August 27, 2025 • 51 mins
In this week’s conclusion of a two-parter, Kate and Paul return to Gold Rush era Colorado where a lone survivor of a series of related attacks helps galvanize the apprehension of a possible offender or offenders.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
I'm Kate Winkler Dawson.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
I'm a journalist who's spent the last twenty five years
writing about true crime.
Speaker 3 (00:09):
And I'm Paul Hols, a retired cold case investigator who's
worked some of America's most complicated cases and solve them.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Each week, I present Paul with one of history's most
compelling true crimes.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
And I weigh in using modern forensic techniques to bring
new insights to old mysteries.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Together, using our individual expertise, we're examining historical true crime
cases through a twenty first century lens.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
Some are solved and some are cold, very cold.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
This is buried Bones.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
Hey Paul, Hey Kate, how are you.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
I'm doing well.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
I am tasking you with doing the summary from last
week's episode of The Mess that is in the Colorado
Territory in eighteen sixty three.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
It's awful.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Tell me what you remember, and then I'll tell you
you were wrong about.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
All of that. Just kidding you know.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
So I have to look at my notes from last week.
But so it appears in March of eighteen sixty three,
we start having a series of men being robbed and killed.
The first one Franklin. He's on, you know, driving a
stagecoach with horses down to a sawmill, and he's found
(01:44):
shot through the heart and has a cross carved into him.
And then in short order, we have a series of
other men that are being killed, either being shot or
an axe has been used on them over the course
of you knowmultiple weeks. But relative to the distances that
these crimes are occurring, the offender is moving around and
(02:09):
is attacking in short order, and at least at this
point in time, it appears that this is an offender
that is committing these crimes for financial motive. But I'm
not entirely convinced about that. And so that's where I'm
curious to see details or hear details about other crimes
and ultimately you know who was committing these crimes.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
And let's go through just the victims, just to remind everybody,
because sometimes I have to go back and say people's names.
So the first victim we have is Franklin. He was
at his sawmill and that was not very far from
his home in Kingan City.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
Then we had the next.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Day, Henry, and he was the one who was supposed
to be cooking inside the cabin. He was found with
you know, axe hacks all over his body and he
was shot.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Then we have.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
March thirty first, which is eleven days later, we have
John Addleton and John was murdered at away station and
it looks like rob the place was tossed completely.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
Then we have about eight.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Days later after that, much further north, we have Jacob
Binkley and Abram Shoop and they are out of campsite
and they are murdered. And the sequencing is difficult in
that one, but it looks like Abram tried to get away.
And what I thought was interesting Paul's it looks like
(03:38):
there's only one shot per victim, and I don't know
what that means. So it says, you know that Addleton
was shot in the head, John was shot in the head,
Henry was shot through the head, also forehead, and then
you have Franklin who was shot through the heart. Now
we have Jacob who was shot in the back. And
then Shoop was found at the bottom of the gulch.
(04:00):
He was not shot, he was stabbed. They didn't say
anything about an axe. So is this somebody who is
just a really good shot or I mean one shot
for each of these victims. It sounds like except for
one of them.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
Well, I think just like what I was talking about
last week, with these sounds like black powder weapons. You know,
I'm not convinced that they would be able to identify
the type of weapon. You know, it's not like they're
looking at, you know, the general rifling characteristics that we
look at today in order to determine making model of
the weapon that fired a projectile. These are black powder guns,
(04:36):
and it very well may be that the weapon that
the offenders using only could fire one round before being reloaded,
and it takes a while to reload these black powder weapons,
so that may be just a practical reason why there's
only one shot. And these weapons are not accurate relative
to modern firearms. So these victims particularly, I believe it
(05:00):
was you know, Henry who shot inside you know, this
cabin and he shot in the forehead. That would suggest
because of the inaccuracy of these weapons. You know, Henry's
not being sniped from a distance. He the offender is
probably within that cabin and at close range and is
able to shoot him in the forehead. So you know,
that's my sense with the gun. You know, the question,
(05:21):
of course, is is okay, So why do we see
a firearm, an axe, and a knife being used across
the series so far. Does the fact that you know,
two different weapons are used with the last case that
you talked about with Jacob and was Abram yep, yep,
Jacob and Abram, you know, does that suggest that maybe
(05:43):
you have two offenders? It could, however, a single offender
could possibly accomplish the same thing depending on the.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
Sequence, you know, and the other ones. You've got one
person there who is the victim, and this is the
first time that we've seen two victims at the same time.
So the escalation, I know is not the right word,
but the development of what is happening with each of
these murders is interesting.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
Well, I think, you know, probably the only thing I
would I would draw upon the fact that the last
case had had two men that were victims, just tells
me that the offender had the confidence. If it's a
single offender had the confidence to be able to take
on two men in order to commit the crime. Chances
are it's not like the offender is thinking, oh, I
(06:29):
got to go out and find two men for the
next case, you know, That's not what's going on. This
is probably a situation in which these two men may
have been stumbled across by the offender. You know, they
were truly victims of opportunity, and the offender size them
up and goes, I can deal with them with the
control aspects that I have with the gun and the knife.
(06:52):
But then you also have the possibility of two offenders
going yep, let's do this. It just happened that Abraham
and Jacob were out camping together and they were sized
up by the offender as being Okay, these are targets,
and they'd likely have money or any other things of
financial value that the offender wanted.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
It's just so interesting because I have you ringing in
my head, take out the male first, right, if you're
attacking a whole family, you want the most aggressive person
who could fight back, who's going to be the biggest threat,
to take out the biggest threat first. And here they
are or here this is happening, you know, with people
who are just you're only attacking big threats, and these
(07:34):
are all young guys too well.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
But you also have to take it like, right now,
we know nothing about Jacob and Abram in terms of
their physical characteristics. You know, it's possible the offender is
looking at these two men, going, well, that's the alpha male.
I have to take him out first, you know. So
that aspect, that processing aspect by the offenders is still
in play. We just don't know.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
Well, let's move over, because I did give you quite
a bit teas. I will say, we have five men
dead in about three weeks over upwards of one hundred miles.
It sounds like there's been some traveling. So let's talk
about what happens next. I told you that, you know,
we have somebody else who has been killed, and we
have also a survivor for the first time. So about
(08:19):
three weeks after the murder at the campground in the
same area, there's a man named Edward Metcalf. He's leading
Oxen through a mountain pass. Earlier in the day there
was an acquaintance of his name, Bill Carter, who had
passed Edward on the road. They were going in the
same direction. Later in the day, when he's returning going
(08:41):
on the same road, he sees Bill's body on a
snowbank on the side of the road. So this is
the guy who passed him. So Bill had been shot
and attacked with an axe. The overcoat that Bill had
been wearing and Edward saw it when he passed him.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
Is gone.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
So Edward is trying to figure out what the hell
happened to his friend. He's sitting on his wagon. The
Oxen are still attached. He is shot in the chest.
On the left hand side.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
Edward is Edward.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
Yes, he's looking at his friend's dead body on a
little snowbank, and he is shot. The bullet must have
gone through to his heart. But Edward had been carrying
a bundle of mail and a copy of the Emancipation
Proclamation in his breast pocket, so the bullet got this
is just what you were talking about before. The bullet
(09:32):
doesn't go through, It hits the Emancipation Proclamation, and when
the Oxen, when they hear the gun shot, flip out
and they bolt, and there's a second shot that misses Edward.
Now Edward's wagon hits a rock. He's that poor guy.
He's bounced out onto the ground. He hears nearby shots
(09:55):
and it sounds like he sees two men in the
dist Another person also sees or hears the shooting and
rides into fair Play to get help. There's a party
that comes to the area. They find Edward he is alive,
and he survives, and they also recover Bill's body. So
(10:15):
two men, if we believe these are our offenders, but
there's no one else around except somebody hearing a shot
and then going to fair play.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
So Bill is killed, and you know, he's shot and
attacked with the acts. And then when Edward comes across
Bill's body, and I'm not sure you know what kind
of time frame we're talking about, you know, in terms
of Edward and Bill passing each other, and then Edward
circling back round, but the offender is still in the
same area, but Edward's not seeing the offender and he
(10:46):
gets shot in the chest. So now this suggests that
you have an offender who is shooting from a distance,
possibly undercover. And then Edward says that he saw two men.
So now possibly we're dealing with two offenders. One offender
that is armed with a firearm of some sort and
(11:09):
is competent enough to be able to shoot and hit
a target from a distance. And I'm wondering if there
is a rifle being used versus a handgun. But then
you also have another offender with Bill that's possibly armed
with an axe, So I could see where Now if
you have let's say, these two offenders that are working
in concert, where you have one offender that in essence
(11:34):
stays concealed and is armed with a firearm and the
other offender is interacting with them and is armed with
a knife end or an axe. It's not necessarily that way,
But now it's like, okay, you know, did the offenders
after they killed Bill? Did they stay knowing that there
would be other victims that would be passing through, like
(11:56):
this is a thoroughfare, and so now they're just low
and wait for the next victim, and it happens to
be Edward. Yes.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
And Edward makes things a little more complicated by saying
he did not get a good look at the attackers,
but good enough to say he believes that they were
both of Mexican descent, which is not helpful because that's
a large portion of Colorado.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
But still, okay, you now have these men of Mexican
descent that had a good life going for them, and
then that life is disrupted by these white settlers. And
now you have these Mexican men that are basically becoming
missionary offenders. They have a mission and they're committing that
anger italiatory type of offender. Where Edward and Bill aren't
(12:42):
necessarily men that they had any interpersonal angst about this
is that they represented the white settler and now they
are taking their anger and retaliating against anybody that is
of that white settler type of characteristic.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
Well, so now we're thinking that this might be a
switch from robbery victims of opportunity to targeting specific types
of me. You're right, they're all the same demographic. There
are men who are clearly you know, they're working and
living in residence, and they're working at sawmills and driving
oxen and everything. The only thing taken I said from
(13:20):
Bill was an overcoat. But they might have felt like
they didn't have any time. Clearly, this is a road
that's traveled. If you've got two men who were passing
each other, So there's that too. Maybe they didn't have
an opportunity. Sure, if it is vengeance, then robbery is
the minor motive or is it a motive at all?
