For more than a century, the gunfight at the O.K. Corral has been told as a simple confrontation between lawmen and armed outlaws. But one nagging question refuses to disappear. Was Tom McLaury actually carrying a weapon?
Witnesses gave conflicting accounts. Weapons were said to have been found after the shooting. The testimony that followed only deepened the mystery. If McLaury was unarmed, one of the most famous gunfights in American history may have unfolded very differently from the legend we know today.
The story of Tombstone in the early 1880s was never simple. Long before the town became famous for silver, cattlemen had settled the rich grazing lands of the San Pedro River valley and the Sulphur Springs valley. By the early 1880s, legitimate ranching existed alongside large-scale cattle rustling and cross-border smuggling.
In Tombstone, the word "cowboy" could mean far more than an ordinary ranch hand. When townspeople and newspapers used it to describe certain men loosely associated with the Clanton and McLaury families, it increasingly carried a connotation of cattle theft or other illegal activity. That distinction matters, because not every working cowboy in the Arizona Territory was an outlaw.
Politics made the situation more complicated. Cochise County Sheriff Johnny Behan was a political and personal rival of the Earps and maintained friendly or official relations with some men linked to the cowboy faction. Earp supporters accused Behan and his political allies of being too sympathetic to them. But describing Behan simply as a partner in their illegal activities goes beyond what the surviving evidence can prove conclusively.
Tombstone itself was deeply divided. The cowboys spent money in local businesses, and cheap cattle, some suspected of being rustled illegally across the Mexican border, benefited merchants and consumers. At the same time, ranchers, businessmen, and other residents increasingly demanded stronger law enforcement against cattle theft and related crimes.
Contemporary newspapers reflected these divisions. The Tombstone Epitaph generally supported the Earps, while the rival Nugget represented the opposing political camp.
Virgil Earp held an important position in this tense environment. By October 1881, he was serving as a deputy U.S. marshal as well as Tombstone's chief of police, a position that evolved from the town's earlier marshal system. His brothers Wyatt and Morgan also performed law enforcement duties at various times, though their exact positions and authority shifted with circumstances.
Wyatt had previously served in several law enforcement roles and helped with investigations related to Wells Fargo. Morgan also sometimes served under temporary police authority. They were prominent law enforcement figures in Tombstone, but they were not the only representatives of the law, as some later accounts suggest. Sheriff Behan and a number of police officers and other officials operated within overlapping territorial, county, and municipal jurisdictions.
By the fall of 1881, the conflict was as much political and personal as it was legal. Some Tombstone residents supported the Earps' efforts to impose greater order, while others distrusted them or favored Behan and the cowboy faction. The town was effectively split into competing camps, a division documented even in contemporary newspaper coverage.
These tensions reached their decisive moment on October 26, 1881. Shortly before 3 p.m., Ike and Billy Clanton, Frank and Tom McLaury, and Billy Claiborne gathered near a narrow vacant lot off Fremont Street, close to C.S. Fly's photography studio at the rear of the O.K. Corral. Wesley Fuller, another man linked to the cowboy faction, was also nearby during part of the incident. The famous confrontation, therefore, did not actually take place inside the O.K. Corral itself.
Frank McLaury and Billy Clanton were at least carrying visible pistols. Tombstone had an ordinance restricting the carrying of weapons within town, with exceptions for people arriving or leaving or those temporarily depositing their weapons at a stable or similar location. Whether every man present violated that ordinance, and especially whether Tom McLaury carried a firearm, would soon become one of the central points of contention in the entire case.
Virgil Earp decided to confront the group and disarm them. He was accompanied by Wyatt and Morgan, as well as Doc Holliday, whom Virgil said he had enlisted for help because of the seriousness of the situation. Before the confrontation began, Billy Claiborne and Wesley Fuller left the immediate scene.
