Johnny Ringo

John Peters Ringo (May 3, 1850 – July 13, 1882), known as Johnny Ringo, was an American Old West outlaw loosely associated with the Cochise County Cowboys in frontier boomtown Tombstone, Arizona Territory. He took part in the Mason County War in Texas during which he committed his first murder. He was arrested and charged with murder. He was affiliated with Cochise County Sheriff Johnny Behan, Ike Clanton, and Frank Stilwell during 1881–1882. He got into a confrontation in Tombstone with Doc Holliday and was suspected by Wyatt Earp of having taken part in the attempted murder of Virgil Earp and the ambush and death of Morgan Earp. Ringo was found dead with a bullet wound to his temple which was ruled a suicide. Modern writers have advanced various theories attributing his death to Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, Frank Leslie or Michael O'Rourke. Early life Johnny Ringo, son of Martin and Mary Peters Ringo, had distant Dutch ancestry, and was born in what later became the small town of Greens Fork, Clay Township, Wayne County, Indiana. His family moved to Liberty, Missouri in 1856. He was a tangentially related cousin to the Younger brothers through his aunt Augusta Peters Inskip, who married Coleman P. Younger, uncle of the outlaws. In 1858, his family moved from Liberty to Gallatin, where they rented property from the father of John W. Sheets, who became the first "official" victim of the James–Younger Gang when they robbed the Daviess County Savings & Loan Association in 1869.