← Park Predators
Park Predators
The Attorney
00:41:34
When a well-known attorney and prominent cattle rustling investigator vanishes without a trace in White Sands National Park along with his young son, alarm bells go off right away. However, the road to justice would be a long and complicated one.
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Hi park enthusiasts. I'm your host, Delia d'. Ambra. And the case I'm going to share with you today is from a long, long time ago. 1896 to be exact. And it's a doozy. It takes place near White Sands national park in New Mexico during a time when, to put it mildly, the western American frontier was pretty wild and lawlessness was rampant. A great book I read which expands even more about this characterization of the time period is is Murder on the White the Disappearance of Albert and Henry Fountain, which was written by author Corey Recco. His novel provided a wealth of information about this case, so I highly recommend ordering a copy for yourself. If you want to dig even further into the details of this mystery and for accuracy, it should be noted that the park itself wasn't formally established until 2019. Before then, it had been a national monument since 1933. And before that, when this story takes place, there were a lot of unincorporated communities around what is now the parkland. The National Park Service's website for White Sands national park has given it the moniker like no place else on earth. And from the pictures I've seen of its beautiful gypsum dune fields, I 100% agree with that description. It's stunning. One unique feature of the park is that it wasn't always a desert. At one point in time, there were grasslands teeming with life. There are millennia old fossilized footprints from animals and humans still visible on Lake Otero. In fact, the park has the largest collection of human footprints according to the National Park Service. And it's these fossils that tell us a lot about how people interacted with the environment there, as well as extinct animals like giant sloths, mammoths, and so forth. Traces of the past are vitally important to understanding the depth of this area's historic and cultural significance. Being able to read about this landscape and mine clues from it about how humans behaved is a task that's still happening today. But it's also a task lawmen in the late 1890s found themselves faced with when a prominent reporter turned attorney vanished into the iconic white sand dunes with his young son and was never seen alive again. This is Park Predators. On Sunday morning, February 2, 1896, a woman named Mariana Fountain was at home in Mesilla, New Mexico territory with her children eagerly waiting and watching for her husband, 57 year old Albert Fountain, and their youngest son Henry to ride up. Several weeks earlier, on January 12, Albert and 8 year old Henry had left the family's home to travel roughly 150 miles northeast to the town of Lincoln, New Mexico. Mariana had not been the biggest fan of her husband making the trip because there had been a lot going on politically in Albert's career as an investigator and attorney, and she was very worried about his safety. Nonetheless, though, Albert had promised his wife that everything would be okay and encouraged her not to worry too much. To try and put her mind at ease. Mariana convinced Albert to take their youngest son, Henry, with him because she figured that her husband would likely be safer from any potential enemies if one of their children was accompanying him. I think the implication there was that Mariana felt if someone had a bone to pick with Albert, they would be less likely to attack him in the presence of an innocent child. Basically, little Henry was acting as a deterrent, for lack of a better term. Anyway, the first night the duo was on their journey, something unusual happened. The horses that the father and son had taken with them showed back up at the family's property in Mesilla, running loose by themselves. A note later came from Albert that explained to his wife that the animals had run off the first night. Not long after receiving that note, the family's eldest son and Mariana's father rode the horses back out to Albert and Henry so the pair could continue on with their trip to Lincoln. Documents published in author Corey Recco's book Murder on the White Sands show that Albert and Henry stayed in Lincoln until January 30th. Albert did work at the courthouse there, and when that wrapped up, the pair left. Witnesses who'd interacted with them on that day as well as Friday, January 31, confirmed that the father and son had stayed overnight with two different acquaintances, and on Saturday morning had started their final leg home, which required them to to go near or possibly through the desert, which is adjacent to what is now known as White Sands National Park. At the time of that journey, the weather was reported to be very cold and