And it's just like, well, I might as well take
(13:41):
this to make my life a little bit easier. If
there's money or an overcoat to be warming, is that
what that would be?
Speaker 3 (13:47):
Sure, the financial aspect of these crimes may be secondary
if this is the if the motive is truly retaliating
against a white settler, and there may be an undercurrent
by the uh these offenders that if we do this,
we're going to drive out the white settlers are going
(14:07):
to realize this isn't a place they want to be.
We're going to scare them away. But I think that
the financial side, you know, they're just taking advantage of Okay,
now we have access to potentially money or whatever else
it is, in order to be able to enhance their
lifestyle in whatever way. And it sounds like they're traveling
around a lot. You know, they're probably going to need
(14:28):
money as they stop in various towns in order to
get food or whatever. I don't know if they have
horses with them. This is a a version. If this
is the reason they're they're doing this is because of
this vengeance. As you said, this retaliatory type of attack.
I mean, this is a type of serial killer. It's
(14:52):
not fantasy motivated. It's very different, a different type of criminal.
But you know, in some ways, the DC snipers are
kind of popping into my head, you know, in terms
of sort of the psychology of the reason to commit
the crimes. So maybe this is what's going on, But
(15:14):
until we identify these offenders right now, I mean, Edward,
is he's being shot at, you know, is he is
he actually accurate about these guys? Are of Mexican descent?
Are they actually his you know, his attackers, you know,
if he's seeing them in a distance.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
So now we have six dead and Edward who survived.
And now there's that, you know, Edward's a witness, so
obviously whoever's doing this knows this. But the next day
we have more victims. We have two men again, Frederick
Lehmann and Soul Sega. They're found northeast of fair Play.
(15:59):
So there's still saying the offender or offenders to say, well,
let's just go at this point with offenders, because Edward
says he saw two people, So if he's confident enough
to say of Mexican descent, he's clearly competent enough to
say two people. So they are staying in this area.
Frederick and Soul had been traveling with a group, though
(16:20):
they were a large distance ahead of the rest of
the caravan, so no one saw this attack. And when
they were discovered, the bodies were still warm.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
There's a little bit of.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
Legend mixed in with fact tears what Ali says, the
way that people tell the story. One of these two
men had a crucifix carved in his chest. The other
had his head crushed in with a rock. Newspaper reports
say that they had been attacked. Both of them had
been attacked with an axe. And we also know from
(16:51):
an interview with one of the people who discovered these
men that Lehman's paper collars. So that is Frederick's paper collar.
So that was the paper that they would keep underneath
their collar, I believe, like from his shirt.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
Do you know what a paper collar is?
Speaker 3 (17:08):
No, you know, I'm wondering if it's something to help
keep the collar, Yeah, kind of shaped, right.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
So a paper collar in the eighteen hundreds were detachable,
and they were designed to be worn with shirts and
or a practical solution to the labor and sits of
task of laundering and ironing. One little account said, you
neither need a wife or you need the money to
have them launder.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
You need to have a wife, you need to have.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
Wandered anyway, back to this part. The reason the paper
collar is important is because Frederick's paper collar was nailed
to a nearby tree and somebody wrote something on it
in Spanish. In English it says vengeance is to be
reaked upon Americans as a sacrifice to the Virgin.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
So now, I mean, this is just spilling the beans.
The offenders are sending a message, right, and they're they're clarifying.
It was somewhat vague with the cross on the first victim, Frederick,
you know, but now they're letting it be known why
they're committing these crimes. And it's kind of what I was.
(18:19):
I was thinking. They have felt slighted by the white
settlers moving in. They are vindictive about that. They're they're
retaliating against anybody that's representative of, you know, the reason
why their lifestyle had changed. And you know, the cross.
One of these last victims had a you said, a
(18:40):
crucifix carved, which that's cross, right, But crucifix if if
I'm right. Being born and raised Catholic, obviously we know
that individuals of Mexican descent there was it was a
strong Catholic background. And so now sort of to your
point in the first episode, is that the cross is
(19:04):
indicative of their religious philosophy. Now, why only certain victims
have a cross? You know, that would be interesting to
find out. You know, is this because there's something about
that particular victim that they felt compelled that they needed
a cross, you know, for whatever reason to save their soul.
Who knows, or was it just kind of random as
(19:26):
to who they carve crosses it? But this is now
just showing, Okay, the motive of these crimes is anger retaliatory.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
You know.
Speaker 3 (19:35):
And now they're letting them know. They're they're writing in Spanish,
they are indicating that they have a certain religious philosophy
and they take they have a certain victimology that they're
going after, you know, and this is no different than
how we evaluate offenders today. You know. This is where
now you see, based off of these crimes, you can
(19:55):
start to piece together who your suspect pool might be.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
Well, right now, the suspect pool would be all of
the people of Mexican descent in Colorado Territory, which I
think once we start figuring out you know, who is where,
and you're going to need some dumb luck in some
ways for this to come together. So particularly with Abram Shoop,
(20:20):
but with the last of these men. Now we have
a total of eight men dead, one man who survived
when Edward's story comes out, about two men of Mexican descent.
Now law enforcement really starts to take action, and there's
an organized militia that starts to come together. So Fredericknsoll
live in an area called California Gulch. It's somewhat more
(20:42):
populous than any of these other areas, and there's a
big community of prospectors who come together. So about seventeen men,
led by a man named John mccannon, volunteered to spearhead
this investigation. I don't know what spurs this, or if
it's simply the number keeps piling up, or if it's
Frederick and Sole being connected to this particular area that
(21:06):
has a large prospector population. But this really sends people
into a fury and they start to gather these militias.
Speaker 3 (21:14):
What do you think, Well, well, I think there's there's
multiple layers as to you know, the reason for the
prospectors to band together, and part of it is just
probably a simple economic reason. If you have, you know,
fear starting to interfere with their ability to make money.
(21:36):
You know they now are going we have to stop
whoever's doing this. Now, do you know, is there a
an aspect of a US versus them? Where Now they're going, oh,
this is somebody from Mexico that's doing this to us,
you know, and we have to put an end to this.
And so they're banding together recognizing that there's a threat.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
Well, they are first of all trying to secure the
areas that have already seen murders. So they are trying
to lock down and guard Canyon City, and they're trying
to lock down and guard fair Play. Of course, at
the same time, you know, they're trying to figure out
who did this. So John mccannon is the main person here,
(22:20):
the main investigator, and they realize that Edward's description and
the violence of these crimes might match the description of
two men who robbed a wagon that had been carrying
supplies to a priest in New Mexico late last year.
So we were in March, end of March eighteen sixty three,
(22:42):
so they're talking about probably December of eighteen sixty two.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
Now this is in.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
New Mexico, but remember the border thing, so it's New
Mexico ish, So it's New Mexico and the New Colorado border.
So this happened on or near the San Luis Valley.
In that incident, there was a man who had been
driving a wagon and he had been able to identify
exactly who robbed him. And the priest writes to the
(23:09):
authorities at Fort Garland, which is a military base in
southern Colorado, and the man knew who these two guys were.
The guys robbed them, and he says to the priest
it was these two brothers, and they're named vivian and
Filippe Espinoza. And this is actually a pretty famous story.
(23:30):
The Espinoza family had been punished for this robbery terribly.
They lived in a plaza called San Rafael. In January
of sixty three, so probably about a month after the
robbery and a few months before the killings, a USh
marshall brought sixteen soldiers to their plaza to arrest them.
And at first they tried to get them to come peacefully,
(23:52):
but Vivianne and Felipe, you know, don't fall for this story.
The US marshalls said, we're recruiting for.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
The un army.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
The US marshall says, you know, okay, we can come
back tomorrow because they didn't want to cause a big
ruckus and maybe be outnumbered. And so when they do
come back looking for these two brothers, they had been
barricaded in the back room of one of the houses.
There's gunfire and one of the soldiers is killed and
(24:21):
the guys jump a wall. The brothers jump a wall
and they escape, but that leaves their families in the
hands of very angry soldiers. At least one of their
houses is burned down. The soldiers confiscated all of their
property in their livestock, which is eleven cows and oxen
and a steer, four beds, one trunk, two water buckets,
and leaves the surviving family with nothing. Both of the
(24:44):
brothers are married, so it's the wives and children who
have to deal with all of this when the brothers
come back after escaping this confrontation with the marshals. So
this is the story, and this is what people think
triggered this murderous rampage, which would just start, you know,
a month or two later.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
So as far as motive, yeah, what do you think?
Speaker 3 (25:05):
You know? I thought maybe their motive was land dispute,
but the way that they were handled, obviously was brutal. Right,
and you could see where the anger would be. Now
they brought the attention to themselves because they went out
and committed that that robbery. But this is just where
now they in their own minds, have been wronged and
(25:27):
they are now taking that anger out on people who
are representative of the soldiers and the you know, the
white settlers in terms of who's impacted their lives personally.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
And one thing that I thought was interesting was when
they robbed the you know, the guy who was driving
the wagon to deliver these supplies to a priest.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
They didn't kill him.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
I don't know if they had killed anybody before this,
but that was not something that investigators found at all.
It seemed to start with the what you had said
sort of happened with the US marshall and you know,
destroying all of their property. There's one account that says
that Felipe wanted to avenge the land theft, that he
just felt like all of their neighbors were having their
(26:11):
land taken away from them by the white settlers. So yeah,
I mean, we're right there. That is that is what
sounds like.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
Is the motive for all of this.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
I always come back to this the idea that when
when people think this is such an extraordinary case, one
that happened, you know, two months ago, and they're not,
I mean, these are the kinds of cases that happened.
This is not a spree killing though, right, No, what
would the category be for this. They're killing people they
don't know with spaces apart. But it's not the traditional
serial killer. Do you still think serial killer?
