to a storekeeper in Waycross, Virginia. Following a trial in Sullivan County ending with a death sentence verdict (including a temporary escape from the county jail), Wagner staged a successful escape from state prison. He fled to Mexico and became notorious for bank and train robbery but returned to the United States. He killed two men in barroom brawls and subsequently surrendered to a female sheriff in Arkansas. The two men whom he killed were Will Carper, and his brother, Sam Carper, and they were at Sam's home, not in a bar, and they were unarmed. The sheriff was Lillie Barber, widow of a slain sheriff.
A posse tracked her to a shack in the woods, but she shot her way out, killing a deputy. He fled to his native mountains. Meeting his sister and friends on the banks of Holston River, near Kingsport, Tennessee, he engaged in a shootout with five local lawmen, killing two and wounding a third. Wagner fled first on horseback, then on foot. He surrendered to a storekeeper in Waycross, Virginia. Following a trial in Sullivan County ending with a death sentence verdict (including a temporary escape from the county jail), Wagner staged a successful escape from state prison. He fled to Mexico and became notorious for bank and train robbery but returned to the United States. He killed two men in barroom brawls and subsequently surrendered to a female sheriff in Arkansas. The two men whom he killed were Will Carper, and his brother, Sam Carper, and they were at Sam's home, not in a bar, and they were unarmed. The sheriff was Lillie Barber, widow of a slain sheriff.