William Conway Keirsey, Deputy Sheriff

Carter County Sheriff's Office

About 5:30 P.M on Wednesday, December 10, 1930, Deputy Keirsey, 34, and Undersheriff Vernon D. Cason went to Wirt to check on a stolen car. The officers soon located the car in front of a three-room shack. There were two apartments. As Cason entered one, Deputy Keirsey was admitted into the other by an elderly woman. Keirsey observed several women and children and one man in the room. When Keirsey asked about the car out front, a second man, that Keirsey had not seen laying under some covers on a bed in the corner of the room, rose up holding two guns on the deputy. The first man then drew a gun also. Undersheriff Cason then entered the room and was shot in the abdomen by one of the men, Colquitt Davis, 19. Cason returned fire hitting the other man, D. I. Davis, 21, twice. Deputy Keirsey then jumped on the already-wounded D. I. Davis. During the struggle, Keirsey was shot in the chin. The bullet ranged downward, severing his windpipe and passing through his left lung before lodging in his back. The Davis brothers then fired two more shots at the fallen Cason but the shots only grazed his neck. The brothers then left in Deputy Keirsey’s car. Undersheriff Cason survived his wounds but Deputy Keirsey died the next morning, December 11th. Deputy Keirsey was buried on December 12th. That same day D. I. Davis was killed in a shootout with police in Wichita, Kansas. Colquitt was arrested two days later in Hereford, Texas. He was found guilty of the deputy’s murder and sentenced to life in prison. Deputy Keirsey was survived by his wife and six children. Deputy Keirsey’s brother James died in the line of duty the year before.