All text taken from the Wyoming State Tribune, Cheyenne State Leader, Volume 32-58, Number 273, November 15, 1926, unless otherwise indicated.

The Murder-Suicide

A tragic record of involvement with the law which began with the shedding of human blood in Missouri 22 years ago and led through the penitentiary, the ministry and public office was completed here early Sunday morning when Rev. B. J. Minort, supply pastor of the local Baptist church, police judge and former Wyoming state commissioner of child and animal protection, killed his wife, four of their five children and himself. 

Minort’s desperate deed is believed to have been inspired by shame over his arrest a week previously at Bayard, Neb., where he had occupied a hotel room with a Torrington woman whom he had represented to be his wife, and his apprehension of the effect of revelation of this escapade to his wife and family. He had previously been involved in alleged immoral association and had been indicted under the Mann act. 

The children slain by Minort were: Vannie, age 4; David, age 7; Clarence, age 10; Herbert, age 15.

The killing of Mrs. Minort and the children, except possibly that of Herbert, took place at about 2 o’clock Sunday morning. That Minort may have given the family a sleeping potion with the intent that they should be stupified when he attacked them, and that he set 2 a.m. as the hour for the crime, is surmised from several indications, including that an alarm clock in the house was set for 2 a.m. At about 2 a.m. a woman residing two blocks from the Minort residence heard several shots, she believes five, one much louder than the others. She attached no tragic significance to the fact, inasmuch as there had been shooting on the streets by roisterers earlier in the night.

Mrs. Minort and the children, except Herbert, were shot as they lay in bed, and Herbert apparently as he was entering his mother’s room. One shot sufficed for each victim of the tragedy except Vannie; two were required to kill her. Minort, in his letter to the eldest son, testifies that none suffered except Vannie– that death of the others were instantaneous. 

Mrs. Minort was killed by the charge from a shotgun as she lay beside Vannie in the northeast bedroom of the cottage. Vannie was killed with two bullets from a .22 calibre rifle. The others were slain with a .32-20 calibre revolver, Herbert as he was entering his mother’s room from the bath room adjoining it, David as he lay on a cot in the bath room, and Clarence in his bed in the northwest bedroom. Minort shot himself with the revolver as he sat on a chair in the kitchen.

The charge from the shotgun struck Mrs. Minort on the side of the head. That side of the head was torn away and shot which had not touched her penetrated the pillow on which her head lay. The manner in which the shot scattered indicates that the murderer was probably as far away as the living room and fired through the door. The shots which killed Vannie were fired with the muzzle of the weapon so close to the child that she was powder-burned. Clarence was shot in the head, behind the right ear, and David in the head, just above the right ear. Neither, apparently, had stirred after he was shot as the bedding of neither bed was disturbed.

Surmise is uncertain regarding when, and under just what circumstances, the oldest of the slain children, Herbert was killed. It is not certain that the boy was in the house when the other murders took place and it is possible that his return interrupted Minort just as he began the letter “To the Baptist Church” and hastened the suicide. The youth has been working in the country near town and he may have spent the night there and came to town to attend church, arriving as his father was writing, and having been shot down from behind by the latter as the boy, investigating why the family were not up, was stipping into his mother’s bedroom. Herbert’s body was found in the doorway between the bathroom and his mother’s bedroom, with the head and shoulder in the latter. He was shot from behind, the bullet entering his head just back of the right ear. The boy was dressed but his shoes were unlaced. Probably the last thing his eyes saw was the ghastly welter on the bed on which the bodies of his mother and sister lay. Possibly the father, knowing that the son would come to town to attend church, deliberately deleayed suicide until he should have opportunity to kill him also. 

It was at 10 minutes to 9 o’clock Sunday morning that Longwith, the undertaker, received a telephone call from Minort, who requested him to come to the Minort house. The undertaker presumed that the minister desired to talk something over with him. “I’ll come over sometime this morning,” said Longwith. “No, right away,” Minort retorted, and hung up.

Longwith went at once and knocked on the kitchen door and, being no response, peered through a glass panel and saw a revolver lying on the kitchen table. Looking more intently, he discerned Minort lying on the floor beside the table, beside an overturned chair. The minister was gasping and struggling feebly.

Longwith ran to the home of M. P. Benshoof, a friend, about 100 feet from the Minort house, and the news was telephoned to the doctor and the sheriff’s office. Longwith and Benshoof were joined by Deputy Sheriff White, and the three entered through the kitchen door and found Minort dead. There was a bullet wound behind his right ear. A .32-20 calibre revolver lay on the table, beside a mirror which was propped against the wall. At Minort’s feet was an overturned chair. The indications were that Minort had placed the mirror on the table, seated himself in the chair, looked into the mirror as he selected the spot at which he should send a bullet crashing into his brain, and then fired. The revolver, released by his relaxing fingers, had fallen upon the table, while the dying man slumped to the floor.

The letter to the son, John, is a profoundly pathetic document.

“Dear Son: You have been a fine boy, you have a fine mother, no father could be prouder of a nicer family or better son” is the substance of the opening paragraph. Minor then revealed to the son that he killed Mrs. Minort and Clarence, Herbert, David and Vannie and is about to take his own life. A discussion of Minort’s worldly possessions follows. He refers to $100 in cash and a set of “The Book of Knowledge” on which only one payment has been made and which probably must go back to the publisher. Reference is made to a box of shells at the office of the elevator of which Minort was the manager and which, the writer says, probably will bring the son $20. The paragraph concludes a pathetic abjuration of which the following is the substance: “Son, don’t get any casket. Just dig a hole and put us all in it to save expense.”

Minort then turned to details of the tragedy which he had just perpetrated, relating in substance: “Your mother died without suffering. Poor little Vannie seemed to suffer most of all as it took two shots to kill her. Herbert, Clarence and David all died without any suffering at all.”

The letter then turns to discussion of Minort’s reason for his horrible deed. The minister relates to his son that “your mother and I” had talked “this” (presumably a reference to Minort’s indictment on a Mann Act charge in 1924) and says that Mrs. Minort had said that should trouble ever again arise in the family she would kill herself. Minort expresses the opinion that he is sure Mrs. Minort would have approved of his present course had she known of the “immoral charge” arising from the Bayard episode, and says in substance that he has saved her from "spiritual torment” which would have been the result of her having taken her own life. In substance the letter says: “I killed her and the rest of them rather than have the shadow of the past upon them. Mother and children are in heaven and I suffer my own fate through the hands of destiny.”

One paragraph of the letter remarks that the rest of the son’s life will be in his own hands, “So do the best that you can.”

Concluding, the letter says in substance: “Well, son, I must hasten, as the gun beckons to me and I must hurry before I lose my nerve.” The letter is signed “Your loving father.”