Speaker 3 (26:43):
Well, I wouldn't use the term serial killer, even though
I mentioned it is a form of serial killer. But
by definition I would not characterize what they're doing as
being serial killers. That they are committing a series of crimes.
This is an essence, you know, a series of robberies,
it's like what we see today. But they're committing a
series of homicides and there is a robbery component. But
(27:07):
I think you know, when you start talking about the
financial aspect of this crime, they feel that they've been
wronged and there you know, their friends, their family, they
you know, the other people of Mexican descent have been
financially wronged. So the financial motive of the crimes, in
the homicides that they're committing, may be representative in their
(27:30):
minds to what part of the wrong was done to
the people that they care about. I also just think
it's practical. You know, they're away from home, they're marauding
around the countryside, you know, you think about it. I'm
sure they're probably pretty good at living off the land,
you know, finding food, you know, finding shelter, But there
is still probably in eighteen sixties, even though they're living
(27:52):
off the land to a point, they probably need to
have some ability to pay for things. And that may
be what they're doing is they're killing these men in
order to you know, have the vengeance. But then they're
taking advantage of having access to these men's resources to
continue committing these crimes. Now, is it a spree type killing?
(28:15):
You know, usually when you see the spree type cases,
there isn't that cooling off period, you know, the significant
cooling are They're just boom boom boom boom boom as
they go and commit these crimes back to back to back.
So I don't study the spree type killers. Maybe there's
(28:37):
a way that this series would be labeled as a spree.
For me, it's a series that that's kind of how
I would label it.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
I wonder why they don't go after specific people who
have wronged them, like tracking down the US marshall who
you know, instigated that whole thing, or some of the
soldiers who were there, or the deputies were there. Surely
somebody in their plaza had land taken away, and now
the white person, the white settlers living there.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
I mean, why why not? Why not be specific?
Speaker 3 (29:09):
Well, I think that there's a very fundamental and practical
reason why not. Is here, there's these two brothers, and
you're going to go attack a battalion of soldiers. Yeah right.
It may just have been that we cannot be successful
with that group or having even access to that group,
(29:31):
versus you know, men who have isolated themselves, you know,
driving the oxen or riding on the stage coach down
to the sawmill. You know, those are much more vulnerable
and easier victims that are lower risk to these brothers
than them charging at armed soldiers at some fort. You know.
(29:52):
That's that's what I would would say to that. If
they could ban together, let's say, a group of one
hundred men that had the same experience as they did
in the same anger, then you could see where they
would maybe go after the various entities that directly harm them.
But they don't have that capability, so now they're using
these other men as proxies in order to be able
(30:14):
to get the vengeance that they seek.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
Well, it's clear that McKennon knows who to look for.
Now he's looking for the brothers and they find them.
I always find this so shocking. Within less than a week.
It sounds like the militia group spots two horses grazing
in an area called four Mile Creek and they see
in the distance Vivian Espinoza approaching the horses. And you know,
(30:41):
I don't know why they thought specifically this was him,
but they were pretty sure and they turn out to
be right. And I always think, how can they track
people down that quickly when they could literally be anywhere?
And part of it, I'm sure is luck, and part
of it is knowing the places where people are capable
of staying by water where they can survive. But then,
you know, I always impress when people track, you know,
(31:04):
folks down in major cities too, with all of the
people around them, So maybe I shouldn't be so shocked,
but they find him.
Speaker 3 (31:11):
Yeah, well it's impressive. These prospectors, John what's his name,
John McKinnon you know, they have knowledge of the area,
and so maybe when you know, this particular area, when
they see the horses and they see, you know, a
male of Mexican descent from Afar, They're going to go, well,
that doesn't look right. We need to, you know, investigate further.
(31:33):
And it turns out it's it's one of these brothers.
I'm envisioning the old wanted posters, you know, wanted dead
or alive, right, you know, with a reward and the
photos of you know, the individuals, and you know, I'm
kind of curious to see if something like that was,
you know, posted out there at certain places.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
No, I don't think so.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
And I was just thinking, Okay, where would be the
common places. I guess in californ gulch where the prospectors are,
but I don't know what they would do. I guess
at waste stations like where John was killed. Sure, you
know you would put them at places where you know
that they're sort of foot traffic.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
I guess you could nail them to trees. Who knows.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
They identify Vivian mcannon's party fires and they hit him,
but they don't kill him. He starts shooting back and
then somebody from the militia shoots him between the eyes
and he dies.
Speaker 3 (32:25):
This is FILIPI or Vivian.
Speaker 1 (32:27):
This is Vivian Vivian.
Speaker 2 (32:29):
Okay, they do see Philippe, but there is a member
of the party who is also of Mexican descent, who
is in the militia, and so you know, there has
been chaos with all the shooting and people spread out.
When they see Felipe, which they correctly see Felipe, they
think it could be a member of their party. So
(32:50):
Mcan says, don't shoot, and it turns out to be
the bad guy, and Felipe escapes. I mean, that's nice
that they don't shoot any random man the way he
might be on our team, but Felipe.
Speaker 3 (33:01):
Escapes the way that you're telling the story. They're very
certain that the Espinoza brothers are the ones responsible for
this series. But think about it right now, you know,
at this point where they've they've killed Vivian, what evidence
do they have? You know, how can they be so
certain that these are the ones that are responsible? You know,
So I'm looking at it from okay, so how are
(33:23):
you going to build this case, you know, and prove
that these two brothers are the ones responsible for all
those these homicides, you know, and this is where now
it's like, do they have the firearm that was used
in you know, the various cases, do they have the acts?
You know, start building up. Even though you can't do
modern forensics on potential evidence from these weapons, you know,
(33:45):
you most certainly could see how these weapons may you know,
if they have access to them, that they that is
a you know, it's it's a form of physical evidence,
but it's somewhat circumstantial. It's like, Okay, yeah, they had
they had the weapons available be able to commit these
crimes over the last three or four weeks or however
long it was.
Speaker 2 (34:04):
And I'm assuming that any guys like the Espinoza brothers
who are out camping, if they're innocent and there are
a bunch of white prospectors firing at them, they're going
to fire back and run.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
So you're right, I mean, there's not that proof.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
Except I love stories like this because I find it
so fascinating why people do things.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
They look at Vivian's.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
Body and the camp site, they find items that were
stolen from several of the men who had been killed.
I'm assuming, like the coat and some of the other things.
There's also something that's described as an article of agreement,
but it's really kind of a manifesto. Okay, actually we're
not sure which one of the brothers wrote it, but
(34:46):
Vivin had it. It says that the brothers plan to
kill six hundred white men as retribution for their stolen property.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
And you know what happened with the US Marshall.
Speaker 2 (34:57):
There's another document that is also found on Vivian's person
that says that their father had also been a murderer,
and that Vivienne is compelled to commit fifty additional murderers
to atone for his father's sins. Ali, the researcher, says,
I don't know what that means, but that's what the
paper apparently said.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
So there are.
Speaker 2 (35:18):
Those two things, and for good measure, mccannon cuts off
Vivian's head and brings it back to fair play is proof.
Speaker 1 (35:26):
So what do you think about those?
Speaker 2 (35:27):
You know, they find some stolen items which could have
been discarded by the real killer, and they.
Speaker 1 (35:31):
Picked up and took with who knows, you.
Speaker 3 (35:33):
Know, yeah, you know, but I would say, you know,
they got the right guys. You know, the manifestos. This
is where I'd used the term before. You know, this
missionary type of offender. This is somebody who has a philosophy.
They're on a mission to you know, uphold this philosophy,
and this is where you see them writing these manifestos.
(35:56):
Most famously as the Unobobber. You know, Ted Kaczinski, he
had a mission. You know, you most certainly had an
anti social aspect, anti technology aspect. But there's other examples
of missionary type of offenders. You know. It's interesting. You know,
there's this phrase that criminality runs in families, and we
see that in law enforcement that select families through the
(36:18):
generations just always seem to be on the wrong side.
And you know, with with dad being a you know,
he's a murderer, you know, and now you got his
two sons, it's just something that is not surprising at all. So,
you know, with with what you've told me, you know,
I'm confident they got the right guys. You know, but
(36:41):
it's an interesting kind of you know, relating the series
into the modern times. I mean, it's no different than
what we've seen the history between the Colorado Territory New Mexico,
you know, the White settlers move agin you know, the
gold rush, if you will, in this particular area. You know,
(37:03):
in essence, you have, you know, a group of individuals
and particularly Vivian and Felipe, that felt that they were
harmed and that they were going to seek vengeance. And
that's what we see all the time.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
Well it keeps going, Paul, I mean, Felipe is not
going to be discouraged as easily.
Speaker 1 (37:23):
He's on the run.
Speaker 2 (37:24):
They didn't catch him because of that other guy who
could have been him, and they held fire. He goes
back to the campsite where his brother's body is mcannon
and party took the head, and Felipe berries what's left
Vivianne and then he brings Vivian's foot with him. It
means something to him, you know, just like the killing
(37:45):
of a fifty additional white guys. He goes back home
and now the militia people know who is doing this.
Nobody's there. When he gets there, he recruits his teenage nephew.
We think his name is Jose It's disputed. Sometimes there's
a lot of sort of interesting legends that happen with
this story because it is well known. And they go
to Vivian's place and stay there, which is not far
(38:09):
it's nearby. I think it's in the same plaza. So
when they killed Vivian it was the beginning of May.
He is on the run with his nephew until at
least the end of June. At the end of June,
his quest to kill six hundred white men continues. They
kill a fisherman named William Smith. This is to the south,
(38:32):
which is close to where the Espinosas live. They think
that there are likely more attacks that happened, you know,
it's just is something maybe they don't know about, or
the person went missing and it was never reported. But
this is the thing that sort of upsets me is
in October they attack a man and a woman who
are driving a wagon near Fort Garland. The woman's name
(38:54):
is Dolores Sanchez and the man's last name is Philbrook.
We can figure out his first name. That two people
run an opposite directions. Once they rob the wagon, they
catch Dolores and they raper the man she was with
and Dolores both survive and they find each other in
Fort Garland, where they report the attack. I don't know
(39:16):
why I found that surprising. It was a big switch
to me sexually assaulting someone.
