By Steve Cottrell | Special to The Union Monday will mark the 125th anniversary of the murder of Nevada County Sheriff David Fulton Douglass, a former Wells Fargo shotgun messenger appointed sheriff following the murder of Sheriff William Pascoe in 1893. And if ever there was a local homicide case without full closure, it is the death of 38-year-old Sheriff Douglass. In 1896, three years after Douglass took office, there were several roadside holdups locally and the two suspected highwaymen were thought to be camped somewhere on Cement Hill. So on July 26, accompanied only by a tracking dog, Douglass hitched up a buggy and went looking for the men in an area that later became the Nevada City Airport. The next morning, however, noticing that the dog had returned to town alone, the worst was feared and a search party organized.