MEXICO. Bud Parker’s Brother Murdered June 1916 Part 5

Frank Stidham, my cousin who had been a neighbor and pall bearer for Alice and Bill Parker, had a Meican working for him who had been there for years and was trusted completely. His name was  Juan Flores. frank decided since they hadn’t been able to outsmart Andreas in Old Mexico, maybe they could try to lure him into the States again. Frank went to Dave Parker with his plan, and Parker liked the idea.

Frank would let Jan take a couple of good saddle horses into Meico–one horse, Ned, had been roped from the wild bunch and was fast and toughp the other was supposedly to carry Juan’s pack. he was to find Andreas and get him to come back on his side to the line to help Juan steal frank’s remuda. Juan was to say that Frank had fire him and he wanted to get even. the lure was strong, since Andreas knew Frank had good saddle horses and plenty of them. Dave Parker was a little uneasy at the risk frank was taking and told him so. he said, “Juan may never come out again himself,” but Frank was firm and said he knew Juan; better still, Juan knew Frank. So dave told Frank to go ahead and try, and if Frank lost any horses, Dave would pay for them.

Everything went off fine. Juan said he found Andreas the fourth day in Mexico and talked him into trying for frank’s remuda. Andreas needed money badly, and he knew they would have no trouble selling any amount they could steal, so they started back for the line. On the third day they were high in the mountains but near enough for a quick dash into the States. The closer they got to the line, though, the more uneasy Andreas got. They camped for the night and were smoking and planning their next move when, down on the valley floor, cars began to move in from every direction.
A runner had been sent out from Ojitos by Bunk Spencer (manager for Charlie Warren, owner of the alamo Hueco or U-Bar on this side of the line also) that Andreas was there at the neighboring ranch. What the men on this side did not know was that he had been there but was now with Frank Stidham’s Juan Flores, heading back into the States. Frank and Dave Parker had kept their plans too quiet, and the fellows in the cars had no way of knowing that the trap was set for the fox and that he was about to take his last bait.

MEXICO: Bud Parker’s Brother Murdered June 1916 part 3

The Mexican’s wife, Josepha, later told that Andreas’  father had been trying to put Andreas up to this dirty work for a long time. after Andreas had killed Bill (with his own gun), Alice evidently ran to Bill and Andreas shot her also, as her body had fallen across Bill’s on the path leading back to the house. They wee still huddled there in death the net morning when C. B. Kincheloe, a close neighbor, rode in about 5:30 a.m. to pick up Bill’s wagon and team to get a load of paint, lumber and barbed wire from Animas Station.

When Kicheloe made his discovery, he hurried back home and told Bob, his son, about the murders an they quickly notified as many people as they could reach. George Godfrey, another close neighbor, and Bob went back to Bill’s and they in turn told Dolph Winkler. Dolph went to tell the Parkers, Bill’s dad Dave, living si miles east, and Parker brothers Bud, Dink and Ope. Ope was in El Paso at the time; he and Una Worthington had gone there to be married and were on their wedding trip.

Bud Parker and brother Dink went to Bill’s and joined the posse of men on horseback. about forty men in all had gathered, including Jim Bennett; Oliver Olds; Bud and Dink Paker; Bob Kicheloe; Pat McCulloch; Jess Cook; Bruce, Doyle and Roy Woods; John Paks; “Hammer” Livingston; Barney parker; A. Gruell; Bob akins; Joe Yarborough; Alec Burtrong; Blondie Evans; Bill adams; and Ben robertson (the Diamond A manager at that time), who was put in charge. some of the other men were George Godfrey, Alf Yarborough, Frank Nations, Charlie and Bill Eddleman, Leo McKinney, eck Upshaw, Lem Spilsbury, Elmer Turner, John Curry, Bill Townsend, Fred Sandford, Wilbur Stevens, Del Krebaum (father of Alice), Burt Rhodes, Slim Sims, Leonard Bean, Walter Maloney, Shad Hobbs, and Bob Caylor.

The list may not be complete since Bob Kincheloe, George Godfrey, and the two Woods boys, Bruce and Roy, are the only men of this possee still known to be living, and they have been unable to complete the list from memory.