When the Earps and Holliday reached the group, Virgil ordered the men to surrender their weapons. The events of the next few seconds became the subject of sharply conflicting testimony. Virgil later insisted he had not intended to start an armed confrontation and had tried to prevent one when he saw weapons being drawn. Wyatt's account also asserted that Billy Clanton and Frank McLaury were preparing to use their pistols.
Yet several witnesses sympathetic to the other side claimed some of the cowboys had raised their hands or were trying to comply with the orders. Ike Clanton, who appeared to be unarmed at that moment, left the confrontation site immediately.
The exchange of fire that followed lasted only about half a minute. By the end, Billy Clanton and the brothers Frank and Tom McLaury were dead, while Virgil and Morgan Earp and Doc Holliday were wounded. Wyatt emerged physically unharmed.
Almost immediately, Tombstone began arguing over what had happened. Earp supporters portrayed the event as a lawful attempt to disarm men who had made repeated threats and openly defied municipal regulations. Their opponents offered a completely different interpretation, claiming the Earps and Holliday acted without justification against men who were either surrendering or entirely unarmed.
Tom McLaury became the focus of that dispute because no pistol that could be confirmed as his was found on his body. Several witnesses claimed he was unarmed. Others testified to circumstances suggesting he obtained or used a weapon during the confrontation. More than a century later, historians still disagree about how to resolve these contradictions in the accounts.
That uncertainty matters because Tom's status could significantly change the interpretation of the confrontation. If he was armed, it becomes easier to reconcile the Earp account with their claim that they faced an armed group. If he was not, the accusations made by their critics gain much greater weight.
The surviving evidence does not allow the question to be settled with complete confidence. The legal proceedings that followed were also more complicated than the simplified story often told today. A coroner's inquest examined the three deaths, and Ike Clanton later filed a complaint that led to a long preliminary hearing before Justice of the Peace Wells Spicer.
The purpose of that hearing was not to conduct a murder trial but to determine whether Wyatt and Morgan Earp and Doc Holliday should be sent to trial. For about a month, Spicer listened to conflicting eyewitness testimony. Sheriff Johnny Behan and several other witnesses gave testimony damaging to the Earps, while Virgil, Wyatt, and their supporting witnesses offered a completely different reconstruction of events.
On November 30, 1881, Spicer issued his ruling. He concluded that the evidence did not justify sending the defendants to criminal trial. Although Spicer criticized some of Virgil Earp's decisions, particularly bringing Holliday along, he ultimately decided that the actions of the Earp group were justified under the circumstances and were connected to Virgil's attempt to perform his official duty. As a result, Wyatt Earp, Morgan Earp, and Doc Holliday were released rather than tried for murder. Virgil was not held as a defendant in quite the same way, because his injuries initially prevented him from appearing in court.
But Spicer's ruling did not settle the historical debate. On the contrary, the testimony preserved during his hearing ensured that the argument would continue. Witnesses disagreed about who initiated the action, who tried to surrender, what weapons were present, and, most strikingly, whether Tom McLaury carried a weapon.
The narrow vacant lot associated with the start of the O.K. Corral confrontation opened onto the south side of Fremont Street. The Harwood house stood to the west, while C.S. Fly's photography studio and boarding house bordered the area on the east. It was an extremely tight location for so many people. Eight men and two horses gathered at or near the front of the lot, leaving little room for movement once the confrontation began.
The use of black-powder firearms would also have quickly filled the surrounding area with smoke, making an already confusing scene even harder for witnesses to see. That confusion is one reason historians find it difficult to determine precisely who was responsible for each individual wound.
The problem is made harder by the sharply conflicting accounts given afterward. Witnesses linked to the cowboy faction generally portrayed the Earps and Doc Holliday in the worst possible light, while the Earps and their supporters naturally defended their actions. Even Wyatt Earp, many years later, acknowledged how difficult it was to determine each shot with certainty.
