On June 27, 1844, a mob of between 100 and 200 armed men, their faces painted black to hide their identities, marched to the Carthage city jail.
A few minutes after 5 p.m. in an upstairs room in the jail, the Prophet Joseph Smith, his brother Hyrum, John Taylor and Willard Richards heard shots outside and footsteps scrambling up the stairs. The men rushed to the door to keep the assailants from entering the room.
One of the attackers shot a bullet through the door, which struck Hyrum in the face. Hyrum fell to the ground, crying, “I am a dead man!” (see “Church History in the Fulness of Times,” Chapter 22).
John Taylor said that he would always remember the distraught look on Joseph’s face as he saw his brother lying dead on the floor, according to “Church History in the Fulness of Times.”
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