Hetherington and Randall
On the evening of July 24, 1856, the Vigilance Committee had another case on their hands which called for immediate action.
Joseph Hetherington, a well-known desperate character with a previous record, picked a quarrel with Dr. Randal in the lobby of the Nicholas Hotel. They both drew their revolvers and shot: after the second report the doctor dropped and Hetherington, stooping, shot again, striking the prostrate form in the head, rendering the victim almost unconscious. He died the next morning.
The shooting was brought about through Randal’s inability to repay money borrowed from Hetherington on a mortgage on real estate.
Hetherington, who was captured by the police, had been turned over to the Committee by whom he was tried, the Committee going into session immediately after the shooting, found him guilty of murder and sentenced him to be hanged.
We were again called out on the 29th and were stationed so as to command the situation. This time a gallows was erected on Davis street, between Sacramento and Commercial.
Another man, Philander Brace by name, was also to be hanged at the same time, and at about 5:30 in the afternoon of July 29th they were both conveyed in carriages, strongly guarded, to the execution grounds. Hetherington had previously proclaimed his innocence, claiming that the Doctor had shot first and he had simply shot in self-defense, but his previous record was bad, he having killed a Doctor Baldwin in 1853 and had run a gambling joint on Long Wharf, and eye witnesses claimed that he not only provoked but shot first.
Brace was of a different nature, he was a hardened criminal of a low type. The charge against him being the killing of Captain J. B. West about a year previous, out in the Mission, and of murdering his accomplice. He had also confessed to numerous other crimes.