In a letter dated September 13, 1928, to his future biographer Stuart Lake, Wyatt referred to the event as a street fight and explained that Billy Claiborne and Frank McLaury had been hit by multiple wounds. He added that it would therefore be impossible to determine exactly which participant caused each one. That admission remains an important warning against highly precise modern reconstructions of a confrontation that lasted only seconds.
When the confrontation ended on October 26, Billy Claiborne was near the Harwood house on the Fremont Street side of the lot. Apparently, he never reached his horse. Frank McLaury, meanwhile, had driven his horse toward Fremont Street before the frightened animal broke away, and Frank ended up on the north side of the street opposite the vacant lot.
Tom McLaury had moved behind a horse, generally identified as Billy Clanton's horse, during the exchange. He then moved east and ended up near the southeast corner of Fremont and Third streets, close to a house adjacent to the Harwood property. These movements matter because the horses may have blocked witnesses' views during crucial moments.
Tom's position behind one of them became especially important in later testimony, where some witnesses and Earp accounts asserted he was carrying or trying to use a firearm from behind the animal, while others insisted he was unarmed.
Physical evidence provided clearer answers regarding two of the other cowboys. Coroner Dr. Henry Matthews recorded Colt pistols associated with Frank McLaury and Billy Clanton, including their serial numbers. The historical record commonly identifies Frank's pistol as Colt number 4,6338 and Billy's as number 5,2196. However, no pistol was conclusively documented as belonging to Tom McLaury at the scene.
That absence became one of the most important pieces of evidence for those who argued Tom was unarmed. At the same time, other testimony complicated the matter. Some witnesses claimed they saw Tom with what appeared to be a pistol, and Virgil Earp later testified that Tom moved toward a rifle carried in a saddle scabbard. Wyatt Earp also continued to believe Tom was carrying a pistol and that it was later removed.
None of those claims can now be proven beyond doubt. The surviving testimony is far too contradictory. Even modern accounts of the O.K. Corral continue to acknowledge that the question of whether Tom McLaury was armed remains unresolved.
Another difficulty lies in the documentary record itself. Decades after the confrontation, Stuart Lake examined portions of the handwritten records related to the coroner's proceedings and the preliminary hearing before Judge Wells Spicer. Lake later described obtaining the original handwritten materials during his research for Wyatt Earp.
During the 1930s, Hal Bath Heiherst worked on transcribing the hearing testimony as part of a federal writers' project linked to the Works Progress Administration. That version later became an important source for historians trying to reconstruct the proceedings.
Yet the Heiherst transcript presents its own difficulties. Later writers, including Lake, complained that Heiherst deleted material or changed context when deciding which portions were worth preserving. Lake used particularly harsh language in describing the result. Because the original court documents later disappeared, historians cannot simply return to a complete original manuscript and resolve every disputed reading independently.
Fortunately, the Heiherst transcript is not the only surviving window into those proceedings. Reporters linked to Tombstone's two main newspapers also recorded testimony from the coroner's inquest and the Spicer hearing. The Tombstone Epitaph generally favored the Earp side in the political dispute, while the Daily Nugget was more partial to Sheriff Johnny Behan and cowboy-related interests.
Surviving accounts suggest the Nugget reporter used shorthand, while the court recorder worked in longhand. Reports published or preserved through the Epitaph offer yet another different version. As a result, the same witness testimony may look different depending on which available record is consulted.
Those differences do not necessarily mean one source is entirely false and the other completely reliable. Shorthand may convey speech differently from longhand. Newspaper reporters selected and condensed material for publication. Court records may contain gaps, and later transcription opened another door to error. For historians, the safest method is to compare all available versions rather than relying exclusively on a single record.
This becomes especially important when investigating the Tom McLaury question. A phrase present in one contemporary report but absent from another could fundamentally affect whether a witness saw Tom carrying a weapon, reaching for one, or holding nothing at all.
