Crime Buff's Guide to Outlaw Southwest

By Ron Franscell

A rollicking ride through the true crime history of the American Southwest from the USA Today–bestselling author of The Darkest Night.

The line between history and mythology is razor thin—and the American Southwest often erases the line altogether. We might never disentangle crime-fact from fiction, but this book will transport you to Billy the Kid’s real-life stomping grounds, legendary Tombstone, the childhood home of one of the worst al Qaeda terrorists, and the scenes of dozens of crimes throughout Arizona and New Mexico’s history.

Dozens of fascinating stories in Outlaw Southwest are told in the same fast-paced, enthralling voice that’s made Ron Franscell one of America’s most beloved crime writers…and the Crime Buff’s Guides a three-time winner of the TrueCrimeZine.com Book of the Year!

Includes GPS COORDINATES, PHOTOS AND MORE!

“Well researched … Armchair detectives will enjoy the tales, but the book’s purpose is to take the reader to the scene of the crime.”—Albuquerque Journal
 
“The ultimate guilty pleasure book.”—San Antonio (TX)Express-News
 
 “Perfect for summer vacations because you can put it down and pick it up without losing your place (but you won’t want to put it down). For those of who week true-crime stories, it’s a fascinating look at the dark side.”—Tucson (AZ) Sentinel

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Apr 18, 2017
• ISBN: 9781942266914

Ron Franscell

Ron Franscell is the acclaimed author of numerous books. Specializing in both fiction and nonfiction, his true-crime work Morgue: A Life in Death was a 2017 Edgar Award finalist. Having spent thirty years as a newspaper journalist, he won many national awards. A native of Casper, Wyoming, he currently resides in San Antonio, Texas.

Book preview

THE CRIME BUFF’S GUIDE TO THE

OUTLAW

SOUTHWEST

RON FRANSCELL

grayscale-for-ebooks

WildBluePress.com

Table of Contents

Introduction

How to Use This Book

Arizona

Tombstone

New Mexico

Billy the Kid

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Some names and identifying details have been changed to protect the privacy of individuals.

OUTLAW SOUTHWEST published by:

WILDBLUE PRESS

P.O. Box 102440

Denver, Colorado 80250

Publisher Disclaimer: Any opinions, statements of fact or fiction, descriptions, dialogue, and citations found in this book were provided by the author, and are solely those of the author. The publisher makes no claim as to their veracity or accuracy, and assumes no liability for the content.

Copyright 2017 by Ron Franscell

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

WILDBLUE PRESS is registered at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Offices.

ISBN 978-1-942266-92-1       Trade Paperback

ISBN 978-1-942266-91-4       eBook

Interior Formatting by Elijah Toten

www.totencreative.com

To Owen

Who will make his own history

"The whole course of human history may depend on a change of heart in one solitary and even humble individual—for it is in the solitary mind and soul of the individual that the battle between good and evil is waged and

ultimately won or lost."

—M. Scott Peck

OLD WEST AND NEW WEST

An introduction

No place illustrates the collision of the Old and New West like the American Southwest. The settlement, the battles, the politics and, yes, the crime in Arizona exemplify very starkly the growing pains of an ambitious, adventurous nation. Here, Wyatt Earp, Billy the Kid, Ernesto Miranda, and Doc Holliday are far more familiar than Jack Swilling—the founder of Phoenix, America’s sixth largest city.

Arizona is in the Deep Southwest, a desiccated mirror image of Dixie with deserts instead of bayous, heat without humidity, different cultures in conflict. And like the South, the line between history and mythology is razor thin.

The Southwest’s crime history, especially from the outlaw period, often erases the line altogether. And we might never disentangle fact from fiction. But myth is a real part of the Wild West, and without it, history might be less than the sum of its parts.

This book will transport you to the site of a town so evil it had to die, the compound of a polygamist cult leader who continues to rule his followers from prison, the desert wash where a famous Hollywood cowboy died in a drunk-driving crash, and the exact location of one of our most frightening modern mass murders.

This book points the way to spots where infamous crime figures—John Dillinger, Bonnie & Clyde, John Slaughter, and Clay Allison, among others—once stood. It will take you to the many places in our Wildest West where ordinarily law-abiding people finally grew frustrated with the pace of justice and took the law into their own hands.

