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Pete Spence ( 1852? - 1914 ) was a stage robbery and murder suspect, known for his associations with the McLaurys and Clantons of Tombstone. Two stage robberies in which Spence was a suspect helped set the stage for conflict between the Earps and McLaurys, who viewed the double arrest of Spence (in which the Earps were partly but not exclusively involved) as a personal afront, due to his friendship with the McLauries. Spence was a suspect in the murder of Morgan Earp . Pete Spence (or Spencer) was the alias of Elliot Larkin Ferguson . According to Spence he was born in Texas about 1852, since he is listed in the Tombstone 1880 census as age 28, stock raiser, born Texas. Another source (see Clanton Link below) has him born in Lousianna in 1850. It is possible that he gave neither his correct age or place of birth for the census, since he was using an alias by that time. Little is known of Spence/Ferguson's youth, but he is known to have been enlisted in the Texas Rangers under Captain Wallace in 1874. Ferguson was listed as a fugitive from justice in 1878, wanted for robbery in Golliad Co., Texas. He began using the name Peter M. Spencer after moving to the Arizona Territory, not long after this time (the southeast Arizona Territory near Bisbee and Tombstone was a western frontier area which drew a number of Texas fugitives from the law). In Tombstone, Arizona Spence lived across the street from the Earps. For a time he ran Vogan's Saloon . In October, 1880 Spence was charged with grand larceny on a charge of possessing stolen Mexican mules, but was not convicted. Spence was a business partner of Frank Stilwell in the Franklin mine and other mining ventures, and also in a Bisbee saloon. With Frank Stilwell , Spence was a suspect in the "Sandy Bob Line" Bisbee stage robbery on September 8, 1881. Spence and Stillwell were recognized in the first robbery from their voices, and Stilwell was identified by his bootprints which were traced to a Bisbee cobbler. Spence and Stilwell were arrested in Bisbee by a sheriff's posse that included Wyatt Earp. Spence and Stilwell were also suspects in a second stage robbery near Contention city, on October 8, 1881. Though Spence and Stilwell were arrested for both robberies, they were ultimately not convicted of either. Spence and Stilwell were in jail in Tucson as suspects in the second stage robbery, on the day of the O.K. Corral gunfight on October 26, 1881. Spence, with Stilwell, was also a suspect in the murder of Morgan Earp March 18, 1882, in Tombstone, Arizona Territory. The implication of Spence and Stilwell in Morgan's murder are on the basis of testimony at a coroner's inquest on Morgan from Spence's unhappy wife Marietta Duarte (nee Castro), regarding the suspicious activities of Spence and his friends on the night of Morgan's murder. The attempted indictment of Spence was eventually dropped, however, probably on the basis of the fact that spouses could not testify against each other. Spence owned a ranch and woodcutting camp at South Pass in the Dragoon Mountains, where he employed Florentino Cruz a.k.a. "Indian Charlie". Cruz supposedly acted as a lookout during the Morgan Earp murder, and was murdered by the Earp Vendetta Ride posse for this on March 20, 1882, two days after Morgan's murder. Spence escaped the Earp vendetta posse by turning himself into the law for protection, else he likely would have shared Cruz's fate. The Earps would later believe that Spence was an accomplice in the murder, but that Stilwell actually shot Morgan Earp (and Curly Bill Brocius fired the shot which at the same moment narrowly missed Wyatt Earp). Like Stilwell, Spence worked as a sometime law officer during his life, serving as a deputy sheriff and constable of Georgetown New Mexico. In June, 1893 Spence was sentenced to a 5-year term in the Yuma, Arizona Territorial Penniteniary for a pistol-whipping which resulted in the death of a man named Rodney O'Hara. He was granted full pardon by the territorial governor, after serving less than 18 months. Eventually (1910), Spence (using his real name of Ferguson) married the widow of Phineas "Fin" Clanton (brother of Ike Clanton ). He died in 1914 and is buried in the Globe, Arizona cemetery, in the plot next to Fin Clanton. LINK
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