That is why the puzzle remains so compelling. The absence of a clearly documented pistol with Tom McLaury is important evidence, but it is not the only evidence. Witness statements, the movements of horses, Earp testimony, contemporary newspaper accounts, and the incomplete preservation of legal records must all be weighed together.
One of the biggest difficulties in determining whether Tom McLaury was armed is the wording used by witnesses who supported the cowboy side. Many testified not that Tom definitely had no weapon, but that they personally did not see one with him. Others recalled that Tom told Virgil Earp he was unarmed shortly before the confrontation began.
Those statements became important evidence for the prosecution. Yet they did not necessarily prove what Tom may have possessed moments later. Early newspaper reports were equally uncertain, because reporters were trying to describe an event whose evidence was still unfolding.
Clara S. Brown, a Tombstone correspondent whose account was published in the San Diego Union on November 3, reported information emerging from the coroner's proceedings indicating that only two of the cowboys were armed. At that stage, this was a strong argument against the Earp side, but it rested on testimony later challenged by other witnesses.
One of the strongest pieces of evidence supporting the idea that Tom was unarmed came from saloon owner Andrew Mehan. On November 7, Mehan testified that Tom McLaury had deposited his pistol at the Capital saloon sometime between 1:00 and 2:00 p.m. on October 26. The weapon, according to Mehan, was still there when the confrontation occurred less than two hours later.
The defense did not dispute that Tom deposited that particular pistol, but this does not necessarily mean Tom had not obtained another firearm afterward. Albert Bilicke, owner of the Cosmopolitan Hotel, testified that he saw Tom enter a butcher shop at about 2:00. According to Bilicke, Tom's right trouser pocket appeared flat when he entered, but when he came out again it bulged in a way that made Bilicke think something like a pistol might be inside. However, he frankly admitted he never actually saw a weapon.
Former army surgeon Dr. J.B.W. Gardner also offered evidence that led him to believe Tom was armed. Taken together, Bilicke and Gardner gave the defense a possible alternative. Tom may have deposited one pistol at the saloon and obtained another later. Yet neither witness could confirm conclusively that what they noticed was a firearm.
The Earps themselves were more certain. Virgil Earp asserted that when the fight began, Tom used a horse for cover and appeared to be firing from behind it. Similarly, Wyatt testified that if Tom was in fact unarmed, Wyatt did not know it at the time. He believed Tom had fired toward the Earp group before Doc Holliday turned his attention to him.
During biography interviews published in the San Francisco Examiner in 1896, Wyatt described Tom moving behind a horse and using the animal as cover while directing a shot toward Morgan Earp. That account, written 15 years after the event, cannot be considered independent confirmation of Wyatt's original testimony, but it shows that his version of Tom's actions remained consistent on one important point.
Wyatt continued to insist that Tom possessed a firearm. Between 1918 and 1919, writer Forrestine Hooker produced an unpublished manuscript titled "An Arizona Vendetta," based in large part on information provided by Wyatt. In Hooker's version, Tom moved under or beside a horse and used a firearm during the opening moments of the fight, with the account identifying this action as the start of the exchange of fire.
However, there are important limitations. Hooker did not witness the events in Tombstone herself. Her manuscript relied on Wyatt's memories after many decades and contains other disputed material. It is therefore useful as evidence of what Wyatt remembered or wanted recorded late in life, not as a source of independent eyewitness testimony.
Wyatt made another attempt to preserve his account through his old friend John H. Flood Jr. during the 1920s. Flood produced an extensive manuscript based on conversations with Earp. When describing the start of the confrontation, his narrative refers to smoke appearing from under the neck of Tom McLaury's horse, again suggesting Tom possessed and used a firearm.
Most interesting is a sketch associated with Wyatt and Flood. On that map, a note near Third and Fremont streets states that Wesley Fuller retrieved Tom McLaury's pistol after the fight. The same core claims also appear in notes Stuart Lake took while working with Wyatt in 1928. Tom had a firearm, and Fuller allegedly took it afterward.