windy. But Albert really wanted to get home to his wife and other children by Saturday night. So he and Henry declined an invitation to join a mail carrier who they'd bumped into that afternoon, and they continued on their way. By the evening of Sunday, February 2, though, with still no sign of Albert and Henry, Mariana was considerably worried. And her anxiety only got worse when the mail carrier who'd bumped into Albert and Henry the previous day arrived at her doorstep with a disturbing story. This man told the Fountain family that between 3 and 4pm on Saturday afternoon, he'd spoken with Albert and Henry. And during that conversation, Albert had mentioned that he believed he and his son were Being followed by three unknown men on horseback. The mail carrier told Mariana that as a precaution, he'd tried to get Albert and Henry to get off the roadway and spend the evening with him. But Albert had declined because he wanted to get home by dinner time. The mail carrier explained to the fountain family that on Sunday morning, he'd return to the road where he'd bumped into Albert and Henry. And about five miles past that spot, he saw wheel tracks and horse hoof prints that he recognized as belonging to Albert's carriage and horses. However, something about the scene seemed off to him. The tracks, which were in an area of the landscape known as chalk hill, suddenly veered from the roadway onto a path, and after about 30 to 40 yards, they were joined by tracks from three different horses. Nowhere in sight was Albert, Henry, or their four wheeled carriage. Now, this discovery had concerned the mail carrier enough since he knew Albert and had just spoken with him about the mysterious strangers on horseback. So he felt compelled to travel to the fountain's home to figure out what was going on and to see if Albert and Henry had made it back safely. But as the family was alarmingly aware, at that point, the father and son had not come home. So right away, two of the Fountain's sons and Mariana's father got on their horses and organized a small search party to go out to the spot in the desert where the mail carrier said he'd seen the worrisome tracks. Not long after that, a more official search party of about 25 people, which included a former sheriff and police captain, joined the Fountain's family, family members, and friends at the Chalk hill area in the desert. Searchers discovered two empty firearm cartridges, cigarette papers, shoe prints, and, of course, the wildly swerving carriage tracks. They also found impressions in the ground behind a bush that appeared to be where someone had knelt down. Roughly 12 miles away from all that stuff, searchers stumbled upon Albert and Henry's carriage, which appeared to be ransacked and pillaged. Horse tracks and boot impressions were left in the ground all around it, and investigators took rudimentary measurements of those tracks. Searchers also noted that there was an indentation in the ground that kind of looked like an area where someone had laid down a blanket and then placed a heavy object onto it. Within days of the discovery, word spread quickly that Albert and Henry had vanished. Local newspapers in the region started reporting on the story and quickly ran articles that suggested Albert and Henry were not just missing, but dead. The available source material I found stated that between seven to 10 days after the pair Vanished. Additional searchers returned to the area near Chalk Hill and found even more evidence that indicated something untoward had happened in the desert. Sleet, which had previously been on the ground and obscured some of the landscape from view, had thawed and revealed blood spatter and a pool of blood a little more than a foot wide near the section of the roadway where Albert and Henry's carriage had veered off course. Also in that area was another impression of a blanket, a nickel and dime that had what appeared to be traces of powder burns on them, and a blood soaked handkerchief. Now, the nickel and dime discovery was, I imagine, particularly interesting to authorities and searchers because witnesses who'd housed Albert and Henry on the Friday before they vanished said that Albert had given Henry a quarter to use at a local store. According to accounts captured in Cory Reco's book, Henry spent 10 cents of that money on candy and received exactly 15 cents in change in the form of a nickel and dime, which he was said to have then tied up in a handkerchief that belonged to him. So I imagine because a bloody handkerchief and a powder burned nickel and dime were found at the suspected crime scene, that probably signaled to authorities that something nefarious had happened to Henry. An initial theory that developed was that Albert had likely been shot from a distance while operating the carriage, and that caused the craft and horses to veer off the roadway. Then Albert fell off the carriage, and when he landed, his blood had spattered