Bob and Emmett successfully made a circuitous route to Slosson’s Alley, where their horses were hitched. Bob proved deadly in the footrace to the horses, using his Winchester to kill armed citizens Lucius Baldwin, George Cubine and Charles Brown. According to Emmett’s 1931 book When the Daltons Rode, while in the relatively secure passage behind the front buildings, Bob and Emmett encountered 14-year-old Bobby Wells, who had run out of a back door with a .22 revolver and challenged them. Bob spanked the boy lightly on his rump with his hot-barreled rifle and directed, ‘You run home, boy, or you’re liable to get hurt!’ The youngster wisely skedaddled and cleared Bob and Emmett’s north-to-south path to Slosson’s Alley, where they were to rendezvous with Grat, Power and Broadwell. From that day on, the alley would be known as Death Alley.

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Only two of the outlaws got on their horses — Emmett and Broadwell. Although severely wounded, Emmett had the way clear to escape. He was mounted and had the First National Bank’s money when he saw Bob go down. Ignoring the passage to safety, he boldly wheeled his horse and rode back into the withering fire from Isham’s and past the barrel of Kloehr’s Winchester in an attempt at rescue. As he bent over to pick up Bob, Emmett claims that Bob uttered these last words: ‘Don’t mind me, Emmett, I’m done for. Don’t surrender, boy. Die game!’ At that moment, Carey Seaman emptied his double-barreled shotgun, loaded with heavy buckshot, into Emmett’s back. The fight was over.

A portion of the gathering crowd wanted to lynch Emmett, but Dr. Walter Wells assured the townsfolk that Emmett was as good as dead from his numerous wounds. Wells then treated the young outlaw, removing 23 lead slugs from him in the process. The doctor provided ongoing medical treatment until October 11, when Emmett was taken to the county jail in Independence by County Sheriff John Callahan. Emmett sat behind bars as he awaited trial under the charges of bank robbery and the murders of George Cubine and Lucius Baldwin.

According to the court records, Justice of the Peace George Gilmore heard the complaint brought forward by Independence City Attorney Felex Joseph Fritch that Emmett had murdered Lucius Baldwin. By the time of Emmett’s preliminary hearing on January 16, 1893, however, the very same Fritch was now standing at Emmett’s side in his defense and Emmett was to be tried for the first-degree murder of Cubine, not Baldwin. The state provided only enough evidence to make sure that Dalton was held for trial without bail.

Before the March trial, Emmett did not waver from his assertion that he never fired a shot during the entire fight — that he killed no one. Critical evidence supporting his claim could of course have been obtained from the examination of the firearms that he carried that day. That was not to be. After the shooting had stopped on October 5, Emmett’s revolvers and rifle disappeared under an onslaught of souvenir hunters.

When it was time for trial, Emmett’s defense was to be made by a court-appointed defense attorney, F.J. Fritch again. On Tuesday, March 7, Emmett, still on crutches, entered the courtroom of Judge J.D. McCue, a Union Civil War veteran and a member of Independence’s McPherson Post of the Grand Army of the Republic, the same post to which the late Marshal Connelly had belonged. Emmett pleaded ‘not guilty’ to murder, but that afternoon, according to the Independence Star and Kansan,’strong influences were brought to bear on Emmett to induce him to plead guilty [to second-degree murder]….His eldest brother, Ben, a man who has always been an honorable upright citizen, was here and urged him to make that plea. He held out for some time but finally yielded.’ Emmett returned to a packed courtroom Wednesday morning, March 8, and was soon greatly disappointed.

‘My attorney, Joseph Fritch, felt assured that if I pleaded guilty to second-degree killing in the Cubine case the other charges would be dismissed,’ Emmett wrote in When the Daltons Rode. ‘He also felt reasonably certain that I would get close to the minimum sentence, perhaps ten to fifteen years.’ Whatever legal counsel Emmett and Ben had received from Fritch can’t be known, but there had to have been naivet or desperation at play for Emmett to put his faith in Fritch to procure a minimum sentence for second-degree murder. Emmett had been quite lucky not to have been hanged immediately after the holdup. The passing of five months had not mitigated the emotions generated from the raid. Coffeyville turned out a big crowd for the trial in Independence. The Star and Kansan noted, ‘When he [Emmett] pleaded `guilty of murder in the second degree,’ Judge McCue proceeded at once to pass sentence, making his remarks to the culprit very brief and imposing the greatest possible penalty, imprisonment in the penitentiary during his natural life at hard labor….’

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