Barney West (d. 1932)
Barney West was from North Carolina and worked as a chef in New York. He and his wife arrived in Dawson on the steamer Whitehorse in June 1921. West drank too heavily, was usually short of cash, and his wife left the Yukon before the end of the summer. West was active in the community and led the bowling team to victory in September 1922. In 1925 he was operating the Central Café but in mid-October he emptied the till and, after buying a bottle of scotch, disappeared with his shotgun. He left a note saying to look for his body at the bottom of the river, but instead of killing himself he stayed in a bush shelter on Thomas Gulch for a week.1)
Shrugging off his troubles, West travelled between Dawson and Mayo in the following years. He was arrested in Dawson for vagrancy on 30 April 1932. He had been arrested by the police before, and spent time cooking for the detachment. This time he confessed to killing seventy-year-old Michal Essanza. Essanza did not trust the banks and was known to keep large sums of money in his money belt. West had been planning to kill Essanza for months. He first tried to strangle him, then hit him with a bag filled with lead shot, and then killed him with a piece of pipe. West pleaded not guilty in court but it only took twenty minutes for the jury to return with a guilty verdict. West was hanged in Dawson, the last man executed in the Yukon.2)