MEXICO. Bud Parker’s Brother Murdered June 1916 Part 2

Roy Woods and his brother Bruce reached Alice and Bill Parker’s about 10 o’clock on the morning the bodies were found. everybody believed that the couple had been murdered by horse thieves, who had taken a big bunch and headed for the line, so the men gathered at High Lonesome with the intention of cutting the thieves back at the border, getting horses and murderers at the same time. Roy Woods and Bob Kincheloe were sent to Fitzpatrick, another Diamond A camp, with a message, so were separated from the main posse. On the way back to the main bunch, Roy dropped by home (the T outfit) to change horses.

While changing horses Roy’s brother Bruce also rode in and told him they had rounded up Parker’s pasture and found only two horses missing, one grey, and one a dark brown (Bill and Alice’s pet saddle horses). Their saddles and guns were also missing. Fred Sanford had seen a man and a woman ride through his corral and water their horses the night before–one a grey horse and the other dark–so now the men suspected it was Andreas and his wife they were after. Within a few more hours, they were at the Gray Ranch on their way to crossing into Old Mexico at the Lang.

The posse had checked the Mexican’s movements as much as was possible at Bill Parker’s and found he had cut Bill’s gunbelt down. Bill Parker was a big man, just twenty-four years old (Alice was twenty), and the Mexican, being small, had left quite a long piece of leather. He had taken both of Bill’s guns, so was well armed. The posse crossed into Mexico at the Lang ranch about sundown on the 27th, the same day Bill and Alice had been found. They trailed the couple through Diablo Canyon and to the top of the Sierra Madre. There the men decided from the direction Andreas and Joseph were taking where they were going, so the posse turned back to get cars instead of horses and be waiting to head them off.

After the inquest, Mrs. Cade Wright and Viola Wright, near neighbors, had helped lay Alice out for burial, and Bob Caylor and Shadd Hobbs had taken the two bodies into hachita, new Meico for burial. They were laid to rest in the same grave on June 28. Mrs Viola Wright, now ninety three years old, still lives in the animas Vealley of New Mexico.

Again the posse (joined by Ope Parker who had hurried home from El Paso), together with Bob Caylor and  Shadd Hobbs and two Mexican brothers Tiburcio and santiago Echeveriel, who had worked for Bill Parker a couple of years and begged to go, crossed the line into Mexico and headed for the Ojitos Ranch. They reached there too late to catch Andreas, but he had left Josepha at another ranch nearby. The posse brought her out and to the jail in Silver City. She was kept there for four months, at which time her uncle (the jailer) and Herb McGrath, sheriff, turned her loose, saying she had committed no crime. She was six or seven months pregnant.

MEXICO. Bud Parker’s Brother Murdered June 1916 Part 1

Tragedy At Pig Pen Part 1

By Maggie Sims Robertson

The crack of gunshots bounced from the hilltops a time or two–then died away in the distance. now all was quiet, including the two pitifully still forms lying together where they had fallen. Alice Krebaum and Bill Parker of Hidalgo County, New Mexico, had been married just five months to the day, when they breathed their last on that hot evening of June 26, 1916.

They had been up that morning with the sunrise and busy with their work. Alice was painting and making big plans for their future, and Bill, with the hel of a young Mexican, Andreas Valenzuela, was fencing and improving the “Pig Pen” place, bought earlier from Charlie Yarborough. The Mexican and his wife were well known to Bill and Alice, since Andreas had worked for Bill’s dad, Dave Parker, for about two years before Bill married and moved to the Pig Pen.

With a hard day’s work behind them, Alice and Bill had gone to the corral and cowpen about 5 or 6 p.m. to milk, leaving Bill’s guns, of course, in the house. Andreas evidently knew where both the .45 six-shooter and rifle were kept as he had been with them long enough for them to trust him completely. Old Man Valenzuela, Andreas’ father, was a horse of a diffeent color, so Bill thought, since he was wanted on both sides of the line–in Old Mexico for murder, and in the States for murdering three sheep herders near Carlsbad, new Mexico.

After Bill and Alice moved to the Pig Pen, the old man kept coming out of Mexico to visit Andreas and his wife. Pancho Villa was kicking up quite a dust against his government at that time, and in Mexico horses, saddles and guns were badly needed and bringing good money. So after his third trip out on this side of the line, Bill told Andreas to tell his dad to stay away or the next time he crossed the border, Bill would turn him over to the law. This evidently was what triggered the double murder since, despite rumors and suppositions, of a few, there had been no quarrel between Bill and Andreas.