Marshal Samuel Bucher was shot and killed in his front yard by two men who awoke him from sleep.

Marshal Bucher had a dispute with the murderer, William Gossard, 25, a local telegraph operator employed by the Coates House, weeks earlier when the man would not halt after being involved in a buggy collision. A coroner's inquest determined that Gossard pawned his watch for a revolver the Saturday evening before the murder. He then paid an acquaintance, C. Hamilton, to rent a buggy and had Hamilton drive him to Marshal Bucher's residence where they spoke with Marshal Bucher's son, John, at the front gate. John Bucher then wakened the Marshal and advised him that two men in a buggy wanted to speak to him. After conversing with the men for ten or fifteen minutes, Marshal Bucher told his son to get his coat when Gossard abruptly shot Marshal Bucher as Marshal Bucher's sons, Phillip and John, looked on. Marshal Bucher died a few moments later without speaking. The men then attempted to flee but the buggy overturned. Hamilton gave up immediately and the murderer, William Gossard, was pursued and captured at the nearby Exchange Saloon. An autopsy revealed that a .32 caliber bullet entered the right side of Marshal Bucher's neck and passed through at the 2nd or 3rd vertebrae before it lodged in the muscle of the left side of his neck.

Records show Gossard was convicted on April 2, 1880 of second degree murder, sentenced to 30 years and was received as an inmate in the Missouri penitentiary on April 18, 1880. Information also shows Gossard's mother was being held in an Illinois insane asylum and that an application for Gossard's pardon was denied.

Marshal Bucher previously served with the Union Army during the Civil War and is buried in Union Cemetery, Kansas City, Jackson County, Missouri. Marshal Bucher was born on September 18, 1825, in Middletown, Frederick County, Maryland, and moved to Westport with his wife and four children in 1852. Marshal Bucher was survived by his wife, Margaret and his children, Mande A Bucher, Mary Elizabeth Bucher, Mariam Susan Bucher, John S. Bucher, William Henry Bucher, Andrew J. Bucher, Phillip Dorse Bucher, Daniel W. Bucher, Sterling Price Bucher, Jacob Peter Bucher, Joseph Shelby Bucher, and Robert Lee Bucher.

Westport was an independent, incorporated town first settled in 1831, three miles south of what is present day downtown Kansas City. It was annexed into Kansas City in 1897 but retains its original name as a historic neighborhood, a site of the Battle of Westport in 1864 and became one of the principal entertainment districts of the city. Interred: Union Cemetery Kansas City, Missouri.

Article by Brent Marchant