”Boggs was a candidate for the State Senate, and I presume fell by the hand of a political opponent, with “his hands and face yet dripping with the blood of murder:” but he died not through my instrumentality. My hands are clean and my heart pure, from the blood of all men.“ — Joseph Smith¹

On the evening of May 6, 1842, former Missouri Governor Lilburn W. Boggs was severely wounded in an assassination attempt at his home in Independence, Missouri. Boggs, who had previously issued the infamous extermination order against the Latter-day Saints, was shot while reading a newspaper. Four balls struck him in the head and neck.² Although the shooter was never identified, rumors quickly spread that Joseph Smith and his associate Orrin Porter Rockwell were involved. Boggs accused Joseph of complicity in the crime, which led to Porter's imprisonment in Missouri in March 1843 on suspicion of involvement. Despite the accusations, a grand jury declined to indict Rockwell, and he was released in December 1843 after serving a brief sentence for jailbreak.³ After his disaffection from the Saints, John C. Bennett continued to spread the accusation that Joseph Smith and Rockwell had conspired to kill Boggs.⁴

1. Letter to Sylvester Bartlett, 22 May 1842, as Published in Wasp, josephsmithpapers.org

2. Alexander L Baugh, “Missouri Governor Lilburn W. Boggs and the Mormons,” The John Whitmer Historical Association Journal, 117, jstor.org

3. Saints, Volume 1, Chapter 38, 456-460; Saints, Volume 1, Chapter 39, 479-480; “Rockwell, Orrin Porter,” josephsmithpapers.org

4. John C. Bennett, The History of the Saints, 281, archive.org