Special Agent Ray Cunningham

Ray Cunningham

Special Agent Ray Cunningham was shot and killed as he and two other San Francisco Railroad detectives confronted four transients on a train near Beaumont Junction, Kansas.

When the transients refused to close one of the boxcar doors, Agent Cunningham attempted to close it. As he did so, one of the men produced a handgun and shot him in the neck.

The shooter jumped off of the train but the other three men remained in the boxcar until the train stopped in Augusta, Kansas, where the three were arrested. The shooter was arrested a short time later at the Keighley Depot by the Keighley city marshal and two railroad detectives. He was convicted of murder by a coroner's jury the following day.