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DEATH OP EDDV CO. SHERIFFGeorge W. Batton, sheriff of Eddy County, was killed at Hope, Saturday night about eleven o’clock. And Stone Wilburn was seriously but not fatally wounded.Mr. Hatton had recieved notice, to arrest Pedro Galeanda, a Mexican murderer and escaped convict from a Texas penitentiary.With his deputies, the trail was struck at Carlsbad, where the convict had robbed another Mexican of his wife, and had left with her in the direction of Hope. At the hour above mentioned he was located with the woman at the home of Angelita Lujan, an aged Mexican long a resident of Hope. The abducted woman proved to be a daughter of Augelita.When ths officers reached the house, Angelita met them at the. door and said, Pedro Galeanda is not here, you may come in and see for yourselves.”The crafty woman had him concealed in a corner of the room and a barracade improvised of a dresser and bedding. The desperado there lay in wait for the officers. He was armed with a deadly .44 pistol loaded with soft nose cartridges, and sticking in a crease of the dresser were two great knives, as 6harp and murderous as Turkish Simeters.The sheriff had engaged Stone Wilburn as a special deputy for the occasion, knowing him to be a man of nerve and the case a desperate one. Therefore disbelieving Angelita, to preclude escape of the convict, one entered at the back and one at the front door. A dim light was burning, the Mexican women were covered up in bed.By some strange telepathy, the citizens had obtained knowledge that trouble was brewing. As coming events cast their shadows.Wilburn pulled the dresser back and called, Here he is George” and was answered by a shot from the crouching man's pistol that plowed its way through his side, then came the angry barking of the guns of Wilburn arid B tton, some fifteen or twenty shots in all The lights were out. It is not known whether the Mexican woman blew out the lightor the con cuasion of the heavy detonation of the guns extinguished them Then came calm after the storm had passed.The Mexican women had fled from the house during the shooting They were found and told to go back into the house. They protested but were forced to enter. The elder woman entered crawling upon her hands and knees with her face near the floor. She quickly re turned with the pistol of the convict saying, “All the men are dead”The deputies who had surrounded the house after the fight with autos and focused the lights on eve ry part of the house’ found the sheriff dead and Wilburn badly wounded, the barricade torn and shot to pieces and Pedro Galeanda crumbled limp and bloody upon the flqor absolutely riddled with bullets.After the smoke of battle had cleared away the little room resembled the Shambles. There were great pools of gore and blood every where, and the walls of the house torn with bulletsIt was a sad procession that wended its way to Carlsbad bearing all that was mortal of George W. Bat-ton, the two Mexican women and the dead convict.The saddest feature of the awful tragedy, was when the cortege reached Artesia, was the meeting with the good wife and children of the murdered sheriff. Love could not wait even to meet death, and the faithful wife with her now fatherless children, had hastened to meet and claim her husband tho dead even if it did break her heart.Some twelve years ago when the little old wooden jail stood near the American Legion hall, a desperate Mexican was apprehended and locked within the primitive structure. That night aided by an accomplice from the outside he was hand ed an ax through the bars and chopped his way to liberty. That man was Pedro Galeanda who after a decade of years returned to expaciate his crime with his lifes blood at the hands of George W. Batton and Stone Wilburn in the litttle shack of Angelita.MUCHMONEY IN— —SONGSA song hit may make you rich and famous. If you have s 9ong poem, mail it to the Press and will forward it to Lutie Hodder Wheeler, of Albuquerque, N. M., a great composer of music. She will give it critical examination and if she thinks it good, will tell you the cost setting it to music.Read the advertisements.They will save you money.
Newspaper Details
Hope Penasco Valley Press
Hope, New Mexico, US
Fri, Jun 09, 1922
Page 1
Full Page
Clipped by
Verna M.
NM, USA 05 Dec 2017
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Hope Penasco Valley Press
