The Last Western
Rone Tempest
A Bold New Take on an Infamous Boomtown Killing
The Last Western
By Rone Tempest
Of all the possible explanations for why lawman Ed Cantrell shot and killed his deputy Michael Rosa in the parking lot of the Silver Dollar bar, the least likely was the one that prevailed at trial—that a deranged Rosa went for his gun and Cantrell outdrew him in self-defense. . .
For a time, Rone Tempest writes, the two were an efficient team: Cantrell, the steely-eyed Wild West throwback and Rosa, the street-savvy New Yorker with an impressive flair. It was as though Wyatt Earp and Shaft had paired up to fight crime in the Mountain West. But then came a falling-out. Rosa was subpoenaed to testify before a state grand jury in Cheyenne on the matter of corruption in Rock Springs, including within its own police department. Tensions and paranoia built to breaking point at a midnight meeting in a saloon parking lot where Cantrell, with two other cops beside him, drew his Model 10 .357 and shot Rosa between the eyes, killing him instantly as he sat in the backseat of an unmarked 1975 Dodge Monaco police car.
Unearthing previously untapped investigators' notes, military records, personnel files, census records, college transcripts and even airplane manifests, Tempest skillfully demonstrates the true aim and cost of the raucous murder trial that followed the killing. "A grave miscarriage of justice," said former Wyoming U.S. Attorney Christopher "Kip" Crofts.
Photo montage of original crime scene photos by Brad Christensen
"A grave miscarriage of justice."
- Former Wyoming U.S. Attorney Christopher "Kip" Crofts
Ed Cantrell
Cantrell’s story was a tale of an undersized midwestern preacher’s boy who molded himself into a tough hombre, respected by some and feared by many others. The most common description of Ed Cantrell was that he was someone “you don’t want to mess with.”
Michael Rosa
Although he was clearly troubled, there was something about Rosa’s passionate drive to overcome a cruel childhood in one of the toughest neighborhoods of Harlem that made his story compelling. It was hard not to root for him.
Gerry Spence
Resplendent in his trademark ten-gallon hat, Spence pulled out all the stops, staging a combination of the infamous Texas Defense (the victim “needed killin’”), and the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show complete with exhibitions by quick-draw gun artists. Completely unembarrassed, Spence even teased out Oedipal parallels.
Gov. Ed Herschler
A lantern-jawed, ex-Marine Corps war hero and country lawyer with a penchant for Lucky Strike cigarettes and Cabin Still bourbon, Ed Herschler built a power base by working the state’s VFW and American Legion bars. (CBS 60 Minutes 1977)
Dan Rather
Many have pointed out that Rather might have done better to simply stroll with his crew from his 6th Avenue office in New York City down to 42nd Street, the seedy tenderloin of Manhattan, vice core of the Big Apple. Instead, the intrepid reporter traveled 1,819 miles west to a tiny Wyoming city on the edge of the Red Desert where—on national prime time television—he professed to be shocked to find a great deal of prostitution and gambling. (CBS 60 Minutes 1977)
Becky Rosa
“I still kept expecting Mike to walk through the door and tell me that he didn’t really die…I tried to move on because I needed to move beyond the pain. I’m not exaggerating when I say that I cried all the tears I had.” She kept his memory alive for her three children by telling them how much their father loved them and that he was a hero who was killed because he planned to expose corruption before the state grand jury.”
Photo montage of original crime scene photos by Brad Christensen
Photo Archives
Ed Cantrell (right) as a young Indiana State Trooper posing with local police officer and young interloper.
Young Army PVT Cantrell before shipping out for MP duty in Stuttgart, Germany, 1948.
Marine Sgt. Michael Rosa and his first wife Blanca. Photo courtesy of Bobby Rosa
Rebecca "Becky" Smith from high school annual. She was only 16 years old when she first met her future husband Michael Rosa at a Maryland bingo parlor. (Photo courtesy Rosa family)
The Outlaw Inn across the street from the Silver Dollar Bar where Rosa was shot.
Built above a network of underground coal mines, Rock Springs suffers from frequent, unpredictable collapses like this one in the early 1970's in the city's downtown. (Photo courtesy Paul Krza)
One of the several notorious bars on in boomtown Rock Springs. (Photo courtesy Paul Krza)
Fake booking photograph staged by the Rock Springs police department as part of Michael Rosa's cover for his work as undercover narc. It was this photograph that Gerry Spence showed the Pinedale, Wyoming jury at Cantrell's murder trial. (Wyoming court files)
Ed Cantrell's gun-belt. Photograph by Rone Tempest at the Cantrell Rock Springs family home.
Fast draw expert and Ed Cantrell friend Bill Jordan in his U.S. Border Patrol uniform. Jordan demonstrated his technique at Cantrell's murder trial while praising Cantrell's gun skills. (From "No Second Place Winner" by Bill Jordan)
Cantrell and lawyer Spence meet with reporters after Cantrell's acquittal. Spence asked him what he thought of people who said he only got off because he had a "smart lawyer." Cantrell responded: "Fuck 'em, I'm free." (Sweetwater County History Museum Collection)
Cantrell (left front) and Gerry Spence (in trademark 10-gallon hat proceed to Rock Springs preliminary hearing in 1978. (Photo courtesy Paul Krza)
Ed Cantrell (left) and defense lawyer Gerry Spence in trademark 10-gallon hat leave Rock Springs Justice of the Peace courthouse after 1978 preliminary hearing. (Rock Springs Rocket-Miner, Sweetwater County Musuem)
Photo Credit: Jackson Hole News & Guide photographer Emory Anderson
An August 1978 People Magazine article featured Michael Rosa's widow, Becky, and the couple's three young children Roxanne (top), Christopher (bottom right holding flag) and Jasmine (in mother's arms).
Top photo: Gerry Spence and Ed Cantrell, Bottom photo: Christopher Hawks, Imaging Spence and Ed Cantrell at Gerry Spence's 60th birthday party in Santa Barbara, California in 1989. (Photos courtesy of Christopher Hawks)
Cantrell had already suffered several stokes when this portrait was taken by western photographer Charles W. Guildner outside Rock Springs in 2003. (Photo reprinted with permission)
Rosa's gravestone at the Long Island National Cemetery, Farmingdale, New York. At the funeral mass in West Harlem on July 26, 1978, Rosa's sister asked a New York Times reporter: "He was an honest cop and where did that get him."