Murder on the Range PT 2

This is exactly right.

Old cases, new waters.

We're taking buried bones on a cruise.

This October, we're setting sail with Virgin Voyages on the first ever true crime podcast cruise, and we want you to join us.

We've got five nights of events, meetups, and mystery on board, plus a live taping of buried bones that you won't want to miss.

This is an all-inclusive experience.

No kids, no stress.

Join the true crime experience to the Dominican Republic and Bippini, Bahamas.

Book now at virginvoyages.com/slash true crime.

That's virginvoyages.com/slash true crime.

We'll see you on the ship.

Every business has an ambition.

PayPal Open is the platform designed to help you grow into yours with business loans so you can expand and access to hundreds of millions of PayPal customers worldwide.

And your customers can pay all the ways they want with PayPal, Venmo, Pay Later, and all major cards.

So you can focus on scaling up.

When it's time to get growing, there's one platform for all business: PayPal Open.

Grow today at PayPalOpen.com.

Loan subject to approval in available locations.

This episode is brought to you by IQ Bar, our exclusive snack and hydration sponsor.

IQ Bar is the Better For You plant protein-based snack made with brain-boosting nutrients to refuel, nourish, and satisfy hunger without the sugar crash.

The Ultimate Sampler Pack is a great way to try all IQ bar products and flavors.

You get nine IQ bars, eight IQ Mix sticks, and four IQ Joe sticks.

All IQ bar products are entirely free from gluten, dairy, soy, GMOs, and artificial sweeteners.

With over 20,000 five-star reviews and counting, more people than ever are starting their days on the right foot with IQ Bars, brain and body boosting bars, hydration mixes, and mushroom coffees.

I always feel like I have to have something to perk me up in the afternoon.

IQ bars are really convenient and they taste great.

And right now, IQ Bar is offering our special podcast listeners 20% off all IQ products, plus get free shipping.

To get your 20% off, just text bones to 64,000.

Text Bones to 64,000.

That's B-O-N-E-S to $64,000.

Message and data rates may apply.

See terms for details.

I'm Kate Winkler-Dawson.

I'm a journalist who's spent the last 25 years writing about true crime.

And I'm Paul Holz, a retired cold case investigator who's worked some of America's most complicated cases and solved them.

Each week, I present Paul with one of history's most compelling true crimes.

And I weigh in using modern forensic techniques to bring new insights to old mysteries.

Together, using our individual expertise, we're examining historical true crime cases through a 21st-century lens.

Some are solved and some are cold.

Very cold.

This is Buried Bones.

Hey, Paul.

Hey, Kate.

How are you?

I'm doing well.

I am tasking you with doing the summary from last week's episode of the mess that is in the Colorado Territory in 1863.

It's awful.

Tell me what you remember, and then I'll tell you you were wrong about all of it.

Just kidding.

No, you know, so yeah, I have to look at my notes from last week.

But so it appears in March of 1863, 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 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 know, multiple weeks, but relative to the distances that these crimes are occurring, the offender is

moving around and 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.

Yep.

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 Canyon City.

Then we had the next day Henry and he was the one who was supposed to be cooking inside the cabin.

He was found with, you you know, axe, hacks all over his body, and then he was shot.

Then we have on March 31st, which is

11 days later, we have John Adelton, and John was murdered at a way station, and it looks like robbed.

The place was tossed completely.

Then we have about eight days later after that, much further north, we have Jacob Binkley and Abram Shoup and they are at a 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, is it looks like there's only one shot per victim.

And I don't know what that means.

So it says, you know, that Adelton 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 was shot in the back.

And then Shoup was found at the bottom of the gulch.

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.

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 make and model the weapon that fired a projectile.

These are black powder guns.

And it very well may be that the weapon that the offender is 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 was, you know, Henry who shot inside 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.

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, of course, 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

two different weapons are used with the last case that you talked about with Jacob and

Abram?

Yep.

Yep, Jacob and Abram.

You know, does that suggest that maybe you have two offenders?

It could.

However, a single offender could possibly accomplish the same thing, depending on the sequence.

But, you know, in 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 escalation, I know, is not the right word, but the development of what is happening with each of these murders is interesting.

Well, I think, you know, probably the only thing I would, I would draw upon, the fact that the last case 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 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.

