Bio

David Benjamin Knight was born on July 8, 1904, in Ardmore, Oklahoma. He was an auto mechanic who lived in Arizona for two and a half years and in Maricopa County for six months before the murder. He was married and had one child, though court records noted that their whereabouts were unknown at the time of the case.

Before the murder, Knight had a prior criminal conviction. He stated that he had been convicted of grand larceny in Lamb County, Texas, in 1934. By late 1935, he was traveling and looking for work with a woman named Vesta Baker and her two children. They came to Maricopa County, Arizona, and found cotton-picking work near Coldwater. Around the same period, Knight met J. C. Kalb, also a cotton worker, and the two men began traveling together.

Murder Story

In December 1935, David Benjamin Knight and J. C. Kalb were working around farms and cotton fields in Maricopa County, Arizona. Kalb owned an old Studebaker automobile, while Knight owned a Pontiac coupe. The two men decided to go to California together, and Knight sold his car before traveling with Kalb to Venice, California. After staying there briefly, they returned to Arizona and arrived near Coldwater on December 23, 1935.

On December 27, 1935, Knight and Kalb left an auto court in Phoenix, saying they were going to look for work. According to Knight’s later statement, they went toward Coldwater and then to the Simmons ranch area. Knight claimed that the two men first planned to steal a wood saw attached to a tractor, but abandoned the plan when the equipment proved too heavy. He said they then argued after Kalb suggested robbing a nearby store.

Knight claimed Kalb struck at him with a wrench and that he responded by hitting Kalb with a hammer. He admitted that he did not know how many times he struck him. Kalb fell, and Knight dragged him into nearby brush. Knight then took Kalb’s purse and tobacco, placed Kalb into a cotton sack, and dragged him toward the riverbank. Knight later admitted that Kalb was still alive when he placed him in the sack.

Knight considered throwing the body into the river with rocks but changed his mind. He removed the rocks, loaded Kalb’s body into the car, drove into the desert, and left the body in a brush pile. He then drove back to Phoenix in Kalb’s car. Afterward, he cleaned blood from the car, discarded bloody items, burned papers from Kalb’s purse, and fled with Vesta Baker and her children to California.

Kalb’s body was found on December 29, 1935. Investigators later identified him by fingerprints. Evidence found near the suspected crime scene included blood, drag marks, tools, and rocks that matched parts of Knight’s confession. Investigators also recovered Kalb’s car in California after Knight was traced to Venice. A contemporary Arizona execution account stated that Knight fled to Venice in Kalb’s automobile, was arrested, returned to Arizona, and convicted after claiming self-defense.

Knight was tried in Maricopa County for Kalb’s murder. He argued self-defense, but prosecutors maintained that the physical evidence did not support a simple fight in the road and suggested that Kalb was attacked, robbed, and left to die. The jury convicted Knight of murder and fixed the penalty at death. His appeal was denied, and clemency was refused. David Benjamin Knight was executed by lethal gas in Arizona on September 3, 1937.