Farm family wiped out by a disgruntled hired hand.

On Sunday Dec. 21, 1919, George A.Schank traveled from his home in Johnstown to the Brecken ranch for hiscustomary visit with his cousin, Adam Schank, and his family.

The ranch was located off the old Denver Road two miles south of Twin Bridges, an area of Weld County located about 14 miles south of Greeley near the banks of the South Platte River, between the modern-day towns of Milliken and Gilcrest.

But when George pulled his car into the yard, he wasn’t greeted by the cheerful screams and excited laughter of Margauret, Florence or Juanita, ages 8, 5, and 3, respectively. George walked to the kitchen door where a window had been broken. He peered inside to find his cousin, Adam, lying dead on the floor.

George ran to a neighbor’s and called Weld County Sheriff Frank Hall. Sheriff Hall responded to the home with his undersheriff and a deputy. Inside they would find Adam, 32, his wife, Elizabeth, 28, their three girls and their son, Wesley, 1, all shot to death.

George briefly described the scene for the Greeley Tribune and the Greeley Republican, calling his cousin’s home a “veritable charnel house.”

The bodies were still warm when Weld County Coroner Dr. W.F. Church arrived at the house to investigate. He estimated the family was murdered earlier that day, sometime between midnight and daylight.

Immediately, Sheriff Hall focused his investigation on Alex Miller, 38, an Evans resident known to be employed by Adam Schank as a seasonal farm hand. Miller stayed in a bunkhouse mere feet away from the main house. Despite evidence he was living there at the time of the murders, he was nowhere to be found.