But then you also have the possibility of two offenders going, yep, let's let's do this.

It just happened that Abram and Jacob were out camping together and they were sized up by the offender as being, okay, these are targets and they likely have money or any other things of financial value that the offender wanted.

Aaron Ross Brazil, 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.

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 are all young guys, too.

Well, but you also have to take 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 got, I have to take him out first.

You know, so that.

aspect, that processing aspect by the offender is still in play.

We just don't know.

This episode is brought to you by IQBar, our exclusive snack and hydration sponsor.

IQBar is the Better For You plant protein-based snack made with brain-boosting nutrients to refuel, nourish, and satisfy hunger without the sugar crash.

The Ultimate Sampler Pack is a great way to try all IQ Bar products and flavors.

You get nine IQ bars, eight IQ Mix sticks, and four IQ Joe sticks.

All IQ IQ Bar products are entirely free from gluten, dairy, soy, GMOs, and artificial sweeteners.

With over 20,000 five-star reviews and counting, more people than ever are starting their days on the right foot with IQ Bars, brain and body boosting bars, hydration mixes, and mushroom coffees.

I always feel like I have to have something to perk me up in the afternoon.

IQ bars are really convenient and they taste great.

And right now, IQ Bar is offering our special podcast listeners 20% off all IQ products, plus get free shipping.

To get your 20% off, just text Bones to 64,000.

Text Bones to 64,000.

That's B-O-N-E-S to $64,000.

Message and data rates may apply.

See terms for details.

The secret to a great outfit is having the right foundation.

Honey Love makes bras and shapewear that are supportive, lightweight, and designed to move with you.

Start every outfit with Honey Love, and the rest falls into place.

Honey Love is an independent, female-founded brand.

All Honey Love products are intelligently designed by women who actually wear them.

They recently launched their new cloud-embrace bra.

It's a wireless bra for people who love underwire.

This style is bound to sell out again, so don't wait to try it.

Honey Love Shapewear is designed to move with you.

It uses targeted compression to enhance your curves instead of squeeze them.

It's designed to work with your body, not against it.

Treat yourself to the most advanced bras and shapewear on the market.

Save 20% off honeylove at honeylove.com slash buried.

Use our exclusive link to get 20% off honeylove.com slash buried to find your perfect fit.

After you purchase, they ask you where you heard about them.

Please support our show and tell them we sent you.

Experience the new standard in bras and shapewear with Honey Love.

Every business has an ambition.

PayPal Open is the platform designed to help you grow into yours with business loans so you can expand and access to hundreds of millions of PayPal customers worldwide.

And your customers can pay all the ways they want with PayPal, Venmo, Pay Later, and all major cards so you can focus on scaling up.

When it's time to get growing, there's one platform for all business: PayPal Open.

Grow today at paypalopen.com.

Loan subject to approval in available locations.

Well, let's move move over because I did give you quite a big tease.

I will say we have five men dead in about three weeks over upwards of 100 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 three weeks after the murder at the campground in the same area, there's a man named Edward Metcalfe.

He's leading oxen through a mountain pass.

Earlier in the day, there was an acquaintance of his named 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 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 is gone.

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.

Edward is.

Edward, 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 doesn't go through.

It hits the Emancipation Proclamation.

And when the oxen, when they hear the gunshot, flip out and they bolt.

And there's a second shot that misses Edward.

Now Edward's wagon hits a rock.

He's, poor guy, he's bounced out onto the ground.

He hears nearby shots and it sounds like he sees two men in the distance.

Another person also sees or hears the shooting and rides into Fairplay 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 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 Fairplay.

So Bill is killed.

And he's shot and attacked with the axe.

And then when Edward comes across Bill's body, and I'm not sure what kind of timeframe we're talking about,

in terms of Edward and Bill passing each other and then Edward circling back around, but the offender is still in the same area.

But Edward's not seeing the offender and he 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 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 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 offenders that are working in concert, where you have one offender that, in essence, stays concealed and is armed with a firearm, and the other offender is interacting with them and is armed with a knife and 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, this is a thoroughfare.

And so now they're just lying in wait for the next victim.

And it happens to be Edward.

Yes.

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, 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-retaliatory type of offender, where Edward and Bill aren't necessarily men that they had any interpersonal angst about.

