Old Questa Murders

First Floyd Hamblen was killed at his store at llano pelado where Benito Sanchez lives. He was writing and someone came and hit him with an ax on the back of his head. They never knew who. A salesman came into the store and found him. He saw a car take off to Cerro but couldn’t say who it was.

The following late spring or early summer, my dad was called as a coroner because Mrs. Stanley was killed at the river where Fred Rael lives. Her husband killed her with a stick at the river because she knew who had killed Hamblen and she was going to tell.

A man had a bar and pool hall. He had a man from Mexico who had a share with him in the business. One night while his wife was away in another village with his daughter who had a baby, she went to stay with her. One night while this man was sleeping with his children, they were sleeping on the floor, his partner walked in and killed him while he was asleep. The children sleeping with their dad saw who had killed him. The person went back to Mexico.

James Redding (Santiago) he was called. He liked the Spanish name. He was herding some sheep at Guadalupita, the present fish hatchery. There were two men from Questa who had gone fishing all the way to the hatchery. They were up on a hill when they heard shots. They thought somebody had killed a deer. Then they saw a man with a gun run out of the sheep camp tent. He was in a hurry. They waited until he was out of sight, then they went to check the sheep camp.

They found Santiago with a bullet. He was dead. They came to Questa right away to let the justice of the peace know. He ordered a posse of eight men. They went up Red River canyon. They caught Conelly in a cabin and brought him down to the justice of peace.

He sentenced him to hang. Conelly appealed to the district court in Taos but his sentence was upheld.