Gilman Ranch Historic Park And Wagon Museum

D esperate man. Take no chances! So warned a 1909 "Wanted" poster for a young Paiute named Willie Boy accused of killing his girlfriend and her father in Banning. "If this had happened out on the desert, it would probably have been just a quarrel between two families and not made national headlines," says Harry Lawton, author of "Willie Boy: A Desert Manhunt."

D esperate man. Take no chances! So warned a 1909 "Wanted" poster for a young Paiute named Willie Boy accused of killing his girlfriend and her father in Banning. "If this had happened out on the desert, it would probably have been just a quarrel between two families and not made national headlines," says Harry Lawton, author of "Willie Boy: A Desert Manhunt."

A reputed 1909 double murder and suicide in Southern California led to the "last great manhunt" of the Old West, spawning national headlines; trumping up rumors of a presidential assassination plot and of an Indian uprising; and leaving a notorious legacy in books, a movie and finally a bitter academic fight that landed three authors in court.