It's just 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.

Well, and so now we're thinking that this might be a switch from robbery, victims of opportunity, to targeting specific types of, you're right, they're all the same demographic.

They're 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 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 are 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 this to make my life a little bit easier if there's money or an overcoat to be worn in.

Is that what that would be?

Sure.

The financial aspect of these crimes may be secondary if this is the if the motive is truly retaliating against the white settler.

And there may be an undercurrent by

these offenders that if we do this, we're going to drive out the white settlers.

They're going 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 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 version.

If this is the reason 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 not fantasy motivated.

It's very different, a different type of

criminal.

But

in some ways, the DC snipers are kind of popping into my head

in terms of sort of the psychology of the reason to commit the crimes.

So maybe this is what's going on, but until we identify these offenders, right now, I mean, Edward is, he's being shot at.

You know,

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.

Every business has an ambition.

PayPal Open is the platform designed to help you grow into yours with business loans so you can expand and access to hundreds of millions of PayPal customers worldwide.

And your customers can pay all the ways they want with PayPal, Venmo, Pay Later, and all major cards so you can focus on scaling up.

When it's time to get growing, there's one platform for all business: PayPal Open.

Grow today at PayPalOpen.com.

Loan subject to approval in available locations.

This show is sponsored by BetterHelp.

When life gets overwhelming, who do you turn to?

Maybe it's a friend or a family member.

Talking helps, but a licensed therapist has the training to help you work through what's weighing on you, not just listen.

BetterHelp has over 30,000 therapists and has helped more than 5 million people worldwide, making it the largest online therapy platform out there.

And it works with an average rating of 4.9 out of 5 for a live session based on over 1.7 million client reviews.

BetterHelp is convenient too.

You can join a session with a therapist at the click of a button, helping you fit therapy into your busy life.

Plus, switch therapists at any time.

Sometimes you need to talk to someone who doesn't have some stake in whatever you're discussing.

I think everyone can benefit from therapy.

As the largest online therapy provider in the world, BetterHelp can provide access to mental health professionals with a diverse variety of expertise.

Find the one with BetterHelp.

Our listeners get 10% off their first month at betterhelp.com slash buried bones.

That's better H-E-L-P dot com slash buried bones.

Fall is here and it's the perfect time to update your wardrobe with pieces that feel great and look even better.

Quince makes it simple to stay warm, look sharp, and save while you do it.

Quince has all the elevated essentials for fall, think 100% Mongolian cashmere from $50,

washable silk tops and skirts, and perfectly tailored denim.

The best part?

Everything with Quince is half the cost of similar brands, and Quince only works with factories that use safe, ethical, and responsible manufacturing practices and premium fabrics and finishes.

I think my favorite favorite thing is this lightweight cotton cashmere v-neck sweater, which is the one I have that I love, is charcoal gray, and actually, I have a black one too.

Keep it classy and cozy this fall with long-lasting staples from Quince.

Right now, go to quince.com/slash bones to get free shipping and 365-day returns on your next order.

That's q-u-i-n-ce-e dot com/slash bones for free shipping and 365-day returns.

Quince.com/slash bones.

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 Lehman and Sol Sega.

They're found northeast of Fairplay.

So they're staying, the offender or offenders is saying, 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 Sol had been traveling with a group, though 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.

There's a little bit of legend mixed in with fact here is what Allie 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 an interview with one of the people who discovered these men that Lehman's paper collar, 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.

Do you know what a paper collar is?

No, you know, I'm wondering if it's something to help keep the collar

kind of shaped right.

So a paper collar in the 1800s were detachable and they were designed to be worn with shirts and were a practical solution to the labor-intensive task of laundering and ironing.

One little account said, you either need a wife or you need the money to have them launder.

You either have a wife or you need to have them 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 wreaked upon Americans as a sacrifice to the virgin.

So now, I mean, this is just spilling the beans.

The offenders are sending a message, right?

And 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, I was thinking.

They have felt slighted by the white settlers moving in.

They are vindictive about that.

They're retaliating against anybody that's representative of, you know, the reason why their lifestyle had changed.

And the cross,

one of these last victims had a, you said, a crucifix carved, which that's cross, right?