and pooled on the ground. What exactly happened to Henry, though, no one knew for sure. But his hat was found in a small suitcase left behind in the carriage, which might make one assume that he'd been taken in a hurry after the initial attack. But the question you're probably asking yourself, though, is who would have wanted to do something like that? Well, in order to get to that answer, I need to provide you with some important background information about Albert Fountain leading up to February 1896. Albert was originally from New York and as a young man had worked as a newspaper reporter. He traveled far and wide for his stories and at one point even went to Central America, where he uncovered an American expedition leader doing unauthorized colonizing. Presumably because of what he learned and intended to publish about that situation, Albert was arrested and scheduled to be executed, but he managed to evade his captors by disguising himself as a woman and boarded a steamship out of the country. In the early 1860s, he became an attorney, but forewent actively practicing law at that time to enlist in the military. He got injured during the American Civil War and After a few years, was officially discharged. During that time, he met and married his wife, Mariana, who he would go on to have 10 children with six boys and four girls. Little Henry was the youngest. Albert's impressive career included serving as a majority leader for the Texas State Senate and pushed for legislation that sought to protect more of the American frontier with law enforcement officers like the Texas Rangers. And it seems that as a result of all this work, he garnered a reputation among outlaws as someone who needed to go away. For example, in 1870, he was ambushed and nearly fatally shot in a saloon by an angry citizen. But somehow the bullets that had flown his way had only managed to scathe his head and pierce through his forearm. One of the rounds hit his pocket watch and several papers which were tucked into his coat in such a way that they were able to stop the bullet. In the 1870s, Albert and his family settled for good in Mesilla, and he founded an English and Spanish newspaper called the Mesilla Valley Independent. It was also around this time that he took up practicing law full time. One of his most well known clients was the infamous American outlaw, Billy the Kid. Billy was eventually linked to multiple homicides, including the killing of a sheriff. But after representing Billy, Albert went on to become an Assistant United States District Attorney. And it seems that it was at that point in his life when he became more focused on cracking down on suspected criminals, disrupting people's way of life in New Mexico. About two years before his disappearance, Albert had started working as the chief investigator and prosecutor for an entity called the Southeastern New Mexico Stock Growers association, which was a collection of ranch owners and cattle companies that had come together to put a stop to cattle wrestling, AKA theft. Illegal cattle rustlers were greatly affecting businesses in the region. So Albert decided he wanted to conduct investigations that would identify and stop these sorts of criminals. He managed to identify a handful of men he suspected were involved in this kind of illegal activity, and many of them would eventually take plea deals and go to prison. Albert also began to investigate a prominent man in the region named Albert Fall. Albert Fall and Albert Fountain's history went way back, and it wasn't the greatest. According to author Corey Recco, about eight years before Albert Fountain disappeared, he and Albert Fall had gone head to head in an election for the New Mexico Territorial legislature, and Albert Fountain had won. Then, two years later, they ran against one another again. But this time, Albert Fall took the victory. Just like Albert Fountain, Albert Fall had risen the ranks from serving in the military to eventually becoming a lawyer and establishing his own local newspaper in New Mexico. Albert Fall was a staunch Democrat and Albert Fountain was a Republican. During the 1890s, there were several high profile elections in which the men's feud festered. Disputes over ballot box tampering and rigged recounts boiled over. And coincidentally, an appeal for one of those disputes, which involved Albert Fountain alleging that the sheriff's election had been conducted fraudulently by Albert Fall, was still pending when Albert Fountain and his son Henry vanished. In addition to that, Albert Fall also had close connections to three men from the region named Oliver Lee, James Gilliland and William McNew. That trio of guys had been in Albert Fall's orbit and at his beck and call since at least the early 1890s. In the early 1890s, Albert Fall became a district judge and quickly gave Oliver James and William positions of U.S. deputy Marshals. Thanks in part to Albert Fountain's relentless