Let this book be your window. Our appreciation of history begins in the places where it happened. And now the magic of Global Positioning Satellites (GPS) allows you to stand in a precise historic spot, as best as our modern technology and imaginations can muster. We have made every attempt to put you literally within inches of the past.

The Old West was many things, not the least of which is a wild history of crime, punishment, survival, and redemption. Our New West is many other things—but it remains a place where crime is a salient part of history.

History is how we know, how we learn. And being there makes all the difference.

—Ron Franscell

How to use this book

The entries in this book are divided into four chapters, two geographical (Arizona and New Mexico) and two thematic (Billy the Kid and Tombstone). Each entry has physical and GPS directions that will let you stand in the footsteps of history—not in the general vicinity, but literally on a spot relevant to one of the Southwest’s most notable and infamous crimes or figures.

Crimes big and small have been committed every single day since mankind began to distinguish right from wrong. This book cannot begin to aggregate every injustice, every crime, every inhumanity ever visited upon Arizona and New Mexico, although even the smallest crime certainly affects victims, survivors, and communities as much as the most celebrated crimes in our history. And in some cases here, we have chosen only a few representative sites. So please don’t be offended if you feel we’ve overlooked a crime or site you believe should have been included.

A word of warning: Many of these sites are on private property. Always seek permission before venturing onto private land. Do not trespass. It’s rude, illegal, and almost everybody in the Southwest has a gun. It might be wise to assume they’re good shots, too.

We made every effort to be precise in our facts and directions, but being human we might have erred. If you believe we should include a certain crime in future editions—or if you see an error that should be corrected—please send a note to Ron Franscell c/o Angel Fire Press, 25270 Flaming Arrow, San Antonio TX 78258.

A note about GPS accuracy

GPS readings are affected by many things, including satellite positions, noise in the radio signal, weather, natural barriers to the signal, and variations between devices. Noise—static, interference, your car roof, or competing frequencies—can cause errors up to 30 feet. Clouds, bad weather, mountains, or buildings can also skew readings up to 100 feet.

While we’ve tried to make every GPS coordinate in all our Crime Buff’s Guides as precise as possible, we can’t be sure you’ll visit under the same conditions. The best possible way to get an accurate reading is to be sure the satellites and your receiver have a clear view of each other, with no clouds, trees, or other interference. If your device doesn’t bring you to the right spot, look around. It’s likely within a few paces.

ARIZONA

CAMPGROUND KILLER

Apache Lake

The crime scene is the Burnt Corral campground at GPS 33.625540, -111.203731.

In the winter of 1987, Robert Charles Comer, girlfriend Juneva Willis, and Willis’ two children left Sacramento with less than $500 in their pockets. After weeks of driving, they landed in the Burnt Corral Campground near Apache Lake completely broke.

The next night, Comer and Willis invited a neighboring camper, a disabled EMT named Larry Pritchard, to dinner, but not because they were good neighbors. After dark, Comer shot Pritchard in the head with a .38 revolver and stabbed him in the neck for good measure. They hid the body under a stack of firewood and stole Pritchard’s camera, hunting knife, and beagle puppy—but they found no money.

Angry, Comer and Willis hatched a new plan. They stormed another campsite, identifying themselves to a couple as DEA agents. Comer tied up the man and left him in the woods before kidnapping the woman. He raped her several times before she escaped barefoot in the rugged outback.

Rescued by passersby, the woman identified Comer and Willis, who were arrested the next day. Willis testified against her boyfriend, and Comer was convicted in 1988 of murder, rape and a variety of other crimes. He was sentenced to die while also serving 339 years for rape and kidnapping.

While awaiting execution, Comer decided in 2000 to drop all appeals and be executed.

A couple years ago, I’d have chopped your head off just for looking crossways at me, Comer told a judge in 2002. For no reason at all. I’m still the same guy as I was back then. But a lot of things have meaning for me now, like my victims. It’s just time to end it.

Arizona finally granted his wish in May 2007.

His last words before dying from a lethal injection: Go Raiders.

THE BISBEE MASSACRE

Bisbee

The Goldwater & Castaneda Mercantile was at 12 Main Street (where the Bisbee Daily Review is now), or GPS 31.441645, -109.915703.

When saloon keeper John Wesley Heath learned the Copper Queen Mine’s payroll was to be stored in Bisbee’s Goldwater & Castaneda Mercantile, his dreams of getting rich quick took a felonious turn.