But crucifix, if I'm right, being born and raised Catholic, obviously we know that individuals of Mexican descent,

it was a strong Catholic background.

And so now, sort of to your point in the first episode, is that the cross is 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 to who they carved crosses in?

But this is now just showing, okay, the motive of these crimes is anger retaliatory, you know, And now they're letting them know they're writing in Spanish.

They are indicating that they have a certain religious philosophy and they have a certain victimology that they're going after.

And this is no different than how we evaluate offenders today.

This is where now you see, based off of these crimes, you can start to piece together who your suspect pool might be.

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 Shoup, 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, Frederick and Seoul live in an area called California Gulch.

It's somewhat more populous than any of these other areas, and there's a big community of prospectors who come together.

So, about 17 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 Soule being connected to this particular area that has a large prospector population, but this really sends people into a fury and they start to gather these militias.

What do you think?

Well, yeah, well, I think there's

multiple layers as to

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.

You know, they now are going, we have to stop whoever's doing this.

Now,

is there 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.

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 McCann

is the main person here, 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, 1863.

So they're talking about probably December of 1862.

Now, this is in 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 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 Felipe Espinoza.

And this is actually a pretty famous story.

The Espinoza family had been punished for this robbery terribly.

They lived in a plaza called San Rafael in January of 63.

So probably about a month after the robbery.

And a few months before the killings, a U.S.

Marshal brought 16 soldiers to their plaza to arrest them.

And at first they tried to get them to come peacefully, but Vivian and Felipe, you know, don't fall for this story.

The U.S.

Marshal said we're recruiting for the Union Army.

The U.S.

Marshal 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 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 and their livestock, which is 11 cows and oxen and a steer, four beds, one trunk, two water buckets, and leaves the surviving family with nothing.

Both of the 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.

So as far as motive, yeah, what do you think?

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 robbery.

But this is just where now they, in their own minds, have been wronged, and they are now taking that anger out on people who are representative of the soldiers and the white settlers in terms of who's impacted their lives personally.

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, they didn't kill him.

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 what you had said, sort of what happened with the U.S.

Marshal and

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 land taken away from them by the white settlers.

So, yeah, I mean, we're right there.

That is what sounds like is the motive for all of this.

I always come back to this, that idea that

people think this is such an extraordinary case, the one that happened, you know, two months ago, and they're not.

I mean, these are the kinds of cases that happen.

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?

Well, I wouldn't use the terms 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.

They are committing a series of crimes.

This is in essence, you know, a series.

series of robberies, just like what we see today, but they're committing a series of homicides.

And there is a robbery component.

But I think, you know, when you start talking about the financial aspect of this crime, they feel that they've been wronged and their, you know, their friends, their family, the, you know, the other people of Mexican descent have been financially wronged.

So the financial motive of the crimes and the homicides that they're committing may be representative in their 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 they're still probably in 1860s, even though they're living 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 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?

You know, usually when you see the spree-type cases, there isn't that cooling off period.

You know, the significant cooling, 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 a way that this series would be labeled as a spree.

For me, it's a series.

That's kind of how I would label it.

I wonder why they don't go after specific people who have wronged them, like tracking down the U.S.

Marshal who, you know, instigated that whole thing or some of the soldiers who were there or the deputies who were there.

Surely somebody in their plaza had land taken away and now the white person, the white settler is living there.

I mean,

why not be specific?

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 versus, you know, men who have isolated themselves,

driving the oxen or riding on the stagecoach down to the sawmill.

Those are much more vulnerable and easier victims that are lower risk to these brothers than them charging.

at armed soldiers at some fort.

That's what I would say to that.

If they could band together, let's say a group of 100 men that had the same experience as they did and the same anger, then you could see where they would maybe go after the various entities that directly harmed them.

But they don't have that capability.

So now they're using these other men as proxies in order to be able to get the vengeance that they seek.

Well, it's clear that McCannon 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, I don't know why they thought specifically this was him, but they were pretty sure and they turned 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 am impressed when people track, you know, folks down in major cities, too, with all of the people around them.

So maybe I shouldn't be so shocked, but they find them.

Yeah, no,

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.

And it turns out it's, it's one of these brothers.

I'm envisioning the old wanted posters,

wanted dead or alive, right?