pursuit to root out suspected abuses of power and corruption, Albert Fall was eventually forced to resign from his position as a district judge, which meant Oliver, James and William also lost their jobs as US Deputy Marshals. However, they were eventually awarded positions as sheriff's deputies, thanks to the most recently elected sheriff being a Democrat who seemed to be connected to Albert Fall. Interestingly, Oliver Lee was a member of the Southeastern New Mexico Stock Growers association, which was the very same entity that Albert Fountain worked for as a chief investigator and prosecutor. So Albert Fountain would have likely been very familiar with Oliver, William and James connection to his arch nemesis, Albert Fall. From what I gathered reading the source material, Oliver Lee's reputation was that of a charming cowboy sharpshooter from Texas who'd grown up around horses and owned several ranches. James and William were also native Texans who'd found work at Oliver's ranch in southern New Mexico. And by default, the men had formed what some of the source material describes as a gang. And it was this group of sheriff's deputies, ranch hands, plus Albert Fall that Albert Fountain had begun to suspect were the real string pullers behind some of the cattle thefts that had been happening in the region. According to letters Albert Fountain wrote during this time frame, which author Corey Reco published in his book, Fountain stated that thanks to various informants, he'd discovered that Oliver Lee and the other men associated with Albert Fall were involved in stealing cattle, altering brands on those animals, and then delivering the cattle to a butcher, who, seemingly unbeknownst to anyone but authorities, had agreed to testify in court. These witnesses revealed to Albert Fountain that more than 100 animals had been slaughtered in the wrestling scheme by October 1895. So just a few months before Albert Fountain and his son vanished, word had spread that Albert Fountain intended to deliver all of the damning evidence he'd gathered to a grand jury in Lincoln. And he was confident that indictments against the men who were believed to be involved would quickly follow. Author Corey Recco wrote in his book that when Albert and Henry were In Lincoln in January 1896, Albert helped prosecutors in Dona Ana county successfully secure 32 indictments against 23 men, which included Oliver Lee and William McNew. Their charges were for larceny of cattle and defacing brands. In the weeks prior to that happening, Albert had forecasted that trouble would likely come his way as a result of what he'd been working on. He'd received death threats, and one of his colleagues who worked as a deputy was even nearly fatally shot in the street, seemingly at random, by none other than Albert Fall, one of his brother in laws, and a third unidentified man. Another concerning incident that preceded the grand jury events in Lincoln involved two cowboys who were assisting Albert Fountain with the cattle rustling investigation. Those men had killed and skinned a steer they suspected was stolen so they could examine it and prove that its brand had been intentionally altered. But shortly after doing that, they were arrested by Oliver Lee, James Gilliland and William McNeugh for charges related to unlawful killing and skinning a steer. All this turmoil and allegations of corruption in law enforcement were what had made Mariana Fountain nervous and fearful for her husband's safety prior to him leaving on January 12. But despite his wife's worries, Albert Fountain had remained determined to fulfill his duties and help see justice served, regardless of how many hindrances got in his way prior to his disappearance. He wrote about this time in his life in a letter which read, quote, I should not be deterred thereby from performing my whole duty. Public opinion here is with us and the present condition of affairs and cannot long exist. Nevertheless, I anticipate a hard contest won, perhaps to the death, end quote. And if those words weren't ominous enough.
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On January 30, the day he left the courthouse in Lincoln after helping prosecutors secure those 32 indictments in the cattle rustling case, someone had handed Albert a note that read, quote, if you drop.
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This, we will be your friends. If you go on with it, you will never reach home alive, end quote. And evidence at the crime scene in the desert, or rather lack of evidence.
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Indicated that someone had seemingly made good on that threat. It's important to me to stay in touch with the ones that I love. It's also important that I stay in.
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Touch with perfect strangers that I interview for my cases.
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The end of the month.
