used the cowboy’s body as kindling, as they turned the campfire into a bonfire.
While researching this story, old timers have pointed out to me the ensconced Satanic ramifications of this crime. The oldsters claim that the cremation of a murder victim is an act filled with demonic symbolism.
Forensic wana-bees disagree with the old bloods’ ideas that Martinez’s immolation was linked to some type of Black Mass offering. Modern sleuths think, yesteryears evildoers are just like today’s criminals. The bad guys do not want anything found at a crime scene that can be used as evidence against them.
Chavez and Vialpando were confident they had cheated justice. After all, the only witnesses to the murder were their two intimidated stooges and a dying dog. Little did they know how Gallardo was going to turn the tables on them.
With great effort Gallardo made his way back to his master’s ranch house. At the homestead, Maximilian, dropped his barn tools and ran to the approaching whimpering dog. Gallardo’s wound was quickly bandaged.
Knowing something terrible had happened to his older brother, Maximilian readied himself for a search and a possible gunfight. Revived by food and water, Gallardo ran after mounted Maximilian who was following as best he could the drops of blood on the ground and snow that marked Gallardo’s homeward trek. Maximillian reasoned that he would find his brother in the area of where Gallardo had been shot. By barks and movement Gallardo would signal to Maximillian, when the cowboy lost track of the route.
Late that afternoon, Gallardo, weak from loss of blood, managed to lead Maximilian to the outlaws’ deserted campsite. Maximilian searched the gullies and glades. His calls of, “Yell out – I will find you,” were met with silence.
As the brush and surrounding area was reconnoitered, Gallardo began sniffing at the camp’s warm bonfire pit. Seeing how Gallardo was burning his paws in the hot ash and now fearing the worst. Maximilian dug through the embers and found a boot heel and his brother’s blackened leg and pelvic bone.
The authorities in Santa Fe were notified and posses were organized. Sheriff William Cunningham and his constables tracked Martinez’s murderers from the spent bonfire with a vengeance. At times snowfalls obliterated the bad men’s tracks, but the lawmen would not give up the chase.
Eventually Chavez was arrested in San Augustin and Vialpando in La Tablazon. Confusing accounts have Encenias and Trujillo being captured together and before Chavez and Vialpando were apprehended.
SANTA FE JUSTICE
The outlaws were brought to Santa Fe, where District Attorney Lewis Fort prosecuted them. Presiding over the trial was Judge Thomas Smith. Encenias and Trujillo were acquitted of murder charges, but were convicted of steeling cattle. The young duo were seen as non-violent pawns.
A jury of their peers found Chavez and Vialpando guilty of homicide on March 3, 1895.
Through interrogation and court proceedings Chavez and Vialpando confessed to their evil deeds. On April 12, 1895, the murderers received a death warrant. The gunmen were to be executed in public by hanging on Saturday November 19, 1895, between the hours of 6:00 a.m. and 10:00 a.m.
Chavez and Vialpando appealed the capital punishment judgment. The Territory of New Mexico’s Supreme Court backed the Santa Fe court’s writ. On the day of the hanging, a crowd of spectators, estimated to be from one thousand to one thousand five-hundred, gathered around Santa Fe’s gallows.
As Vialpando was walked from the jail to the hangman’s high platform, the murderer turned pale. Some yarns claim that lawmen, forced or helped the immobile bandit to the wooden tower. Standing erect on the gibbet, Vialpando did not address the crowd. The badman’s last inaudible words were muttered to the hangman and constables, who stood on the gibbet’s slats.
Tall tales have Vialpando getting drunk in his jail cell on the day of his execution. It is recorded that hours before his hanging, Vialpando begged Santa Fe’s Sheriff Cunningham for a bottle of liquor. The dockets have it, that none was forthcoming.
Was Vialpando drunk when he met his fate and this is why he had to be helped to the gallows? I think not, but some old timers contradict the ancient reports and claim fear and smuggled contraband liquor made for Vialpando’s ashen face and slow walk.
My research indicates that most stories, having a villain meeting his death in a stupor, are fabrications. Accounts of anti-heroes not being able to meet their death with a strength, make for good drama. Due to the pathos of the tale, the stretched yarn becomes dogma.
Chavez needed no help in ascending the gallows. As he stood on the scaffolding the condemned man spent his last minutes of life addressing the crowd of spectators in his native tongue of Spanish.
The Deputies on the gibbet translated Chavez’s eighteen-minute speech into English. At first Chavez admitted to everything, then changed his tune and virtually denied he had a hand in Martinez’s murder.
Chavez ended his delivery by saying, “I had always been a good citizen until I started running around with bad company. May God grant that my blood, which is about to be spilled on these gallows, serves as an example and I shall be the last criminal deserving of this terrible punishment.”
After the execution, the outlaws’ corpses were taken to Romeroville, New Mexico, where they were buried. Both bandits left behind wives and children.
Incredibly, the bullet that nearly killed Gallardo was taken out of the dog’s skull, when he was later tended to.
After Chavez’s and Vialpando’s capture, Gallardo was treated as a spoiled member of the Martinez family.
History’s last mention of Gallardo happened on the day of the hanging. Santa Fe’s “New Mexican” newspaper informed its readers that the noble animal had outlived his master’s killers.
“Man’s Best Friend,” reads as a cliché. But that is exactly what Gallardo was. If it had not been for the dog’s loyalty, Tomas Martinez’s fate would never have been known.
HISTORY & PARANORMAL 101
Historical guides tell visitors, “Santa Fe’s gallows were makeshift towers that were located in the Plaza or in front of the old Territorial Courthouse, which was located at 141 East Palace Avenue.
Tourists are then told. “If the populace were in hurry to see justice in action, a tall tree limb would be substituted for the gibbet and a ‘Hanging Bee’ or ‘Bowtie Party’ would commence at these tall tree impromptu sites.”
This tale is partially not true; hangings did occur all around the downtown area, but there is no record of a hasty execution happening in front of the Territorial Courthouse, which is now the Coronado building at 141 East Palace.
Another fallacy that is espoused by tour directors, “The city’s Wild West jail was located at 210 West San Francisco, where the restaurant Tia Sophia’s is now housed.” A plaque placed outside the eatery in 1944, adds to the inaccurate tale.
Using today’s landmarks, Santa Fe’s gallows and jail were roughly situated at 121 Sandoval Street on the parcel of land that is now occupied by the First Northern Plaza building and its parking lot. Perhaps a simpler direction is that the old jail was situated across from where the Hilton Hotel’s (entrance) parking lot is located, or slightly to the East of where the Northern Plaza building is situated.
Santa Fe’s