On the morning of December 8, 1883, five of Heath’s friends—Dan Dowd, Red Sample, Tex Howard, Bill DeLaney, and Dan Kelly—stormed the store, but the payroll hadn’t yet arrived. They took what little money was in the safe and began shooting wildly. Four people were killed, including a woman and a child, and two were wounded as the robbers casually rode away, boldly robbing some bystanders as they left.

Heath himself deliberately led a posse astray as they searched for the bandits. In time, Heath was connected to the attack, and the robbers were captured singlehandedly by Deputy Billy Daniels. All six were convicted by juries in Tombstone, the county seat, and sentenced to hang within two weeks.

But justice simply didn’t move fast enough for angry Tombstone vigilantes, who broke into the jail and lynched Heath from a telegraph pole at the intersection of First and Toughnut streets (GPS 31.713151, -110.070773) as Heath made his last request: Don’t mutilate my body or shoot me full of holes.

The coroner’s jury concluded afterward that Heath came to his death from emphysema of the lungs—a disease common in high altitudes—which might have been caused by strangulation, self-inflicted or otherwise.

The other five killers enjoyed a much more elaborate going-away party. Tickets were sold and special bleachers were built for spectators (although a local anti-execution activist destroyed them before the hanging).

On March 29, Dowd, Sample, Howard, DeLaney and Kelly were hanged simultaneously in Tombstone’s first legal hanging. They were buried together in Tombstone’s Boothill Cemetery (31.720413, -110.0707153).

Some say Heath’s corpse was shipped home to Terrell, Texas, but there’s a marker for him in Tombstone’s Boothill Cemetery

A replica of Tombstone’s gallows stands in the courtyard of the historic former courthouse, now a museum at 223 Toughnut Street (GPS 31.712356, -110.068865).

The heroic Deputy Billy Daniels (1843-1885), who died in an Apache Indian ambush later, is buried in Bisbee’s Evergreen Cemetery (GPS 31.430416, -109.889854).

See also the Tombstone chapter.

SPIDER ROCK

Canyon de Chelly

This very remote rock formation is on Navajo land, 13 miles into Canyon de Chelly, at GPS 36.107629, -109.350217.

Even the Navajo had trouble with their kids.

This sacred sandstone spire rises 830 feet above the canyon floor in the northeastern corner of Arizona. Navajo mythology says Spider Woman (Na'ashje'ii Asdzaa) lives in the crack between the two rocks, where the wind whispers the names of disobedient children. Angry Navajo parents would threaten to take their kids to this towering rock, where Spider Woman would bind them in her silky web, then boil and eat them. Those white bands of rock at the top of the rock were said to be the bleached bones of bad children.

It must have worked. Name a single Navajo outlaw.

THE BARON OF ARIZONA

Casa Grande

A historical plaque at Milepost 181 on Arizona 84 (GPS 32.853636, -111.71333) marks the former site of Arizola.

In 1883, some twelve million acres of Arizona land was claimed by an itinerant con-man named James Reavis.

Using forged documents and fake headstones, Reavis created a fictional family that purported to own the vast parcel as part of a Mexican land grant. He dubbed himself the Baron of Arizona and began collecting more than $5 million by selling pieces of his land and stock in phony projects. He built the finest mansion in Arizona near Casa Grande and called it Arizola.

It all came crashing down in 1895 when some 19th century forensic examiners spotted tiny inconsistencies in Reavis’ documents. He was eventually convicted of fraud and sentenced to two years in prison.

When he was freed in 1898, he tried unsuccessfully to sell his story and some real estate. He attempted some new developments in Arizona, but his conniving reputation was well known and nothing ever happened. The former Baron of Arizona died broke and destitute in Denver in 1914 and was buried in a pauper’s grave.

Arizola was rediscovered by the federal government in 1953. It had been used as a barn by a local farmer for decades, so the National Park Service abandoned plans to restore it. It was torn down in the 1980s.

Reavis’ story is retold fancifully in the 1950 movie, The Baron of Arizona, starring Vincent Price.

ARIZOLA

A prodigious con man declared himself the Baron of Arizona and built his ‘castle’ near Casa Grande. Nothing remains today.

