It was a cloudy, chilled afternoon, with a fresh Zephyr blowing out of the southwest the evening of Friday, December 11, 1863, when Deborah Anne Phillips, after three attempts, shot and killed Charles Stier in Virginia City.
In her late twenties and a widow, Phillips recently arrived from California and made her living taking in laundry. Stier was a butcher, about 30 years old, born in Hamburg, Germany.
Both occupied a two-unit cottage on South C Street in Virginia City. Stier and Joseph Peterson resided in the east apartment; Deborah and her 8-year-old daughter, Susie, occupied the west apartment facing onto South C Street.
Each residence had a separate entrance on the north side of the building about 10 feet apart, each at the head of a short flight of steps.
A man named McMillan visited Philips between 3 and 4 p.m., where she spoke of Stier and his recent kindnesses, followed by his rude behavior. Stier had provided wood for her fire and relieved her of several household chores but later made some insulting remarks, most likely resulting from a realization that the relationship was not developing as he had hoped.
Suddenly, Stier came to her door enraged, let himself in, and said in his thick accent, “I don’t want anything more to do with you; you can’t play me.”
He then repeated, “I know all of your kind,” several times.
He pointed at McMillan and said, “I insult a lone woman, and if anyone wants to take it up, I am ready for him.”
Stier returned to his apartment, repeating his words through the thin walls. McMillan, however, chose not to rise to the challenge and returned to his store, where Stier later came “and spoke derogatively as to her character.”
Shortly afterward, Deborah borrowed a six-shooter from a friend named Schofield. About 6 p.m., Stier returned to her apartment, where he called her a “damned whore.”
She chased him into his apartment with the pistol, calling him a coward, fired through the closed door, and briefly returned to her residence. Moments later, Stier and Phillips, now unarmed, came back out into the hallway and argued from the tops of their respective stairs, with Stier adamantly refusing her demand to take back his insult.
Philips went back into her apartment, returning with the pistol.
Responding to the altercation, Peterson attempted to stop Phillips and prevent any further gunplay.
Still standing at the threshold of his steps, Stier said to Peterson, “Let her fire.”
Despite his efforts, she fired and missed.
Stier repeated, “Do not hold her — let her shoot.”
Again, she fired the gun and again missed.
Continuing to ignore Stier, Peterson took the pistol from Phillips, but Stier insisted, “Give her back the pistol and let her shoot.”
Following his demand, Peterson returned the gun. Phillips shot Stier in the head on her fourth attempt, and he fell to the bottom of the stairs.
Hearing the shots, witnesses had gathered, where Phillips addressed them, “Boys, you may all see that I have done this with a clean conscience.”
According to Dr. McNally, who testified at the coroner’s inquest the following morning, Stier died about 8 p.m. that night “of the effects of the gunshot wound.”
Her defense of her honor captured the imagination of the public. Three days after the shooting, the Saturday, December 12, 1863 edition of the Gold Hill Daily News reported, “We need scarcely say that public sympathy is generally on her side because Steir [sic] called her out of her name.”
Arrested and jailed by Storey County Sheriff H.W. Howard, Philips posted a $1,000 bond. She was found guilty of manslaughter and treated with unusual courtesy at her sentencing as reported in the Sunday, March 29, 1864 edition of the Gold Hill News, “…Judge North remarked that as the prisoner was a woman, he would not, as is customary in such cases, request her to rise…”
North sentenced her to one year in the Territorial Prison on Monday, March 28, 1864. However, the following month, she received a full pardon from Governor James Warren Nye in response to public outcry.
According to the Saturday, April 9, 1864 edition of Gold Hill Daily News, “The petition presented to the Governor, praying for her pardon, was signed by the jury that convicted her, by Judge North and the Prosecuting Attorney, by the Sheriff and his Deputies, also by all the city officials, a majority of the members of the Board, a great number of prominent citizens.”
There remains the question of motivation by Stier in repeatedly urging Peterson to allow Phillips to shoot at him.
The Gold Hill Daily News of Monday, December 14, 1863, offered the most likely explanation, “Steir [sic] was a butcher, and formerly worked in this city, and was regarded as a harmless fellow. Of late he indulged so excessively in strong drink that he was looked upon as a little ‘daft.’”
Set free, her subsequent life seems relatively uneventful. The 1880 census listed her as widowed, working as a housekeeper for Stephen Milligan, a single, 51-year-old farmer in Branch Township, Stanislaus County, California.
Her daughter, Susie S. Phillips, married in 1870 to Wright S. Curless and divorced in 1877, lived with them and was listed as a servant. Others in the household were her grandson, four-year-old Joseph R. Curless, and a Chinese farm laborer named Chung.
The 1900 census showed her living in San Francisco, now head of household and still widowed, working as a seamstress with her now 24-year-old grandson, Joseph, working as a day laborer. She died on Friday. January 13, 1911, at 77, in San Francisco, her daughter Susie having pre-deceased her.
According to her obituary in the Sunday, January 15, 1911 edition of the San Francisco Call, she left behind a sister, a Mrs. Ryan of St. Joseph, Mo., grandson Joseph Curless, a granddaughter listed only as Mrs. Oscar Jacobson, and great-granddaughter Althea Jacobson.
There was no mention of the half-century-old manslaughter incident in Virginia City.
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