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Even though there was some valuable evidence found at the crime scene and in the fountain's wrecked carriage, there were a few things that were noticeably missing. For example, all the documents and research related to the grand jury proceedings that Albert had assisted with in Lincoln and reportedly traveled back home with were gone. A blanket, horse bridle ropes, neck yoke straps, a quilt, a knife, a rifle and a canteen, which were supposed to be with the carriage, were also missing. Officials speculated that some of those things being unaccounted for suggested that that perhaps Albert and Henry's bodies had been transported in the blankets and the spare horse straps were used to tie them down to horses. A few miles away from the crime scene, searchers eventually located remnants of a campsite and campfire that officials suspected was where Albert and Henry's attackers had stayed after the crime. There were hoofprints at that spot which matched the horse tracks that had been found around the missing father and son's carriage. Officials also discovered some footprints from a child's shoe near the campsite, but weren't exactly sure what to make of that evidence. The trail of impressions only displayed one shoe print, not two, but it was definitely clear it had come from a kid sized shoe Further into the surrounding mountains, a search crew stumbled upon one of the horses that had been pulling the fountain's carriage, and it had dried blood on its fur. Meanwhile, men who'd been tracking three sets of horseshoe prints from the abandoned campsite realized the tracks split off in three different directions. And one path of tracks seemed to be leading in the direction of Oliver Lee's ranch. However, just a few miles short of that property, the tracks were erased from the landscape because two cowboys who worked for Oliver drove a herd of cattle over them. Something else that somewhat stalled progress in the investigation was the fact that Oliver Lee, James Gilliland, and William McNeugh all worked for the sheriff's office in Dona Ana county, which was the jurisdiction investigating the fountain's disappearances. Not only that, the sheriff's seat was still being contested from the previous election. And for the interim, the guy who was currently serving as sheriff was known to be an associate of Albert Fall. So it was one of those scenarios where the very suspects believed to have been involved in the Fountain case were also the people in charge of investigating the crime. And historically, that is not a recipe for truth and justice typically to prevail. And to make matters even stranger, Albert Fall began to publish several stories in the local newspaper he owned which suggested Albert and Henry Fountain were fine and had simply run off to start a new life. These reports informed readers that the pair had been seen in several major US States, from Colorado to Illinois to New York and even California. Who the source of those sightings was, though, was never clearly stated. At one point early on, Oliver Lee came forward after learning he was suspected of being involved. But at that time, there was no hard evidence against him. So he spoke freely with the press and told one newspaper he was of the opinion, just like Albert Fall was, that the Fountains were still alive. To get to the bottom of the mystery and attempt to quell public outrage about the incident, New Mexico's then governor appointed a man named Pat Garrett as the private investigator over the case. Around this same time, the Masonic Lodge in the county, several citizens and groups offered rewards to encourage folks who might know valuable information to come forward. During his first few weeks on the case, Pat Garrett interviewed several members of the Fountain family and spoke with witnesses about Albert and Henry's last known movements. He also went out to visit the crime scenes and continued searching for the father and son. He interviewed one woman who said she'd seen a large fire blazing in the desert in the early morning hours of February 2nd. And then later that morning at daylight, she'd spotted three men riding on horseback, two of whom she positively identified as Oliver lee and William McNew. But it was really one man in particular who seemed to have the most damning information with regards to Oliver Lee, James Gilliland, and William McNew's alibi. That witness's name was Jack Maxwell, and he told Pat Garrett that he'd visited Oliver Lee's ranch on the evening of February 1, expecting to see Oliver there. But when he'd arrived, Oliver's mom informed him that Oliver and his associates weren't home. However, they were expected to be back that night. So Jack stayed put, and sometime the following day, he saw Oliver James and William ride up. But they apparently weren't very happy to see him. As the investigation continued, the governor brought in some more help for Pat Garrett in the form of another operative from the infamous Pinkerton National Detective Agency. According to Corey Recco's book, that operative took on a considerable amount of work and spoke with witnesses and tried to verify the alibis of the prime suspects. He noted in a few of his reports that he was sure Albert and Henry had been murdered and left in the desert as a result of Albert's dogged work trying to catch and prosecute cattle rustlers. Three persons of interest who were identified by name in this operative's notes were Oliver Lee, William McNew, and James Gilliland. When the Pinkerton operative interviewed the mail carrier who'd spoken with Albert and Henry before they disappeared, he deduced that the trio of mysterious figures that