In a very old post Bruce Nichols talks about the killings of William Reed and Lee Griffin during a raid with Dick Yeager into Kansas in 1863. Bruce also speaks about Reed having a small gang early in the war. See here--
http://www.history-sites.com/cgi-bin/bbs62x/mocwmb/arch_config.pl?md=read;id=5529

I can place both men -- Reed and Griffin -- in the room with Bill Anderson and Jim Anderson during the July 1862 gruesome murder of Judge A.I. Ingram in revenge for Baker's shotgun killing of the Anderson brothers' father a few weeks earlier. Various sketchy accounts speak about Anderson taking over Reed's gang after Reed's 1863 death, with it subsequently evolving into the infamous guerrilla band we are familiar with.

I've looked up the sources Bruce cites in that old post, and they don't speak about "Reed and Griffin were captured and killed by Union or law enforcement forces in Kansas during the raid." ("The raid" being the 1863 Yeager raid mentioned at the beginning of this post.) The sources don't even hint at a capture and killing of raiders, let alone Reed and Griffin.

So can anybody shed any light on the capture and deaths of Reed and Griffin? And where Bruce is coming up with the first name William for Reed -- the accounts I have of him being party to the murder of Ingram refer to Bill and Jim Anderson, Lee Griffin, and Reed. No first name for Reed.

And finally, why Bruce may have thought Reed was the actual leader of this 1863 raid, and not Dick Yeager. I have no doubt it's all accurate--I'm just needing primary sources to cite. Reed's death seems to have put Anderson in a command position for having a voice and in influencing the raid on Lawrence two months later, and directly led to the increasing cascade of carnage Anderson wrought with this, his own command, in the months that followed.