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Charles Spencer Storms (1823–1881) was a professional gunfighter and gambler of the Old West, who is best known for having been killed in a gunfight with Luke Short in Tombstone, Arizona.
He left El Paso, Texas, and arrived in Tombstone in 1881. He was a well-known gambler and frequented Western saloon in town.
Short shot Storms in the chest twice at point-blank range, setting his shirt on fire. Short reportedly told Bat Masterson, "You sure pick some of the damnedest friends, Bat".
Tombstone physician George E. Goodfellow was only a few feet from Storms when he was killed. "In the spring of 1881, I was a few feet distant from a couple of individuals [Luke Short and Charlie Storms] who were quarreling. They began shooting. The first shot took effect, as was afterward ascertained, in the left breast of one of them, who, after being shot, and while staggering back some 12 feet, cocked and fired his pistol twice, his second shot going into the air, for by that time he was on his back." He found two thicknesses of silk wrapped around the bullet and two tears where it had struck the vertebral column.
Examining Storms afterward, Goodfellow found that he had been shot in the heart, but was surprised to see "not a drop of blood" exiting the wound. He discovered that the bullet had ripped through the man's clothes and into a folded silk handkerchief in his breast pocket. He extracted the intact bullet from the wound with the silk wrapped around it. As a result of what he learned, Goodfellow began experimenting with the first designs for bulletproof clothing made of multiple layers of silk.
Short was arrested by Tombstone City Marshal Ben Sippy for killing Storms. During the preliminary hearing, Masterson testified that Short acted in Self-defense, so Short was released. The Arizona Weekly reported that Storms was around 60 years old and that he was survived by a widow in San Francisco. The 1870 Census returns lists a Mrs. Mary Storms, aged 40, born at sea, residing in the same San Francisco household with Charles Storms, along with two brothers Henry and George Goodman, aged 24 and 16, respectively, who may have been her sons from an earlier marriage.1900 Federal Census for the 35th Assembly District, City and County of San Francisco Enumeration District 120, Sheet 6-B, Line 55, lists her as being born October 1820 in England, had emigrated to the United States in 1822, and that she was the mother of two children who were both deceased. The San Francisco Call for November 26, 1903, at page 15 lists the death notice of "Mrs. Mary Storms," aged 84, who died on November 24 at the University Mound Ladies Home, an assisted-care living facility for elderly women.(San Francisco) Call, vol. 94, no. 179, November 26, 1903, page 15
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