
Norman Deek (1865-1911) was an American outlaw of the Wild West and Bill Williamson's right-hand man. He was captured by the US Marshals after a shootout in 1911, only to be killed in the crossfire of a prisoner exchange-turned-ambush in Tumbleweed, Arizona.
Biography[]
Norman Deek was born in 1865, and he joined Bill Williamson's outlaw gang at Fort Mercer, New Mexico during the 1900s and rose to be his right-hand man. He presided over several raids on back country homesteads, burning down farms, killing the men, and raping the women. In 1911, he was captured in an ambush by the US Marshals, with deputy Jonah Carter taking him prisoner and treating him like a dog before Marshal Leigh Johnson took him back to Armadillo as a prisoner. Williamson retaliated by kidnapping the rancher Bonnie MacFarlane, and he sent his henchman Travis Mulroney to Armadillo to inform Johnson that he could exchange Deek for MacFarlane at the ghost town of Tumbleweed, Arizona, or else Bonnie would be murdered. The lawmen ultimately agreed, taking Deek with them; along the way, a sadistic Deek boasted of how the men would rape Bonnie. Ultimately, Deek was held at gunpoint by John Marston as he walked towards his own men, but Marston realized that the outlaws had not brought out Bonnie. The outlaws then revealed that they did not make deals with the law, and a shootout broke out. Deek was the first to die, being shot and killed by his own comrades in the crossfire.