The Younger Brothers, Why Some of Them Grew No Older

Good evening. This is Crime Classics. I am Thomas Highland with another true story of crime. Listen. That's the way Missouri sounded just after the Civil War. Wind through palm trees, wind through long grass, wind blowing up the dust and puffing it down the wagon road. And, listen again.

Another Missouri sound, rope, Nureau freshly purchased at a crossroad store and cut into six equal lengths to support six bodies of approximately equal size by neck. Six bodies, six Missouri boys in union uniforms, newly come home from the war, waylaid by Cole Younger and his brothers, who were on a perpetual rampage, until they were stopped.

So tonight, in my report to you on the younger brothers, why some of them grew no older. Crime classics. A series of true crime stories from the records and newspapers of every land, from every time.

Your host each week, Mr. Thomas Highland, connoisseur of crime, student of violence, teller of murders. Now once again, Mr. Thomas Highland. Before the Civil War, there was a border war, The boys from Kansas took gun to hand and shot up the boys from Missouri.

And the next Saturday night, vice versa. It got so they didn't wait till Saturday night. Every day was bloody day for everybody. The question now arises, why? The answer is simple. A difference of opinion about slavery and they couldn't wait till war was declared.

Raid and pillage and slaughter in bloody colors smeared on in bold brushstrokes. And one day, through this never, never land a pistol and knife and torch, they walked a young man. His name was Cole Younger.

He was leading a horse and buckboard. And when he came to a certain shack by the road, he was at the end of his journey. People around saw he wasn't armed, so they let him through.