Speaker 3 (39:21):
Well, you have offenders that commit a wide variety of crimes,
and you know, I go to my case history where
I've got guys involved in gangs selling dope. They're killing
each other over territory. They're also sexually assaulting women. It
just seems like, you know, once you pass a certain
(39:42):
threshold of criminality, everything's on the table. This just kind
of underscores to me. You know that there may be
arguments that there's some justification for Vivian and Philippa being
so outraged with what happened to them, But at the
same time, it looks like they have an in name
criminality trait, and now you're starting to see they're willing
(40:05):
to do just about anything to anybody.
Speaker 2 (40:09):
Now, let's just to wrap this up. We'll talk about
how things go with Felipe. So now it feels like
the whole Colorado territory knows about this, and the entire
southern half has sort of been frozen with transit. There
is no one doing any big movement of mail or
(40:29):
freights without a military escort. The commander at Fort Garland
asks an esteam tracker who is a mountain guide and
an army scout named Tom Tobin, who I had heard of,
and he says, you got to find the Espinosas, and
he's given fifteen soldiers to work with. He ends up
being like a famous frontiersman in the wild West. He's
(40:50):
nicknamed Rocky Mountain Tom. It takes Tom one day to
find the trail. He finds ox and tracks near Lavieta,
and they find one ox on the trail and they
can see a lot of crows circling in the sky
above the woods that line the trail. So Tom thinks
(41:11):
that the Espinosas had brought the other ox to the
camp site to kill and eat it, and they start
kind of moving towards the crows. I was curious about crows.
You know, I've written about vultures, and they can float
around on it.
Speaker 1 (41:25):
They're not flying. They're on the wind.
Speaker 2 (41:27):
Currents and their circle gets tighter and they get lower
as they get closer to the prey. But it's pretty
organized crows. The most common reason that I read that
they are circling is because they've been disrupted and they're
sort of on the wind current also and they're kind
of waiting. But it also could be, you know, something
else having to do with prey. But I had not
(41:47):
heard of crows circling over what potentially could be, you know,
a death site. So they come to the campsite and
they see Felipe sitting with his back to a rock
in front of a fire. And then someone steps on
the damn twig and always a twig, I mean, even
in horror movies, and Felipe immediately goes for his gun.
(42:08):
Tom is faster and he shoots Felipe in the side.
Felipe falls into the campfire, yelling for his nephew to run,
but the party sees him and Tom shoots him and
kills him. Felipe crawls out of the fire and tries
to get to his gun. By that point, Tom and
his men are down at the campsite and there's no
(42:28):
getting away from it, and he ends up, you know,
killing him and then beheading Filipe. That is a very
Hollywood dramatic ending to you know, this sort of story.
They find a diary Filipe had been keeping. It kind
of indicates the same thing, why why they're doing this
to begin with, But he says that he and his
brother and his nephew had killed a total of thirty
(42:49):
two people in eight months, and you know, in October
they bring Felipe's head back to Fort Garland.
Speaker 3 (42:58):
So the head has just proof that I got the
guy right. Yeah, and probably Tobin is being paid once
he delivers the head.
Speaker 1 (43:05):
I'm sure a lot of money. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (43:07):
Well, I think it's interesting that Felipe has a diary,
and again I think that that's what you see with
these missionary type of offenders. They're they're recording how they
are satisfying, you know, what their goals are, how they're
you know, meeting the agenda. Who is he going to
show that diary too? Is he taking it back to
(43:28):
certain individuals and saying, hey, look, this is I've atoned for,
you know, the wrong that everybody around here was subjected
to by the US soldiers or whatever. But from from
my perspective, just the series itself is the way that
it played out is okay. Yeah, It's like if you
(43:48):
have today, you have somebody that's committing multiple home invasion robberies.
You know, it's just it's you have that happening, and
it just turns out that Vivian and Felipe, you know,
they had a mission on top of you know, whatever
financial motive may have been.
Speaker 2 (44:05):
Present, And I wonder if they knew six hundred was
not well, six fifty was not realistic, and they were
just going to keep going until sure it stopped. And
this is a way to get their story out. You know,
whatever we think about them, their complaint of having land
that was theirs for generations and their people having it
(44:26):
taken away is you know, totally different than the atrocities
that they committed. But still that way, you know, he
has it on record that this is what we were doing.
We're taking responsibility from it. But I mean, I can't
even imagine he thought he was going to survive this.
Speaker 3 (44:41):
Yeah, but also it's sort of you take a look
at the timeframe and they're saying that they killed thirty two.
I mean, I wouldn't be surprised. This is what did
people have back in the day to actually link all
the cases that they committed together. Yeah, you know, so
you know, maybe they did think, you know, they would
be able to keep going because there's no way that
(45:02):
whatever version of law enforcement was available back in the day.
They're like, nobody's going to be able to figure us out.
Speaker 2 (45:09):
Yeah, Now, do the crosses make sense? To you in
a different way. The crucifix. This is not for the guys.
I'm pretty sure this is not for their victims.
Speaker 3 (45:19):
I would probably lean towards the crosses are a way
that they are atoning for the sin of killing these victims,
just with that Catholic aspect to their up of bringing,
which I don't know if that was ever explicitly stated
in the details, but I'm presuming that that's the case,
(45:41):
you know. So that's what I'm thinking, you know, is
that this is this is something they are doing this
in a way. You know, it's like Vivian writing about
killing fifty more to atone for his father. Right. Yeah,
they've permuted some of the traditional Catholic traditions into a
(46:01):
way to where now they are somehow justifying and or
atoning for the crimes that they're committing.
Speaker 1 (46:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (46:09):
Well, it made them infamous and in such an awful way.
But like I said, these kinds of stories, the stories
about strangers killing random people that is not connected to
some kind of serial killer or you know, couples killer,
zodiac type stuff, This to me was pretty different, and
it did remind me of the DC sniper story that
(46:31):
was I mean quite a long time ago, but I
remember it was an older man with a younger teenage boy,
and you know, it was so complicated. I do remember,
and I don't know if this is right. I feel
like I've read before that people who commit mass shootings
like Vegas almost never intend or like the tower at
the University of Texas, almost never intend to survive. They
(46:52):
don't want to survive. Have you felt like that's true
or no?
Speaker 3 (46:56):
Yeah, I think that that's probably correct. You know, the
mass shooters, I mean, you think about the school shootings,
you know these I mean, these shooters know law enforcement's
going to respond in force, and just based off of history,
most of those shooters never survive, and many of them
ultimately take their own lives once they realize that, you know,
(47:19):
law enforcement is there. So I would say that that's
probably a correct interpretation of the psychology of the mass shooter.
They basically want to go out in many ways what
you'd call a blaze of glory. You know, they're trying
to make a name for themselves. They want their names
in the headline. There is a in their minds, a
certain level of vengeance to the crimes that they're committing.
(47:41):
But they're doing it all in one foul swoop, which
is different than Vivian and Felipe. You know, they are
being strategic. They are trying to be able to continue
to offend over a period of time, but they stay
on track. This is where with like the prototypical serial
killer that we talk about, those types of offenders that
(48:02):
I've worked on, you know, there's this cooling off period
in between committing each crime, and so it shows that
the next time that they commit a crime, they can't
make an argument that they acted in a fit of
rage because they had the cooling off period and then
they reoffend, and then they reoffend, and that's what's happening
(48:23):
with Vivian and Felipe. It's just not for sexual gratification
or for fantasy aspects. It is anger retaliatory.
Speaker 1 (48:30):
What a story.
Speaker 2 (48:31):
And I did not intend for this to be a
two parter, but once we got into it and I
saw how interested you were in it and it is
a really interesting story, then I said, okay, well we're
going to have to expand on this because you know,
who are these people and why are they doing it?
This is one of the more complicated motives that I
feel like we've covered vengeance, I understand, but sort of
(48:53):
the mindset and the way they're going to go about
it is really very Hollywood and so sad. And I
believe them when they say that they've killed thirty two
people because you know, they had a purpose and they
could have said six hundred, you know, and we reached
the goal, but they said thirty two. And it reminds
me so much of the people who probably have been
(49:16):
killed by the serial killer in modern days, and there's
just no way to connect them. And you have these
families who just spend the rest of their lives wondering
what happened.
Speaker 3 (49:25):
No, no, for sure, you know it's in you know,
in some ways you see this, I guess, this battle
between two groups, you know, in the Colorado territory, and
you know it's it's sad that humans go after each
other this way, you know. But then now you see
how that type of environment created, you know, these two
(49:50):
brothers to have a mission, and that mission was to
go out and kill.
Speaker 2 (49:54):
Well, next week you will be in Colorado. Sadly, we
will not be in Colorado. We will definitely be in
a different stick well, our territory. Who knows who knows
this is our first territory too, So get some rest
because I'm sure I'm going to have another compelling.
Speaker 1 (50:10):
Story for you.
Speaker 3 (50:12):
All right, Well, once again, I'm looking forward to it and.
Speaker 1 (50:14):
See you later.
Speaker 3 (50:15):
All right, sounds good.
Speaker 2 (50:20):
This has been an exactly right production for our sources
and show notes go to exactly Rightmedia dot com slash
Buried Bones Sources. Our senior producer is Alexis Emirosi.
Speaker 3 (50:31):
Research by Maren mcclashan, Ali Elkin, and Kate Winkler Dawson.
Speaker 2 (50:35):
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Speaker 3 (50:38):
Our theme song is by Tom Bryfogel.
Speaker 2 (50:40):
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Speaker 3 (50:42):
Executive produced by Karen Kilgaroff, Georgia hard Stark, and Daniel Kramer.
Speaker 2 (50:47):
You can follow Buried Bones on Instagram and Facebook at
Baried Bones Pod.
Speaker 3 (50:52):
Kate's most recent book, All That Is Wicked, a Gilded
Age story of murder and the race to decode the
criminal mind, is available
Speaker 2 (50:58):
Now, and Paul's selling memoir Unmasked, My life Solving America's
Cold Cases is also available now
I'm Kate Winkler Dawson.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
I'm a journalist who's spent the last twenty five years
writing about true crime.