If this allegation were true and proven, it would solve one of the O.K. Corral's most enduring mysteries. But there is a major problem with the evidence. The alleged pistol was never conclusively identified, and the available contemporary records do not prove Wesley Fuller took it. The Flood map and Lake's notes were prepared more than 40 years after the event and ultimately rest on Wyatt Earp's memories rather than newly discovered physical evidence.
For that reason, the late Earp material must be treated with caution. It shows that Wyatt consistently maintained Tom McLaury was armed and that he believed the missing weapon had been taken from the scene. It also shows that at least two writers who worked directly with Wyatt included a version of that claim in their manuscripts. What these notes do not prove is that Tom actually possessed a pistol on October 26, 1881.
Evidence contemporary to the event points in two different directions. Andrew Mehan firmly established that Tom deposited one pistol before the confrontation. Bilicke and Gardner offered circumstantial evidence that he may have obtained another. The Earps insisted they saw him use a firearm, while other witnesses insisted they did not see him carrying any weapon.
When Stuart Lake began working with Wyatt Earp in 1928, he filled notebooks with Wyatt's memories of Tombstone events. Those notes, now known among historians as the Earp/Lake notes, contain one of Wyatt's clearest late-life claims regarding Tom McLaury. According to Lake's notes, Wyatt recalled that Tom moved behind one of the horses and fired two shots toward Morgan Earp.
Wyatt also asserted that Tom was still holding a pistol when he fell, and claimed that Wesley Fuller later picked up the weapon and carried it away. There is even a fragmentary reference in Lake's notes indicating that someone from the Fuller family later told Wyatt that Fuller had Tom's pistol in his possession.
Those claims eventually influenced Lake's famous 1931 biography, "Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshal." In the published version, however, Lake simplified the story considerably. He described Tom McLaury moving behind a horse. Lake identified the horse as belonging to Frank McLaury, though other reconstructions suggest it was more likely Billy Clanton's, using the animal as cover while aiming his pistol at Morgan.
Lake also portrayed Tom as one of the most dangerous threats the Earp group faced during those few chaotic seconds. In his version, Tom repeatedly used the horse for protection while continuing to take part in the exchange of fire.
But Lake's account poses an obvious problem for historians. "Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshal" was published 50 years after the O.K. Corral confrontation, and Lake freely dramatized parts of Wyatt's story. Historians have demonstrated that other famous details in the book, most notably the so-called "Buntline Special," cannot safely be treated as direct historical fact. The book is therefore valuable for understanding Wyatt's later memories, but it cannot stand alone as evidence of what Tom McLaury actually did.
This brings us back to the witnesses who were much closer in time to the event. One of the earliest was prospector Ruben F. Coleman. On October 27, 1881, just one day after the confrontation, the Tombstone Epitaph published an account attributed to Coleman stating that Tom McLaury fell early in the fight but rose enough to fire a weapon again.
If that account was accurate, the statement would be significant because it appeared almost immediately after the event and explicitly places a firearm in Tom's hand. However, Coleman's formal testimony shortly afterward was far less certain. In the surviving coroner's inquest text, Coleman described Tom moving on Fremont Street and then collapsing after the opening moments of the fight.
Coleman acknowledged that the newspaper account was generally close to what he remembered, but when asked specifically about Tom's weapon, he admitted he never actually saw Tom holding a pistol. Coleman also admitted his memory of that part of the event was confused.
This contradiction encouraged some later writers to argue that Coleman softened his story after the first newspaper interview. The original text goes further, suggesting that his family's possible economic ties to the local cattle trade may have made him sympathetic to the cowboys, and that pressure from that faction may have influenced his testimony. However, there is no strong historical evidence proving such pressure existed.
