When Frank Steunenberg, a former governor of Idaho, was murdered on December 30, 1905, the authorities arrested Charles Moyer, president of the union, Bill Haywood, its secretary, and George Pettibone, a former member, in Colorado and put them on trial for Steunenberg's murder. The prosecution relied heavily on the testimony of Harry Orchard, who claimed that the union had directed him to plant the bombs that killed supervisors and strikebreakers during the second Cripple Creek strike and that Haywood, Moyer and Pettibone had hired him to assassinate Governor Steunenberg.