Speaker 3 (00:09):
And I'm Paul Hols, a retired cold case investigator who's
worked some of America's most complicated cases and solve them.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Each week, I present Paul with one of history's most
compelling true crimes.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
And I weigh in using modern forensic techniques to bring
new insights to old mysteries.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Together, using our individual expertise, we're examining historical true crime
cases through a twenty first century lens.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
Some are solved and some are cold, very cold.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
This is buried Bones.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
Hey Paul, Hey Kate, how are you.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
I'm doing well.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
I am tasking you with doing the summary from last
week's episode of The Mess that is in the Colorado
Territory in eighteen sixty three.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
It's awful.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Tell me what you remember, and then I'll tell you
you were wrong about.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
All of that. Just kidding you know.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
So I have to look at my notes from last week.
But so it appears in March of eighteen sixty three,
we start having a series of men being robbed and killed.
The first one Franklin. He's on, you know, driving a
stagecoach with horses down to a sawmill, and he's found
(01:44):
shot through the heart and has a cross carved into him.
And then in short order, we have a series of
other men that are being killed, either being shot or
an axe has been used on them over the course
of you knowmultiple weeks. But relative to the distances that
these crimes are occurring, the offender is moving around and
(02:09):
is attacking in short order, and at least at this
point in time, it appears that this is an offender
that is committing these crimes for financial motive. But I'm
not entirely convinced about that. And so that's where I'm
curious to see details or hear details about other crimes
and ultimately you know who was committing these crimes.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
And let's go through just the victims, just to remind everybody,
because sometimes I have to go back and say people's names.
So the first victim we have is Franklin. He was
at his sawmill and that was not very far from
his home in Kingan City.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
Then we had the next.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Day, Henry, and he was the one who was supposed
to be cooking inside the cabin. He was found with
you know, axe hacks all over his body and he
was shot.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Then we have.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
March thirty first, which is eleven days later, we have
John Addleton and John was murdered at away station and
it looks like rob the place was tossed completely.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
Then we have about eight.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Days later after that, much further north, we have Jacob
Binkley and Abram Shoop and they are out of campsite
and they are murdered. And the sequencing is difficult in
that one, but it looks like Abram tried to get away.
And what I thought was interesting Paul's it looks like
(03:38):
there's only one shot per victim, and I don't know
what that means. So it says, you know that Addleton
was shot in the head, John was shot in the head,
Henry was shot through the head, also forehead, and then
you have Franklin who was shot through the heart. Now
we have Jacob who was shot in the back. And
then Shoop was found at the bottom of the gulch.
(04:00):
He was not shot, he was stabbed. They didn't say
anything about an axe. So is this somebody who is
just a really good shot or I mean one shot
for each of these victims. It sounds like except for
one of them.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
Well, I think just like what I was talking about
last week, with these sounds like black powder weapons. You know,
I'm not convinced that they would be able to identify
the type of weapon. You know, it's not like they're
looking at, you know, the general rifling characteristics that we
look at today in order to determine making model of
the weapon that fired a projectile. These are black powder guns,
(04:36):
and it very well may be that the weapon that
the offenders using only could fire one round before being reloaded,
and it takes a while to reload these black powder weapons,
so that may be just a practical reason why there's
only one shot. And these weapons are not accurate relative
to modern firearms. So these victims particularly, I believe it
(05:00):
was you know, Henry who shot inside you know, this
cabin and he shot in the forehead. That would suggest
because of the inaccuracy of these weapons. You know, Henry's
not being sniped from a distance. He the offender is
probably within that cabin and at close range and is
able to shoot him in the forehead. So you know,
that's my sense with the gun. You know, the question,
(05:21):
of course, is is okay, So why do we see
a firearm, an axe, and a knife being used across
the series so far. Does the fact that you know,
two different weapons are used with the last case that
you talked about with Jacob and was Abram yep, yep,
Jacob and Abram, you know, does that suggest that maybe
(05:43):
you have two offenders? It could, however, a single offender
could possibly accomplish the same thing depending on the.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
Sequence, you know, and the other ones. You've got one
person there who is the victim, and this is the
first time that we've seen two victims at the same time.
So the escalation, I know is not the right word,
but the development of what is happening with each of
these murders is interesting.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
Well, I think, you know, probably the only thing I
would I would draw upon the fact that the last
case had had two men that were victims, just tells
me that the offender had the confidence. If it's a
single offender had the confidence to be able to take
on two men in order to commit the crime. Chances
are it's not like the offender is thinking, oh, I
(06:29):
got to go out and find two men for the
next case, you know, That's not what's going on. This
is probably a situation in which these two men may
have been stumbled across by the offender. You know, they
were truly victims of opportunity, and the offender size them
up and goes, I can deal with them with the
control aspects that I have with the gun and the knife.
(06:52):
But then you also have the possibility of two offenders
going yep, let's do this. It just happened that Abraham
and Jacob were out camping together and they were sized
up by the offender as being Okay, these are targets,
and they'd likely have money or any other things of
financial value that the offender wanted.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
It's just so interesting because I have you ringing in
my head, take out the male first, right, if you're
attacking a whole family, you want the most aggressive person
who could fight back, who's going to be the biggest threat,
to take out the biggest threat first. And here they
are or here this is happening, you know, with people
who are just you're only attacking big threats, and these
(07:34):
are all young guys too well.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
But you also have to take it like, right now,
we know nothing about Jacob and Abram in terms of
their physical characteristics. You know, it's possible the offender is
looking at these two men, going, well, that's the alpha male.
I have to take him out first, you know. So
that aspect, that processing aspect by the offenders is still
in play. We just don't know.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
Well, let's move over, because I did give you quite
a bit teas. I will say, we have five men
dead in about three weeks over upwards of one hundred miles.
It sounds like there's been some traveling. So let's talk
about what happens next. I told you that, you know,
we have somebody else who has been killed, and we
have also a survivor for the first time. So about
(08:19):
three weeks after the murder at the campground in the
same area, there's a man named Edward Metcalf. He's leading
Oxen through a mountain pass. Earlier in the day there
was an acquaintance of his name, Bill Carter, who had
passed Edward on the road. They were going in the
same direction. Later in the day, when he's returning going
(08:41):
on the same road, he sees Bill's body on a
snowbank on the side of the road. So this is
the guy who passed him. So Bill had been shot
and attacked with an axe. The overcoat that Bill had
been wearing and Edward saw it when he passed him.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
Is gone.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
So Edward is trying to figure out what the hell
happened to his friend. He's sitting on his wagon. The
Oxen are still attached. He is shot in the chest.
On the left hand side.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
Edward is Edward.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
Yes, he's looking at his friend's dead body on a
little snowbank, and he is shot. The bullet must have
gone through to his heart. But Edward had been carrying
a bundle of mail and a copy of the Emancipation
Proclamation in his breast pocket, so the bullet got this
is just what you were talking about before. The bullet
(09:32):
doesn't go through, It hits the Emancipation Proclamation, and when
the Oxen, when they hear the gun shot, flip out
and they bolt, and there's a second shot that misses Edward.
Now Edward's wagon hits a rock. He's that poor guy.
He's bounced out onto the ground. He hears nearby shots
(09:55):
and it sounds like he sees two men in the
dist Another person also sees or hears the shooting and
rides into fair Play to get help. There's a party
that comes to the area. They find Edward he is alive,
and he survives, and they also recover Bill's body. So
(10:15):
two men, if we believe these are our offenders, but
there's no one else around except somebody hearing a shot
and then going to fair play.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
So Bill is killed, and you know, he's shot and
attacked with the acts. And then when Edward comes across
Bill's body, and I'm not sure you know what kind
of time frame we're talking about, you know, in terms
of Edward and Bill passing each other, and then Edward
circling back round, but the offender is still in the
same area, but Edward's not seeing the offender and he
(10:46):
gets shot in the chest. So now this suggests that
you have an offender who is shooting from a distance,
possibly undercover. And then Edward says that he saw two men.
So now possibly we're dealing with two offenders. One offender
that is armed with a firearm of some sort and
(11:09):
is competent enough to be able to shoot and hit
a target from a distance. And I'm wondering if there
is a rifle being used versus a handgun. But then
you also have another offender with Bill that's possibly armed
with an axe, So I could see where Now if
you have let's say, these two offenders that are working
in concert, where you have one offender that in essence
(11:34):
stays concealed and is armed with a firearm and the
other offender is interacting with them and is armed with
a knife end or an axe. It's not necessarily that way,
But now it's like, okay, you know, did the offenders
after they killed Bill? Did they stay knowing that there
would be other victims that would be passing through, like
(11:56):
this is a thoroughfare, and so now they're just low
and wait for the next victim, and it happens to
be Edward. Yes.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
And Edward makes things a little more complicated by saying
he did not get a good look at the attackers,
but good enough to say he believes that they were
both of Mexican descent, which is not helpful because that's
a large portion of Colorado.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
But still, okay, you now have these men of Mexican
descent that had a good life going for them, and
then that life is disrupted by these white settlers. And
now you have these Mexican men that are basically becoming
missionary offenders. They have a mission and they're committing that
anger italiatory type of offender. Where Edward and Bill aren't
(12:42):
necessarily men that they had any interpersonal angst about this
is that they represented the white settler and now they
are taking their anger and retaliating against anybody that is
of that white settler type of characteristic.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
Well, so now we're thinking that this might be a
switch from robbery victims of opportunity to targeting specific types
of me. You're right, they're all the same demographic. There
are men who are clearly you know, they're working and
living in residence, and they're working at sawmills and driving
oxen and everything. The only thing taken I said from
(13:20):
Bill was an overcoat. But they might have felt like
they didn't have any time. Clearly, this is a road
that's traveled. If you've got two men who were passing
each other, So there's that too. Maybe they didn't have
an opportunity. Sure, if it is vengeance, then robbery is
the minor motive or is it a motive at all?