‘Bandit Queen’ PEARL HART

Central Heights

Pinal Cemetery is at the northeastern corner of Main Street and Central Drive. The outlaw’s grave is at GPS 33.413553, -110.815173.

Pearl Hart (1876-1955) didn’t start her life nor end it as an outlaw, but in between, she became one of the most legendary women bandits of the Old West.

Growing up in a middle-class family in Toronto, young Pearl was fascinated by romantic frontier tales. As a young woman, she was especially enchanted by Wild West sharpshooter Annie Oakley and the blossoming women’s equality movement. Her obsession with the West and her independent spirit soon prompted her to leave her husband—even though she was pregnant—and travel to Colorado, then later to Arizona.

Reunited briefly with her husband, they worked odd boomtown jobs together until she became pregnant again. He soon left to join Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough Riders and Pearl took her child back to Canada to be raised by her parents … and promptly returned to Arizona, where she developed a fondness for booze, cigars and opium.

In 1899, tired of menial mining-camp wages, twentysomething Pearl robbed her first (and maybe only) stagecoach. She and her partner got $450 but were soon arrested.

In her trial, the petite, attractive Pearl was defiant … and flirty. She claimed that the law shouldn’t apply to her since women had no part in making it. She also claimed she’d intended to send the loot to her poor mother, who was caring for Pearl’s two kids. The jury acquitted her (but convicted her male cohort).

Nevertheless, Pearl was sent to the Yuma Territorial Prison (GPS 32.727342, -114.615068) for unlawfully carrying a gun. Her legend as The Lady Bandit only grew, and she enjoyed unusual perks in Yuma, including a spacious cell where she often entertained guests and posed for photos.

Paroled in 1902, she moved to Kansas City, where she tried to capitalize on her celebrity in a one-woman show before slipping back into obscurity.

This Wild West feminist eventually married a rancher named Cal Bywater in Dripping Springs, Arizona, and lived out her life quietly as a ranch wife.

But a story is told that in 1924, Pearl returned to the Florence courthouse (Pinal and 12th streets, at GPS 33.032378, -111.385772) where she’d been tried for one of the last recorded stagecoach hold-ups and remarked cryptically to a clerk, Nothing has changed. When asked her name, Pearl is said to have paused in the doorway and pronounced with a flourish as she sashayed away, Pearl Hart, the lady bandit.

She died at age 79 and is buried next to her husband Cal.

See also Yuma Territorial Prison (Yuma) and Pinal County Historical Museum (Florence)

CLIFTON CLIFF JAIL

Clifton

Historical marker is at Milepost 164 on US 191, at GPS 33.0555, -109.2993.

Scoundrels in the Arizona Territory faced some creative punishments.

In the small copper-mining town of Clifton, mine bosses were tired of the boomtown lawlessness but had no jail. They assigned an explosives expert to blast a hole in the solid granite cliff on the edge of town. Legend says that after he blew open a hole big enough for two cells, the miner got drunk, shot up the dance hall … and became the jail’s first inmate.

On the bright side, the granite-encased cells would provide a cool, damp place to avoid Arizona’s heat. But on the not-so-bright side, digging out was impossible.

See also Wickenburg Jail Tree (Wickenburg)

POLYGAMISTS UNDER FIRE

Colorado City

FLDS leader Warren Jeffs’ walled compound is at the northeast corner of Maple Street and Field Avenue, at GPS 37.002992, -112.995882. This is private property.

The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (or FLDS) is a sect that stalwartly embraces Mormon founder Joseph Smith’s polygamy teachings. The FLDS broke away from the mainstream church in 1890, a watershed

Reviews for Crime Buff's Guide to Outlaw Southwest

[Alex Denton · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Any of Ron’s books are well done I like his crime Buff guides the most!

[montzaleew · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Crime Buff's Guide To OUTLAW SOUTHWEST (Crime Buff's Guides Book 1) by Ron Franscell is a great book I was allowed to read from NetGalley. It is filled with crimes and exact GPS locations of those crimes or significant things related to those crimes of the southwest from about mid 1800's to about present day. The crimes varied greatly and so did some of the punishments. Plenty of photos. I guess if you were an avid traveler and liked to look these things up, you would certainly have the exact coordinates to do so. Some of the more recent ones, ones I should know more about, I did learn more interesting tidbits. I enjoyed this book. A good history book even if it was on the darker side.