You know, with a reward and the photos of the individuals.

And

I'm kind of curious to see if something like that was posted out there at certain places.

No, I don't think so.

And I was just thinking, okay, where would be the common places?

I guess in California Gulch where the prospectors are, but I don't know what they would do.

I guess at way stations, like where John was killed.

Sure.

You know, you would put him at places where you know that there's sort of foot traffic.

I guess you could nail them to trees.

Who knows?

They identify Vivian.

McCannon'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.

This is who?

This is Felipe or Vivian?

This is Vivian.

Vivian, okay.

They do see Felipe,

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 McCann 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.

They thought, wait, he might be on our team, but Felipe 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 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 you going to build this case, you know, and prove that these two brothers are the ones responsible for all those homicides?

You know, and this is where now it's like, do they have the firearm that was used in the various cases?

Do they have the axe?

You know, start building up, even though you can't do modern forensics on potential evidence from these weapons.

You know, you most certainly could see how these weapons may, you know, if they have access to them, that 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 the weapons available.

to be able to commit these crimes over the last three or four weeks or however long it was.

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: 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.

So you're right.

I mean, there's not that proof except.

I love stories like this because I find it so fascinating when people do things.

They look at Vivian's body and the campsite.

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 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 Vivian had it.

It says that the brothers planned to kill 600 white men as retribution for their stolen property.

And, you know, what happened with the U.S.

Marshal.

There's another document that is also found on Vivian's person that says that their father had also been a murderer and that Vivian is compelled to commit 50 additional murders to atone for his father's sins.

Allie, the researcher, says, I don't know what that means, but that's what the paper apparently said.

So there are those two things, and for good measure, McCannon cuts off Vivian's head and brings it back to fair play as proof.

So what do you think about those?

You know, they find some stolen items, which could have been discarded by the real killer and they picked up and took with them.

Who knows?

You know?

Yeah, you know, but I would say, you know, they got the right guys.

You know, the manifestos, this is where I had 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.

Most famously is the Unabobber, you know, Ted Kaczynski.

He had a mission, you know, he 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 generations just always seem to be on the wrong side.

And, you know, 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 what you've told me, you know, I'm confident they got the right guys,

you know.

But 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 moving in, you know,

the gold rush, if you will,

in this particular area.

You know, 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.

Well, it keeps going, Paul.

I mean, Felipe is not going to be discouraged this easily.

He's on the run.

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.

McCann and Party took the head, and Felipe buries what's left of Vivian, and then he brings Vivian's foot with him.

It means something to him, you know, just like the killing of 50 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 to Vivian's place and stay there, which is not far.

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 600 white men continues.

They kill a fisherman named William Smith.

This is to the south, which is closer where the Espinozas live.

They think that there are likely more attacks that happened.

You know,

it just is something maybe they don't know about, or the person went missing and it was never reported.

This is the thing that sort of upsets me:

in October, they attack a man and a woman who are driving a wagon near Fort Garland.

The woman's name is Dolores Sanchez, and the man's last name is Philbrook.

We can figure out his first name.

The two people run in opposite directions.

Once they rob the wagon, they catch Dolores and they rape her.

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 why I found that surprising.

It was a big switch to me, sexually assaulting someone.

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 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 Philippe being so outraged with what happened to them.

But at the same time, it looks like they have an innate criminality trait.

And now you're starting to see they're willing to do just about anything to anybody.

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 freights without a military escort.

The commander at Fort Garland asked an esteemed 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 Espinozas.

And he's given 15 soldiers to work with.

He ends up being like a famous frontiersman in the Wild West.

He's nicknamed Rocky Mountain Tom.

It takes Tom one day to find the trail.

He finds oxen tracks near La Vieta Pass, 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 that the Espinozas had brought the other ox to the campsite 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 the, they're not flying, they're on the wind 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.

Okay.

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 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 that damn twig.

And it's always a twig.

I mean, even in horror movies.

And Felipe immediately goes for his gun.

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, but at that point, Tom and his men are down at the campsite, and there's no getting away from it.

And he ends up, you know, killing him and then beheading Felipe.

That is a very Hollywood dramatic ending to, you know, this sort of story.

They find a diary Felipe had been keeping.

It kind of indicates the same thing why they're doing this to begin with.