And it's just like, well, I might as well take
(13:41):
this to make my life a little bit easier. If
there's money or an overcoat to be warming, is that
what that would be?
Speaker 3 (13:47):
Sure, the financial aspect of these crimes may be secondary
if this is the if the motive is truly retaliating
against a white settler, and there may be an undercurrent
by the uh these offenders that if we do this,
we're going to drive out the white settlers are going
(14:07):
to realize this isn't a place they want to be.
We're going to scare them away. But I think that
the financial side, you know, they're just taking advantage of Okay,
now we have access to potentially money or whatever else
it is, in order to be able to enhance their
lifestyle in whatever way. And it sounds like they're traveling
around a lot. You know, they're probably going to need
(14:28):
money as they stop in various towns in order to
get food or whatever. I don't know if they have
horses with them. This is a a version. If this
is the reason they're they're doing this is because of
this vengeance. As you said, this retaliatory type of attack.
I mean, this is a type of serial killer. It's
(14:52):
not fantasy motivated. It's very different, a different type of criminal.
But you know, in some ways, the DC snipers are
kind of popping into my head, you know, in terms
of sort of the psychology of the reason to commit
the crimes. So maybe this is what's going on, But
(15:14):
until we identify these offenders right now, I mean, Edward,
is he's being shot at, you know, is he is
he actually accurate about these guys? Are of Mexican descent?
Are they actually his you know, his attackers, you know,
if he's seeing them in a distance.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
So now we have six dead and Edward who survived.
And now there's that, you know, Edward's a witness, so
obviously whoever's doing this knows this. But the next day
we have more victims. We have two men again, Frederick
Lehmann and Soul Sega. They're found northeast of fair Play.
(15:59):
So there's still saying the offender or offenders to say, well,
let's just go at this point with offenders, because Edward
says he saw two people, So if he's confident enough
to say of Mexican descent, he's clearly competent enough to
say two people. So they are staying in this area.
Frederick and Soul had been traveling with a group, though
(16:20):
they were a large distance ahead of the rest of
the caravan, so no one saw this attack. And when
they were discovered, the bodies were still warm.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
There's a little bit of.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
Legend mixed in with fact tears what Ali says, the
way that people tell the story. One of these two
men had a crucifix carved in his chest. The other
had his head crushed in with a rock. Newspaper reports
say that they had been attacked. Both of them had
been attacked with an axe. And we also know from
(16:51):
an interview with one of the people who discovered these
men that Lehman's paper collars. So that is Frederick's paper collar.
So that was the paper that they would keep underneath
their collar, I believe, like from his shirt.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
Do you know what a paper collar is?
Speaker 3 (17:08):
No, you know, I'm wondering if it's something to help
keep the collar, Yeah, kind of shaped, right.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
So a paper collar in the eighteen hundreds were detachable,
and they were designed to be worn with shirts and
or a practical solution to the labor and sits of
task of laundering and ironing. One little account said, you
neither need a wife or you need the money to
have them launder.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
You need to have a wife, you need to have.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
Wandered anyway, back to this part. The reason the paper
collar is important is because Frederick's paper collar was nailed
to a nearby tree and somebody wrote something on it
in Spanish. In English it says vengeance is to be
reaked upon Americans as a sacrifice to the Virgin.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
So now, I mean, this is just spilling the beans.
The offenders are sending a message, right, and they're they're clarifying.
It was somewhat vague with the cross on the first victim, Frederick,
you know, but now they're letting it be known why
they're committing these crimes. And it's kind of what I was.
(18:19):
I was thinking. They have felt slighted by the white
settlers moving in. They are vindictive about that. They're they're
retaliating against anybody that's representative of, you know, the reason
why their lifestyle had changed. And you know, the cross.
One of these last victims had a you said, a
(18:40):
crucifix carved, which that's cross, right, But crucifix if if
I'm right. Being born and raised Catholic, obviously we know
that individuals of Mexican descent there was it was a
strong Catholic background. And so now sort of to your
point in the first episode, is that the cross is
(19:04):
indicative of their religious philosophy. Now, why only certain victims
have a cross? You know, that would be interesting to
find out. You know, is this because there's something about
that particular victim that they felt compelled that they needed
a cross, you know, for whatever reason to save their soul.
Who knows, or was it just kind of random as
(19:26):
to who they carve crosses it? But this is now
just showing, Okay, the motive of these crimes is anger retaliatory.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
You know.
Speaker 3 (19:35):
And now they're letting them know. They're they're writing in Spanish,
they are indicating that they have a certain religious philosophy
and they take they have a certain victimology that they're
going after, you know, and this is no different than
how we evaluate offenders today. You know. This is where
now you see, based off of these crimes, you can
(19:55):
start to piece together who your suspect pool might be.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
Well, right now, the suspect pool would be all of
the people of Mexican descent in Colorado Territory, which I
think once we start figuring out you know, who is where,
and you're going to need some dumb luck in some
ways for this to come together. So particularly with Abram Shoop,
(20:20):
but with the last of these men. Now we have
a total of eight men dead, one man who survived
when Edward's story comes out, about two men of Mexican descent.
Now law enforcement really starts to take action, and there's
an organized militia that starts to come together. So Fredericknsoll
live in an area called California Gulch. It's somewhat more
(20:42):
populous than any of these other areas, and there's a
big community of prospectors who come together. So about seventeen men,
led by a man named John mccannon, volunteered to spearhead
this investigation. I don't know what spurs this, or if
it's simply the number keeps piling up, or if it's
Frederick and Sole being connected to this particular area that
(21:06):
has a large prospector population. But this really sends people
into a fury and they start to gather these militias.
Speaker 3 (21:14):
What do you think, Well, well, I think there's there's
multiple layers as to you know, the reason for the
prospectors to band together, and part of it is just
probably a simple economic reason. If you have, you know,
fear starting to interfere with their ability to make money.
(21:36):
You know they now are going we have to stop
whoever's doing this. Now, do you know, is there a
an aspect of a US versus them? Where Now they're going, oh,
this is somebody from Mexico that's doing this to us,
you know, and we have to put an end to this.
And so they're banding together recognizing that there's a threat.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
Well, they are first of all trying to secure the
areas that have already seen murders. So they are trying
to lock down and guard Canyon City, and they're trying
to lock down and guard fair Play. Of course, at
the same time, you know, they're trying to figure out
who did this. So John mccannon is the main person here,
(22:20):
the main investigator, and they realize that Edward's description and
the violence of these crimes might match the description of
two men who robbed a wagon that had been carrying
supplies to a priest in New Mexico late last year.
So we were in March, end of March eighteen sixty three,
(22:42):
so they're talking about probably December of eighteen sixty two.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
Now this is in.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
New Mexico, but remember the border thing, so it's New
Mexico ish, So it's New Mexico and the New Colorado border.
So this happened on or near the San Luis Valley.
In that incident, there was a man who had been
driving a wagon and he had been able to identify
exactly who robbed him. And the priest writes to the
(23:09):
authorities at Fort Garland, which is a military base in
southern Colorado, and the man knew who these two guys were.
The guys robbed them, and he says to the priest
it was these two brothers, and they're named vivian and
Filippe Espinoza. And this is actually a pretty famous story.
(23:30):
The Espinoza family had been punished for this robbery terribly.
They lived in a plaza called San Rafael. In January
of sixty three, so probably about a month after the
robbery and a few months before the killings, a USh
marshall brought sixteen soldiers to their plaza to arrest them.
And at first they tried to get them to come peacefully,
(23:52):
but Vivianne and Felipe, you know, don't fall for this story.
The US marshalls said, we're recruiting for.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
The un army.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
The US marshall says, you know, okay, we can come
back tomorrow because they didn't want to cause a big
ruckus and maybe be outnumbered. And so when they do
come back looking for these two brothers, they had been
barricaded in the back room of one of the houses.
There's gunfire and one of the soldiers is killed and
(24:21):
the guys jump a wall. The brothers jump a wall
and they escape, but that leaves their families in the
hands of very angry soldiers. At least one of their
houses is burned down. The soldiers confiscated all of their
property in their livestock, which is eleven cows and oxen
and a steer, four beds, one trunk, two water buckets,
and leaves the surviving family with nothing. Both of the
(24:44):
brothers are married, so it's the wives and children who
have to deal with all of this when the brothers
come back after escaping this confrontation with the marshals. So
this is the story, and this is what people think
triggered this murderous rampage, which would just start, you know,
a month or two later.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
So as far as motive, yeah, what do you think?
Speaker 3 (25:05):
You know? I thought maybe their motive was land dispute,
but the way that they were handled, obviously was brutal. Right,
and you could see where the anger would be. Now
they brought the attention to themselves because they went out
and committed that that robbery. But this is just where
now they in their own minds, have been wronged and
(25:27):
they are now taking that anger out on people who
are representative of the soldiers and the you know, the
white settlers in terms of who's impacted their lives personally.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
And one thing that I thought was interesting was when
they robbed the you know, the guy who was driving
the wagon to deliver these supplies to a priest.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
They didn't kill him.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
I don't know if they had killed anybody before this,
but that was not something that investigators found at all.
It seemed to start with the what you had said
sort of happened with the US marshall and you know,
destroying all of their property. There's one account that says
that Felipe wanted to avenge the land theft, that he
just felt like all of their neighbors were having their
(26:11):
land taken away from them by the white settlers. So yeah,
I mean, we're right there. That is that is what
sounds like.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
Is the motive for all of this.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
I always come back to this the idea that when
when people think this is such an extraordinary case, one
that happened, you know, two months ago, and they're not,
I mean, these are the kinds of cases that happened.
This is not a spree killing though, right, No, what
would the category be for this. They're killing people they
don't know with spaces apart. But it's not the traditional
serial killer. Do you still think serial killer?
Speaker 3 (26:43):
Well, I wouldn't use the term serial killer, even though
I mentioned it is a form of serial killer. But
by definition I would not characterize what they're doing as
being serial killers. That they are committing a series of crimes.
