Beyond the Law Trivia Quiz

Answer: Queen Ann Bassett

Ann Bassett was the daughter of a cattle rancher and her father's ranch was on the Colorado, Wyoming & Utah border. From an early age she was romantically linked with Butch Cassidy and her sister Josie was linked with other members of his gang. In the mid 1890's some cattle barons tried to buy the ranch and when that didn't work they tried to muscle the Barrett sisters out of their ranch. Ann's ties to Butch Cassidy and his "Wild Bunch" were enough to keep the cattle barons at bay and allow the ladies to keep their ranch.

Answer: Jenny Diver

A "diver" is a pickpocket. Mary was very good at her game, which included the use of false arms (while the real ones were doing the "dirty work"). In the days before verifiable identity documents or fingerprinting, thieves could get away with a lot, including prior convictions under aliases.

But alas, arthritis and witnesses eventually caught up with her - and despite claiming pregnancy, she was hanged after a well-attended trial.

Answer: John Wesley Hardin

John Wesley Hardin started killing when he was only 15 and, depending on what reports you believed, he is credited with anywhere from 27 to 42 killings during his lifetime. Hardin and some men he was working with were in a hotel one night when they started shooting through the walls and ceilings and Charles Cougar was shot dead while he slept in another room. Rumor says they were shooting to stop someone in another room from snoring, supposedly Cougar, but Hardin claims he was shooting at a thief in his own room and accidently shot through the walls.

Answer: Black Jack

Thomas Ketchum was born in Texas in 1863 and was hanged in 1901 for attempted robbery. Ketchum, his brother Sam and the rest of his gang were known as being train robbers, when they weren't making an honest living working for ranchers as cowboys. Black Jack's gang, along with many other outlaws, frequently visited Herb Bassett's ranch as he was known to trade with them. Ketchum was caught and later hanged for trying to rob the same train his brother had recently been killed trying to rob.

Answer: Sicily, Italy

If you guessed the Sicilians, you're correct. The supposed "instigators" were from the Corleone family. Sometimes called the "Mattanza" (which means "killing" in Italian), it resulted in more than 1,000 homicides, including political figures. Interesting that Mario Puzo wrote about a family named "Corleone" in 1969, isn't it?

Answer: Cole Younger

Cole was the eldest brother of Jim, Joe and Bob Younger and started his outlaw career as one of Quantrill's raiders during the American Civil War. After the war he and other Confederate sympathizers had many normal rights taken away by the radical Republicans who got control of the Missouri government.

The Youngers along with the James brothers and some others became outlaws and were known for robbing banks, stagecoaches and trains in Missouri and nearby states. There were many deadly battles between the Youngers and lawmen, especially those of the Pinkerton Detective Agency. Surprisingly for a gun toting outlaw Cole Younger lived to be 76 and he had been paroled 14 years earlier, so he died a free man.

Answer: Nicolas Jacques Pelletier

On October 14th 1791 Pelletier was among a group that robbed a man who was killed during the robbery. Pelletier's legal counsel claimed the trial wasn't fair to his client but he was still sentenced to death. The execution had to wait for the guillotine to be built under supervision from Antoine Louison and for Charles Henri Sanson to perfect the use of the machine on corpses. Even in 1792 there was heated debate about the legal method of execution, which delayed the execution.

Answer: New York City subway train

The case of the "Subway Vigilante" caused quite a stir nationwide. Some thought Goetz to be a "hero"; others thought it was racist aggression. Initially charged with attempted murder, assault, reckless endangerment and firearms charges, the jury found him not guilty on all counts except for carrying an unlicensed weapon. Goetz served eight months in prison.

In a subsequent civil trial, he was ordered to pay 43 million USD in damages to one of the "victims"/muggers.

Answer: India

Married off at age eleven (!) and subjected to vicious sexual abuse whilst in prison in her teens, she formed a gang of robbers after escaping. On one raid, she recognised several of her abusers and lined up, then shot, 30 men - 22 of whom died. After spending eleven years in prison, she claimed herself "reformed" and sought (and won) election to the Indian parliament on a campaign of championing the oppressed.

In 2001, she was murdered by another person who went "beyond the law" and sought revenge for the shootings twenty years earlier.

Answer: Bushranger

It is estimated that over two thousand bushrangers ravaged Australia between the "gold rush years" (1850s) until 1890. One of the last "famous" bushrangers was Ned Kelly, who was hanged in 1880, despite an estimated 30,000 signatures on a petition to spare his life.