Coleman's son Walter ran a restaurant in Tombstone, but the suggestion that the business knowingly bought illegally obtained cattle remains speculative. Even if such a relationship existed, it would not prove that Ruben Coleman changed his testimony for political reasons. The most cautious conclusion is simply that Coleman gave two versions that are difficult to reconcile. His first statement appears to support the claim that Tom McLaury used a firearm. His later sworn testimony falls short of confirming it. Coleman therefore offers evidence pointing to possibilities, but no definitive answer.
Modern and later reconstructions acknowledge this contradiction. Another striking account came from a Tombstone visitor named Mrs. J.C. Collier. Collier was from Kansas City and was visiting relatives in the Tombstone area on October 26, 1881. When the confrontation began, she was said to be sitting in a wagon near the post office at the intersection of Fremont and Fourth streets, less than one building east of the vacant lot.
Her recollections did not appear in the Tombstone Epitaph until December 30, more than two months after the event. Collier described seeing the Earp party approach the cowboys and order them to raise their hands. According to her account, the cowboys then began using their weapons and the scene quickly became extremely chaotic. She recalled one participant continuing to use a pistol after falling to the ground.
Most importantly for the Tom McLaury question, she described another cowboy using a horse for cover and directing a shot from under or around the animal's neck. Some historians have identified that man as Tom McLaury. The reasoning is understandable. Both Wyatt and Virgil Earp recalled Tom moving with a horse during the confrontation, and Wyatt repeatedly insisted Tom used the animal as cover.
So Collier's account, at first glance, appears to offer independent support for the Earp version. Other eyewitness testimony places Frank McLaury with a horse on Fremont Street during part of the confrontation. Billy Claiborne was also associated with a horse before the fight began. Later reconstructions therefore differ over exactly which cowboy Collier saw.
One historical analysis explicitly suggests that witnesses may have confused Tom's movements with Frank's during the rapid sequence of events. Collier also gave her account weeks after the event, rather than testifying under questioning at the coroner's inquest or the Spicer hearing. Her statements were therefore not tested through cross-examination, and she did not identify the horsemen by name.
In fact, her account is valuable precisely because she appears to have been an outsider rather than a member of either political faction in Tombstone. Her description offers independent evidence that at least one cowboy used a horse for cover while using a firearm. What cannot be proven beyond doubt is that the man was Tom McLaury.
Together, Lake's notes, Coleman's early newspaper statement, and Collier's later recollections form an interesting body of evidence supporting Wyatt Earp's lifelong belief that Tom was armed. But the quality of that evidence varies greatly. The Lake material comes directly from Wyatt, but was recorded nearly half a century later. Coleman's first account appears to place a weapon in Tom's hands, yet Coleman later said he never actually saw Tom with a pistol. Collier described an armed man using a horse for cover, but never named him.
The strongest historical conclusion is therefore narrower than the claim sometimes made in pro-Earp accounts. There is credible evidence that Tom McLaury may have possessed and used a firearm during the O.K. Corral confrontation, but the surviving testimony does not prove the fact beyond doubt. That ambiguity is precisely why the question remains interesting.
Tom's known pistol was still at the saloon. No second pistol conclusively belonging to him was found. Yet several accounts, some contemporary and others recorded much later, describe actions consistent with Tom McLaury being armed. More than 140 years later, the evidence still points in both directions.
One of the most important pieces of evidence for determining whether Tom McLaury was armed comes from a supposedly neutral witness, laundry worker Peter H. Fellehy. In the Heiherst transcript of the coroner's inquest, Fellehy described how the younger Earp brother directed his fire once the confrontation began toward a man standing behind a horse.
Doc Holliday was firing at that same man, as well as at another individual who had crossed to the other side of the street. Fellehy related that he saw the man holding the horse let go of the reins and stumble repeatedly before falling backward near the animal. That man kept his pistol in his hand the entire time, although Fellehy never saw him fire it after falling.