This is an essence, you know, a series of robberies,
it's like what we see today. But they're committing a
series of homicides and there is a robbery component. But
(27:07):
I think you know, when you start talking about the
financial aspect of this crime, they feel that they've been
wronged and there you know, their friends, their family, they
you know, the other people of Mexican descent have been
financially wronged. So the financial motive of the crimes, in
the homicides that they're committing, may be representative in their
(27:30):
minds to what part of the wrong was done to
the people that they care about. I also just think
it's practical. You know, they're away from home, they're marauding
around the countryside, you know, you think about it. I'm
sure they're probably pretty good at living off the land,
you know, finding food, you know, finding shelter, But there
is still probably in eighteen sixties, even though they're living
(27:52):
off the land to a point, they probably need to
have some ability to pay for things. And that may
be what they're doing is they're killing these men in
order to you know, have the vengeance. But then they're
taking advantage of having access to these men's resources to
continue committing these crimes. Now, is it a spree type killing?
(28:15):
You know, usually when you see the spree type cases,
there isn't that cooling off period, you know, the significant
cooling are They're just boom boom boom boom boom as
they go and commit these crimes back to back to back.
So I don't study the spree type killers. Maybe there's
(28:37):
a way that this series would be labeled as a spree.
For me, it's a series that that's kind of how
I would label it.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
I wonder why they don't go after specific people who
have wronged them, like tracking down the US marshall who
you know, instigated that whole thing, or some of the
soldiers who were there, or the deputies were there. Surely
somebody in their plaza had land taken away, and now
the white person, the white settlers living there.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
I mean, why why not? Why not be specific?
Speaker 3 (29:09):
Well, I think that there's a very fundamental and practical
reason why not. Is here, there's these two brothers, and
you're going to go attack a battalion of soldiers. Yeah right.
It may just have been that we cannot be successful
with that group or having even access to that group,
(29:31):
versus you know, men who have isolated themselves, you know,
driving the oxen or riding on the stage coach down
to the sawmill. You know, those are much more vulnerable
and easier victims that are lower risk to these brothers
than them charging at armed soldiers at some fort. You know.
(29:52):
That's that's what I would would say to that. If
they could ban together, let's say, a group of one
hundred men that had the same experience as they did
in the same anger, then you could see where they
would maybe go after the various entities that directly harm them.
But they don't have that capability, so now they're using
these other men as proxies in order to be able
(30:14):
to get the vengeance that they seek.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
Well, it's clear that McKennon knows who to look for.
Now he's looking for the brothers and they find them.
I always find this so shocking. Within less than a week.
It sounds like the militia group spots two horses grazing
in an area called four Mile Creek and they see
in the distance Vivian Espinoza approaching the horses. And you know,
(30:41):
I don't know why they thought specifically this was him,
but they were pretty sure and they turn out to
be right. And I always think, how can they track
people down that quickly when they could literally be anywhere?
And part of it, I'm sure is luck, and part
of it is knowing the places where people are capable
of staying by water where they can survive. But then,
you know, I always impress when people track, you know,
(31:04):
folks down in major cities too, with all of the
people around them, So maybe I shouldn't be so shocked,
but they find him.
Speaker 3 (31:11):
Yeah, well it's impressive. These prospectors, John what's his name,
John McKinnon you know, they have knowledge of the area,
and so maybe when you know, this particular area, when
they see the horses and they see, you know, a
male of Mexican descent from Afar, They're going to go, well,
that doesn't look right. We need to, you know, investigate further.
(31:33):
And it turns out it's it's one of these brothers.
I'm envisioning the old wanted posters, you know, wanted dead
or alive, right, you know, with a reward and the
photos of you know, the individuals, and you know, I'm
kind of curious to see if something like that was,
you know, posted out there at certain places.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
No, I don't think so.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
And I was just thinking, Okay, where would be the
common places. I guess in californ gulch where the prospectors are,
but I don't know what they would do. I guess
at waste stations like where John was killed. Sure, you
know you would put them at places where you know
that they're sort of foot traffic.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
I guess you could nail them to trees. Who knows.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
They identify Vivian mcannon's party fires and they hit him,
but they don't kill him. He starts shooting back and
then somebody from the militia shoots him between the eyes
and he dies.
Speaker 3 (32:25):
This is FILIPI or Vivian.
Speaker 1 (32:27):
This is Vivian Vivian.
Speaker 2 (32:29):
Okay, they do see Philippe, but there is a member
of the party who is also of Mexican descent, who
is in the militia, and so you know, there has
been chaos with all the shooting and people spread out.
When they see Felipe, which they correctly see Felipe, they
think it could be a member of their party. So
(32:50):
Mcan says, don't shoot, and it turns out to be
the bad guy, and Felipe escapes. I mean, that's nice
that they don't shoot any random man the way he
might be on our team, but Felipe.
Speaker 3 (33:01):
Escapes the way that you're telling the story. They're very
certain that the Espinoza brothers are the ones responsible for
this series. But think about it right now, you know,
at this point where they've they've killed Vivian, what evidence
do they have? You know, how can they be so
certain that these are the ones that are responsible? You know,
So I'm looking at it from okay, so how are
(33:23):
you going to build this case, you know, and prove
that these two brothers are the ones responsible for all
those these homicides, you know, and this is where now
it's like, do they have the firearm that was used
in you know, the various cases, do they have the acts?
You know, start building up. Even though you can't do
modern forensics on potential evidence from these weapons, you know,
(33:45):
you most certainly could see how these weapons may you know,
if they have access to them, that they that is
a you know, it's it's a form of physical evidence,
but it's somewhat circumstantial. It's like, Okay, yeah, they had
they had the weapons available be able to commit these
crimes over the last three or four weeks or however
long it was.
Speaker 2 (34:04):
And I'm assuming that any guys like the Espinoza brothers
who are out camping, if they're innocent and there are
a bunch of white prospectors firing at them, they're going
to fire back and run.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
So you're right, I mean, there's not that proof.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
Except I love stories like this because I find it
so fascinating why people do things.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
They look at Vivian's.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
Body and the camp site, they find items that were
stolen from several of the men who had been killed.
I'm assuming, like the coat and some of the other things.
There's also something that's described as an article of agreement,
but it's really kind of a manifesto. Okay, actually we're
not sure which one of the brothers wrote it, but
(34:46):
Vivin had it. It says that the brothers plan to
kill six hundred white men as retribution for their stolen property.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
And you know what happened with the US Marshall.
Speaker 2 (34:57):
There's another document that is also found on Vivian's person
that says that their father had also been a murderer,
and that Vivienne is compelled to commit fifty additional murderers
to atone for his father's sins. Ali, the researcher, says,
I don't know what that means, but that's what the
paper apparently said.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
So there are.
Speaker 2 (35:18):
Those two things, and for good measure, mccannon cuts off
Vivian's head and brings it back to fair play is proof.
Speaker 1 (35:26):
So what do you think about those?
Speaker 2 (35:27):
You know, they find some stolen items which could have
been discarded by the real killer, and they.
Speaker 1 (35:31):
Picked up and took with who knows, you.
Speaker 3 (35:33):
Know, yeah, you know, but I would say, you know,
they got the right guys. You know, the manifestos. This
is where I'd used the term before. You know, this
missionary type of offender. This is somebody who has a philosophy.
They're on a mission to you know, uphold this philosophy,
and this is where you see them writing these manifestos.
(35:56):
Most famously as the Unobobber. You know, Ted Kaczinski, he
had a mission. You know, you most certainly had an
anti social aspect, anti technology aspect. But there's other examples
of missionary type of offenders. You know. It's interesting. You know,
there's this phrase that criminality runs in families, and we
see that in law enforcement that select families through the
(36:18):
generations just always seem to be on the wrong side.
And you know, with with dad being a you know,
he's a murderer, you know, and now you got his
two sons, it's just something that is not surprising at all. So,
you know, with with what you've told me, you know,
I'm confident they got the right guys. You know, but
(36:41):
it's an interesting kind of you know, relating the series
into the modern times. I mean, it's no different than
what we've seen the history between the Colorado Territory New Mexico,
you know, the White settlers move agin you know, the
gold rush, if you will, in this particular area. You know,
(37:03):
in essence, you have, you know, a group of individuals
and particularly Vivian and Felipe, that felt that they were
harmed and that they were going to seek vengeance. And
that's what we see all the time.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
Well it keeps going, Paul, I mean, Felipe is not
going to be discouraged as easily.
Speaker 1 (37:23):
He's on the run.
Speaker 2 (37:24):
They didn't catch him because of that other guy who
could have been him, and they held fire. He goes
back to the campsite where his brother's body is mcannon
and party took the head, and Felipe berries what's left
Vivianne and then he brings Vivian's foot with him. It
means something to him, you know, just like the killing
(37:45):
of a fifty additional white guys. He goes back home
and now the militia people know who is doing this.
Nobody's there. When he gets there, he recruits his teenage nephew.
We think his name is Jose It's disputed. Sometimes there's
a lot of sort of interesting legends that happen with
this story because it is well known. And they go
to Vivian's place and stay there, which is not far
(38:09):
it's nearby. I think it's in the same plaza. So
when they killed Vivian it was the beginning of May.
He is on the run with his nephew until at
least the end of June. At the end of June,
his quest to kill six hundred white men continues. They
kill a fisherman named William Smith. This is to the south,
(38:32):
which is close to where the Espinosas live. They think
that there are likely more attacks that happened, you know,
it's just is something maybe they don't know about, or
the person went missing and it was never reported. But
this is the thing that sort of upsets me is
in October they attack a man and a woman who
are driving a wagon near Fort Garland. The woman's name
(38:54):
is Dolores Sanchez and the man's last name is Philbrook.
We can figure out his first name. That two people
run an opposite directions. Once they rob the wagon, they
catch Dolores and they raper the man she was with
and Dolores both survive and they find each other in
Fort Garland, where they report the attack. I don't know
(39:16):
why I found that surprising. It was a big switch
to me sexually assaulting someone.