But he says that he and his brother and his nephew had killed a total of 32 people in eight months.

And, you know, in October, they bring Felipe's head back to Fort Garland.

So the head is just proof that I got the guy, right?

Yeah.

And probably Tobin is being paid once he delivers the head.

I'm sure a lot of money, yeah.

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 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 to?

Is he taking it back to 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 U.S.

soldiers or whatever.

But from my perspective, just the series itself is the way that it

played out is, okay, yeah, it's like if you 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 present.

And I wonder if they knew 600 was not, well, 650 was not realistic.

And they were just going to keep going until 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 taken away is

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, I mean, I can't even imagine he thought he was going to survive this.

Yeah.

But, but also, it's, it's sort of, you take a look at the timeframe and they're saying that they killed 32.

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 whatever version of law enforcement was available back in in the day, they're like, nah, nobody's going to be able to figure us out.

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.

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 upperbringing, which I don't know if that was ever explicitly stated in the details, but I'm presuming that that's the case.

So that's what I'm thinking,

is that this is something they are doing this in a way,

it's like Vivian writing about killing 50 more to atone for

his father, right?

They've permuted some of the traditional Catholic traditions into a way to where now they are somehow justifying and/or atoning for the crimes that they're committing.

Yeah.

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 was, I mean, quite a long time ago, but I remember it was an older man 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 don't want to survive.

Have you felt like that's true or no?

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 is 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, 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, 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 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 with Vivian and Felipe.

It's just not for sexual gratification or for fantasy aspects.

It is anger retaliatory.

What a story.

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 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 32 people because, you know, they had a purpose.

And they could have said 600, you know, and oh, we reached the goal, but they said 32.

And it reminds me so much of the people who probably have been 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.

Nope, I know 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 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 brothers to have a mission.

And that mission was to go out and kill.

Well, next week, you will be in Colorado.

Sadly, we will not be in Colorado.

We will definitely be in a different state

or 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 story for you.

All right.

Well, once again, I'm looking forward to it.

We'll see you later.

All right.

Sounds good.

This has been an Exactly Right Production.

For our sources and show notes, go to exactlyrightmedia.com slash buried bones sources.

Our senior producer is Alexis Emerosi.

Research by Marin McClashin, Allie Elkin, and Kate Winkler-Dawson.

Our mixing engineer is Ben Tolliday.

Our theme song is by Tom Breifogel.

Our artwork is by Vanessa Lilac.

Executive produced by Karen Kilgariff, Georgia Hardstark, and Danielle Kramer.

You can follow Buried Bones on Instagram and Facebook at Buried Bones Pod.

Kate's most recent book, All That Is Wicked: A Gilded Age Story of Murder and the Race to Decoat the Criminal Mind, is available now.

And Paul's best-selling memoir, Unmasked, My Life Solving America's Cold Cases, is also available now.

Old cases, new waters.

We're taking buried bones on a cruise.

This October, we're setting sail with Virgin Voyages on the first ever True Crime Podcast Cruise, and we want you to join us.

We've got five nights of events, meetups, and mystery on board, plus a live taping of buried bones that you won't want to miss.

This is an all-inclusive experience.

No kids, no stress.

Join the true crime experience to the Dominican Republic and Biomini, Bahamas.

Book now at virginvoyages.com/slash true crime.

That's virginvoyages.com/slash true crime.

We'll see you on the ship.

Ah, smart water alkaline with antioxidant.

Pure, crisp taste, perfectly refreshing.

Whoa, that is refreshing.

And a 9.5 plus pH.

For those who move, those who push further, those with...

A taste for taste?

Exactly.

I did take a spin class today after work.

Look at you.

Restoring like a pro.

I mean, I also sat down halfway through.

Eh, close enough.

Smartwater alkaline with antioxidant.

For those with a taste for taste, grab yours today.

This is an ad by BetterHelp.

We've all had that epic rideshare experience.

Halfway through your best friends, and they know your aspirations to go find yourself in Portugal.

It's human.

We're all looking for someone to listen.

But not everyone is equipped to help.

With over a decade of experience, BetterHelp matches you with the right therapist.

See why they have a 4.9 rating out of 1.7 million client session reviews.

Visit betterhelp.com for 10% off your first month.