Fellehy then approached another young man lying on the sidewalk and offered assistance, and later picked up a pistol that was a few feet away and placed it beside him. This second man had fallen on the north side of Fremont Street. This testimony suggests that the man behind the horse, targeted by Holliday and Morgan Earp, was not the same person who ran across the street and fell on the north sidewalk.
Other testimony from the Spicer hearing establishes that the second individual who drove his horse out of the vacant lot, but did not actually position himself behind it and eventually fell on the north side of Fremont Street, was Frank McLaury. This leaves either Billy Claiborne or Tom McLaury as the man standing behind the horse in Fellehy's account.
Since additional testimony confirms that Billy Claiborne never approached his horse, the man who fell backward near the horse while still gripping his weapon must have been Tom McLaury. But the analysis does not end there.
The word "horse" in Fellehy's testimony as it appears in the Heiherst transcript differs notably from how the same testimony appeared in two contemporary newspapers. The Nugget reported that the man beside the horse staggered until he fell, still holding his pistol. But the Epitaph version quoted Fellehy differently, stating that the man's back came to rest a few feet from a house, rather than a horse.
This single-letter discrepancy is important because it connects to the testimony of another witness who has been overlooked. Miner Charles Hamilton Hamlight. Light was in his room at the Aztec House at the corner of Third and Fremont streets when he heard two shots and moved to his side window overlooking Fremont Street.
According to the October 29 issue of the Nugget, Light testified that he saw a man stagger and fall at the southern corner of Fremont and Third streets, beside a building. He also noticed another man standing and leaning against a building structure near the vacant lot. Light said the fallen man never moved after collapsing at the street corner. Light did not witness that man firing any shots.
Since Light did not witness the confrontation from the beginning, he similarly would not have been able to see the fallen man at the corner firing. What Light's account confirms is that two different men were hit on the south side of Fremont Street. Billy Clanton, who was positioned in front of the Harwood house inside the vacant lot, and Tom McLaury, who fell at the southeast corner of Fremont and Third.
This means Light's description of a man near the house confirms that Fellehy's reference to a man with a pistol beside a house, rather than the Heiherst transcript's version of the word horse, must refer to the same individual, Tom McLaury.
Additional complications feed the broader dispute over whether Tom McLaury was armed. Notably, Fellehy, Light, and Coleman were never called to testify at the later murder hearing. The Earps likely avoided calling Fellehy because he gave testimony during the coroner's inquest indicating that before the Earps and Holliday approached the vacant lot, Virgil Earp said that despite the men's threats, they would not arrest them but would act against them as soon as they were seen.
Such testimony risked raising potential charges against the Earps and Holliday from a minor violation to premeditated murder, which was far more serious. Meanwhile, the cowboy faction may have avoided calling Coleman because his testimony at the coroner's inquest changed so significantly from his original account in the October 27 Epitaph that the change appeared to reflect outside influence on his memory.
Since the cowboy faction's strategy relied on the claim that the Earps and Holliday fired first at an unarmed Tom McLaury, they had reason to avoid Coleman returning to his earlier account describing McLaury as armed. This leaves three witnesses besides the Earps themselves, namely Coleman, Mrs. Collier, and Fellehy, whose testimony supports the conclusion that Tom McLaury was carrying and using a firearm during the confrontation.
Basic logic supports this conclusion as well. One of the few established facts of the incident is that Holliday used a double-barreled shotgun against Tom McLaury. In addition, Wyatt Earp testified at the Spicer hearing that he directed his fire first toward Frank McLaury and then toward Tom McLaury. This raises a logical question. With Billy Claiborne and Frank McLaury engaging them from a distance of about 15 feet, would Wyatt and Holliday have turned their attention and effort toward Tom McLaury if he did not pose an armed threat?
More than 140 years later, the evidence still refuses to give us a final answer. Tom McLaury may have been armed, or he may have become one of the most controversial figures in the O.K. Corral story precisely because no weapon was conclusively linked to him. Was Tom carrying a pistol that day? Or was history shaped by conflicting memories and missing evidence?