Caught in the Act.

(The National Police Gazette, October 2, 1886.)

A little before 3 o’clock, on the afternoon of September 9, 1886, Henry H. Meyer rushed into the police station in Memphis, Tennessee, and said, “I have just killed a man, and I want to give myself up.”

Captain Hackett took down the information and had the man locked up, then hurried to the address he had given to see for himself what had happened. In an upstairs room, he found William B. Dunnavant lying on the floor, very nearly dead, bleeding from a gunshot wound to the chest. “I am to blame,” Dunnavant moaned. He died soon after.

Dunnavant was taking liberties with Meyer’s wife, but he didn’t know that Meyer was watching from a wardrobe. Meyer jumped out, brandishing a pistol, and  Dunnavant was shot in the scuffle.

Read the full story here: In Flagrante Delicto.