Speaker 3 (39:21):
Well, you have offenders that commit a wide variety of crimes,
and you know, I go to my case history where
I've got guys involved in gangs selling dope. They're killing
each other over territory. They're also sexually assaulting women. It
just seems like, you know, once you pass a certain
(39:42):
threshold of criminality, everything's on the table. This just kind
of underscores to me. You know that there may be
arguments that there's some justification for Vivian and Philippa being
so outraged with what happened to them, But at the
same time, it looks like they have an in name
criminality trait, and now you're starting to see they're willing
(40:05):
to do just about anything to anybody.
Speaker 2 (40:09):
Now, let's just to wrap this up. We'll talk about
how things go with Felipe. So now it feels like
the whole Colorado territory knows about this, and the entire
southern half has sort of been frozen with transit. There
is no one doing any big movement of mail or
(40:29):
freights without a military escort. The commander at Fort Garland
asks an esteam tracker who is a mountain guide and
an army scout named Tom Tobin, who I had heard of,
and he says, you got to find the Espinosas, and
he's given fifteen soldiers to work with. He ends up
being like a famous frontiersman in the wild West. He's
(40:50):
nicknamed Rocky Mountain Tom. It takes Tom one day to
find the trail. He finds ox and tracks near Lavieta,
and they find one ox on the trail and they
can see a lot of crows circling in the sky
above the woods that line the trail. So Tom thinks
(41:11):
that the Espinosas had brought the other ox to the
camp site to kill and eat it, and they start
kind of moving towards the crows. I was curious about crows.
You know, I've written about vultures, and they can float
around on it.
Speaker 1 (41:25):
They're not flying. They're on the wind.
Speaker 2 (41:27):
Currents and their circle gets tighter and they get lower
as they get closer to the prey. But it's pretty
organized crows. The most common reason that I read that
they are circling is because they've been disrupted and they're
sort of on the wind current also and they're kind
of waiting. But it also could be, you know, something
else having to do with prey. But I had not
(41:47):
heard of crows circling over what potentially could be, you know,
a death site. So they come to the campsite and
they see Felipe sitting with his back to a rock
in front of a fire. And then someone steps on
the damn twig and always a twig, I mean, even
in horror movies, and Felipe immediately goes for his gun.
(42:08):
Tom is faster and he shoots Felipe in the side.
Felipe falls into the campfire, yelling for his nephew to run,
but the party sees him and Tom shoots him and
kills him. Felipe crawls out of the fire and tries
to get to his gun. By that point, Tom and
his men are down at the campsite and there's no
(42:28):
getting away from it, and he ends up, you know,
killing him and then beheading Filipe. That is a very
Hollywood dramatic ending to you know, this sort of story.
They find a diary Filipe had been keeping. It kind
of indicates the same thing, why why they're doing this
to begin with, But he says that he and his
brother and his nephew had killed a total of thirty
(42:49):
two people in eight months, and you know, in October
they bring Felipe's head back to Fort Garland.
Speaker 3 (42:58):
So the head has just proof that I got the
guy right. Yeah, and probably Tobin is being paid once
he delivers the head.
Speaker 1 (43:05):
I'm sure a lot of money. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (43:07):
Well, I think it's interesting that Felipe has a diary,
and again I think that that's what you see with
these missionary type of offenders. They're they're recording how they
are satisfying, you know, what their goals are, how they're
you know, meeting the agenda. Who is he going to
show that diary too? Is he taking it back to
(43:28):
certain individuals and saying, hey, look, this is I've atoned for,
you know, the wrong that everybody around here was subjected
to by the US soldiers or whatever. But from from
my perspective, just the series itself is the way that
it played out is okay. Yeah, It's like if you
(43:48):
have today, you have somebody that's committing multiple home invasion robberies.
You know, it's just it's you have that happening, and
it just turns out that Vivian and Felipe, you know,
they had a mission on top of you know, whatever
financial motive may have been.
Speaker 2 (44:05):
Present, And I wonder if they knew six hundred was
not well, six fifty was not realistic, and they were
just going to keep going until sure it stopped. And
this is a way to get their story out. You know,
whatever we think about them, their complaint of having land
that was theirs for generations and their people having it
(44:26):
taken away is you know, totally different than the atrocities
that they committed. But still that way, you know, he
has it on record that this is what we were doing.
We're taking responsibility from it. But I mean, I can't
even imagine he thought he was going to survive this.
Speaker 3 (44:41):
Yeah, but also it's sort of you take a look
at the timeframe and they're saying that they killed thirty two.
I mean, I wouldn't be surprised. This is what did
people have back in the day to actually link all
the cases that they committed together. Yeah, you know, so
you know, maybe they did think, you know, they would
be able to keep going because there's no way that
(45:02):
whatever version of law enforcement was available back in the day.
They're like, nobody's going to be able to figure us out.
Speaker 2 (45:09):
Yeah, Now, do the crosses make sense? To you in
a different way. The crucifix. This is not for the guys.
I'm pretty sure this is not for their victims.
Speaker 3 (45:19):
I would probably lean towards the crosses are a way
that they are atoning for the sin of killing these victims,
just with that Catholic aspect to their up of bringing,
which I don't know if that was ever explicitly stated
in the details, but I'm presuming that that's the case,
(45:41):
you know. So that's what I'm thinking, you know, is
that this is this is something they are doing this
in a way. You know, it's like Vivian writing about
killing fifty more to atone for his father. Right. Yeah,
they've permuted some of the traditional Catholic traditions into a
(46:01):
way to where now they are somehow justifying and or
atoning for the crimes that they're committing.
Speaker 1 (46:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (46:09):
Well, it made them infamous and in such an awful way.
But like I said, these kinds of stories, the stories
about strangers killing random people that is not connected to
some kind of serial killer or you know, couples killer,
zodiac type stuff, This to me was pretty different, and
it did remind me of the DC sniper story that
(46:31):
was I mean quite a long time ago, but I
remember it was an older man with a younger teenage boy,
and you know, it was so complicated. I do remember,
and I don't know if this is right. I feel
like I've read before that people who commit mass shootings
like Vegas almost never intend or like the tower at
the University of Texas, almost never intend to survive. They
(46:52):
don't want to survive. Have you felt like that's true
or no?
Speaker 3 (46:56):
Yeah, I think that that's probably correct. You know, the
mass shooters, I mean, you think about the school shootings,
you know these I mean, these shooters know law enforcement's
going to respond in force, and just based off of history,
most of those shooters never survive, and many of them
ultimately take their own lives once they realize that, you know,
(47:19):
law enforcement is there. So I would say that that's
probably a correct interpretation of the psychology of the mass shooter.
They basically want to go out in many ways what
you'd call a blaze of glory. You know, they're trying
to make a name for themselves. They want their names
in the headline. There is a in their minds, a
certain level of vengeance to the crimes that they're committing.
(47:41):
But they're doing it all in one foul swoop, which
is different than Vivian and Felipe. You know, they are
being strategic. They are trying to be able to continue
to offend over a period of time, but they stay
on track. This is where with like the prototypical serial
killer that we talk about, those types of offenders that
(48:02):
I've worked on, you know, there's this cooling off period
in between committing each crime, and so it shows that
the next time that they commit a crime, they can't
make an argument that they acted in a fit of
rage because they had the cooling off period and then
they reoffend, and then they reoffend, and that's what's happening
(48:23):
with Vivian and Felipe. It's just not for sexual gratification
or for fantasy aspects. It is anger retaliatory.
Speaker 1 (48:30):
What a story.
Speaker 2 (48:31):
And I did not intend for this to be a
two parter, but once we got into it and I
saw how interested you were in it and it is
a really interesting story, then I said, okay, well we're
going to have to expand on this because you know,
who are these people and why are they doing it?
This is one of the more complicated motives that I
feel like we've covered vengeance, I understand, but sort of
(48:53):
the mindset and the way they're going to go about
it is really very Hollywood and so sad. And I
believe them when they say that they've killed thirty two
people because you know, they had a purpose and they
could have said six hundred, you know, and we reached
the goal, but they said thirty two. And it reminds
me so much of the people who probably have been
(49:16):
killed by the serial killer in modern days, and there's
just no way to connect them. And you have these
families who just spend the rest of their lives wondering
what happened.
Speaker 3 (49:25):
No, no, for sure, you know it's in you know,
in some ways you see this, I guess, this battle
between two groups, you know, in the Colorado territory, and
you know it's it's sad that humans go after each
other this way, you know. But then now you see
how that type of environment created, you know, these two
(49:50):
brothers to have a mission, and that mission was to
go out and kill.
Speaker 2 (49:54):
Well, next week you will be in Colorado. Sadly, we
will not be in Colorado. We will definitely be in
a different stick well, our territory. Who knows who knows
this is our first territory too, So get some rest
because I'm sure I'm going to have another compelling.
Speaker 1 (50:10):
Story for you.
Speaker 3 (50:12):
All right, Well, once again, I'm looking forward to it and.
Speaker 1 (50:14):
See you later.
Speaker 3 (50:15):
All right, sounds good.
Speaker 2 (50:20):
This has been an exactly right production for our sources
and show notes go to exactly Rightmedia dot com slash
Buried Bones Sources. Our senior producer is Alexis Emirosi.
Speaker 3 (50:31):
Research by Maren mcclashan, Ali Elkin, and Kate Winkler Dawson.
Speaker 2 (50:35):
Our mixing engineer is Ben Tolliday.
Speaker 3 (50:38):
Our theme song is by Tom Bryfogel.
Speaker 2 (50:40):
Our artwork is by Vanessa Lilac.
Speaker 3 (50:42):
Executive produced by Karen Kilgaroff, Georgia hard Stark, and Daniel Kramer.
Speaker 2 (50:47):
You can follow Buried Bones on Instagram and Facebook at
Baried Bones Pod.
Speaker 3 (50:52):
Kate's most recent book, All That Is Wicked, a Gilded
Age story of murder and the race to decode the
criminal mind, is available
Speaker 2 (50:58):
Now, and Paul's selling memoir Unmasked, My life Solving America's
Cold Cases is also available now
Hosts And Creators
Kate Winkler Dawson
Paul Holes
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