When Dr. W. W. Wineinger arrived at the ranch, he discovered the ruse, but treated Royston's wounds. After he finished, the gang bound him up and blindfolded him, took him out of the ranch, shot him in the back of the head with a shotgun, and rolled his body and his Buick into a ravine north of Scott City, Kansas. The car and doctor's body were spotted from the air by a Colorado National Guard airplane that had been brought from Denver to aid in the search. Dozens of citizen posses crisscrossed the counties along the Colorado border in search of the getaway car.