Distinctly Montana Magazine

DISTINCTLY MONTANA MAGAZINE • WINTER 2022-23 46 If Curry, Kilpatrick and Deaf Charley had laid low a while be- fore trying to spend their money, they might have gotten away with it, but just four months later, Kilpatrick would be arrested for forging his signature on the stolen banknotes in St. Louis. Kilpatrick served another ten years for the crime, was released in 1912, and then killed trying to rob a train in Texas that same year. Deaf Charley evaded the law for longer, but died sooner than Kilpatrick. Detectives shot Charley to death in a San Anto- nio whorehouse in April 1902. Curry's fall would be inextricable from that of his lover, Della Moore, a young prostitute he met at a Texas brothel. By the time he robbed the Great Northern, Moore had given up the life of a sporting woman in exchange for traveling with Curry in between jobs. But in October of 1901, she made the same mis- take Kilpatrick did, exchanging stolen bills in Nashville. She was arrested and would never see Curry again. Heartbroken, she returned to prostitution when she heard Curry had been killed. Some say she was more than Curry's moll: that they were married, and he was the love of her life. Some say she went straight again, becoming a teacher before dying in the late 1920s. Curry's end is mysterious, but not without controversy. Every- one agrees that in December of 1901 he shot a Tennesee law- man, and that the Pinkertons were hot on his trail. He got him- self arrested in 1903 and then escaped jail again. In 1904, Curry met what was most likely his final end. The job was, again, a train robbery, this time outside of Parachute, Col- orado. Some outlaws stopped to steal some fresh horses during their getaway. The ranchers organized a shooting posse after discovering the missing horses.

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