Santa Fe daily New Mexican. [volume] (Santa Fe, N.M.) 1885-1897, 1895-05-31
FRIDAY. MAY 81.
CONCLUSION Of CHAVEZ MURDER TRIAL.

CONCLUSION Of CHAVEZ MURDER TRIAL.
The Chavez murder case, having ter
charged in the Indictment" is now p
suitable subject for editorial discussion.
On the Goth day of May, 1892, about 10
o'clock at night, ex-Sheriff Francisco
Chavez was waylaid and killed by cow
ardly and brutal assassins on the south
end of the Guadalupe bridge, in the city
of Santa Fe, within few hundred feet of
his home. All the circumstances sur
rounding the case, including the several
CHASTITY gunshot wounds in the body of
the deceased, indicated that the death of
Chavez was tho result of a deep-laid and
carefully matured conspiracy in which a
number of persons we're implicated, but
no serious or earnest efforts were made
at the time to discover and bring to
Justice the perpetrators of the dastardly
crime by the Republican officials then in
power in this county.
Four nights later Juan Pablo Domin-
guez. deputy and jailer under Sheriff
Chavez, was also waylaid and killed
nearly in front of the archblshop's resi-
dence. In obedience to circumstances
and proofs that neither could be ex-
planned away nor evaded, and measurably
to satisfy angry public opinion, Francisco
Gonzales Borrego, Whose hands were
known to be crimson with the life blood
of Sylvester Gallegos), Antonio Gonzales
Borrego and Laureano (Chino) Alarid
were arrested for this crime, and at the
end of trial, which was little better than a
farce, the three defendants were AGO utted
on the gauzy plea of self-defense and
turned loose upon the community. But
from that hour the stalwart finger of sus-
picion pointed N ore directly than ever
at the three men named and their init
mate associates as the probable MUIR
derers of Francisco Chavez. Few friends
of law and order, of whatsoever shade of
political opinion, doubted their guilt.
Time moved along. Gov. Thornton
became the executive of New Mexico and
Messrs. Crist and Cunningham became
respectively district attorney and sheriff
of this county by appointment of the
governor. quiet yet thorough investi-
cation of the Chavez assassination was
instituted. Finally sufficient evidence
was procured, and, on the afternoon of
January 8, 1893, armed with proper war
rants, Sheriff Cunningham and his depu-
ties sailed forth to apprehend Hipolito
Vigil, Francisco Gonzales y Borrego, An
tonic Gonzales y Borrego, Laureano Ala
rid and Patricio Valencia for the murder
of ex-Sheriff Chavez. The first named
resisted arrest and was killed. The other
four we're captured and locked up in Jail.
Soon after, the four persons accused we're
given the benefit of an exhaustive pre-
liminary hearing before Judge Seeds and
at the end thereof they were committed
to Jail without bail to await tho action of
the territorial district court.
After pninstaking investigation the
grand jury returned a true bill against
the defendants PANIED, charging them
with feloniously, unlawfully, wilfuly,
purposely and with express malice afore-
thought killing and numbering the de-
ceased, Francisco Chavez. Then on the
ed day of April, the territorial district
court in and for the first judicial district
of New Mexico, presided over by Judge
H. B. Hamilton, in place of Judge Laugh
lin, because the latter mad assisted in the
prosecution at the preliminary hearing,
took the case in hand. 1t has since
acted and acted in such decisive man
ner as not to be misunderstood. After
one of the most protracted and memoir
able trials in the annals of the west, the
defendants were found guilty of murder
in the first degree as charged in the in
dictment by twelve good and lawful men.
During the thirty-seven days the trial
was in progress the New MEXICAN scru-
pulously refrained from editorial COM
ment on the case. So far as space would
permit it faithfully reported the volumi-
nous testimony, together with the scenes
and incidents of the trial, just as each
day disclosed the same. Yet it has been
accused, by two or three unblushing and
badly informed territorial newspaper
apologists for crime, of coloring the tes-
tlmony to the prejudice of Mr.. Catron
and his clients and even of "pettifogging
the case" The verdict of the jury, found
ed upon the evidence exactly as it came
from the lips of the Witnesses, without
having read newspaper or conversed
with anyone from the time they first en-
tered the box until they we're finally dis
charged, is sufficient answer to these
foolish and spiteful Newspaper insinus-
tions. Yet 1t may be as we'll to say right
here that the New MEXICAN devoted more
space, nearly two columns Of solid BREWER
type, to the publication of Mr.. Catron's
carefully matured sworn abatement, at