the carrier claimed had been following the fountains was most likely Oliver, William and James. This operative also dug into Albert Fall's alibi for the time frame of the disappearances, and there were a lot of discrepancies in terms of where he was and when. On the afternoon and evening of February 1st, when the operative interviewed fall one on one to try and get his story straight, he listened as Fall went on and on about how much he personally didn't like Albert Fountain and even accused Fountain of being corrupt. At the end of the conversation, Albert Fall said that he knew he was being accused publicly by some of Fountain's family members of being involved in the dispute disappearances. But he maintained that was not the truth. He admitted that the evidence in the case likely pointed to the father and son being deceased, but denied any involvement in the matter. He explained that there were a number of different outlaws and cattle wrestlers who'd wanted to see Albert Fountain dead, and it was entirely possible that one of those folks was responsible for the father and son's disappearance. Right after interviewing Albert Fall, the Pinkerton operative also spoke with Oliver Leigh in the presence of Albert Fall, and it didn't go well. Oliver basically looked to Fall for direction on every question pertaining to the disappearances, and in the end, the investigator didn't learn anything new about where Oliver was on the day the Fountains vanished. Efforts to locate and speak with James Gilliland and William McNeuh at that time were fruitless because they were nowhere to be found. As the winter of 1896 turned into spring, other potential persons of interest were investigated, including a young man who was serving time in prison thanks to a previous cattle wrestling investigation by Albert Fountain. But despite that guy claiming to know some folks who knew where the missing father and son's bodies were and providing information about the power dynamic between Oliver Lee, James Gilliland, and William McNew, the leads never panned out and didn't result in any immediate arrests. By May 14th of that year, the investigation was languishing. And mysteriously, two days after that, the entire case file of reports that operatives for the Pinkerton National Detective Agency had gathered on the case, which were stored in the governor's office, disappeared. About two years passed before there were any major updates in the case. During that time, not a trace of Albert Fountain or his son surfaced. And unsurprisingly, the cattle wrestling charges and indictments that had been brought against Oliver Lee and William McNew back in January 1896 were dropped, thanks in large part to lawyering by Albert Fall. New Mexico got a new governor as well, and Pat Garrett, the former private eye in charge of the investigation, took on the role as the Dona Ana county sheriff. In that position, Pat Garrett felt mounting pressure from people who knew or related to Albert Fountain to seek justice on their behalf. Garrett was in a dilemma, though, because he didn't have enough hard evidence to bring charges against the suspected perpetrators and conspirators. And even if he did, there was concern that Albert Fall, who was still an influential figure in the region, would thwart prosecutors efforts to take a case to trial. By the time April 1898 rolled around, rumors were swirling that a grand jury was going to be called to issue bench warrants for Oliver, William James, and another man for Henry and Albert's murders. But bringing all those men in wasn't going to be easy. According to the book Murder on the White Sands, when Pat Garrett obtained bench warrants for the men he suspected had killed Henry and Albert, he managed to nab William McNew and another alleged suspect right away. Oliver Lee and James Gilliland, on the other hand, were not going to be as easy. Pat Garrett saw that as an advantage, though, and used the isolation of William and the other suspect as a means to squeeze them hard for information. Meanwhile, Albert Fall threw a lot of his time and energy into trying to get William and the other guy out so they couldn't be interviewed at a preliminary Hearing in early April 1898, the courtroom was full with people interested in the case, and tensions were at an all time high. Many of the men attending the hearing were reported to be carrying weapons, despite the judge banning attendees from being armed. On the witness stand, Jack Maxwell, the man who'd previously claimed he'd visited Oliver Lee's ranch on the day and evening Albert and Henry vanished, but didn't see Oliver or his men there, was not the shining star witness prosecutors had hoped he would be. During his testimony, he began having difficulty recalling the specific date he'd visited Oliver's ranch, and he even later admitted that he was intoxicated. While testifying, Williams defense attorney Albert Fall challenged Jack's testimony, and by the end of the cross examination, he got Jack to admit that he had told different versions of his story over the years, and that admission did not do the prosecution any favors. Another issue with Jack's testimony, which was pointed out in court, was the fact that Pat Garrett had agreed to pay him $2,000 for his testimony against William, Oliver and James. Those funds were a portion of the reward money. But hello, anytime you promise to pay a person for damning testimony, it hurts their credibility. They're essentially no longer neutral because they've been incentivized financially. Or at least that's how the defense saw it in this case. At the conclusion of the preliminary hearing, the judge ruled there was enough probable cause to move William McNew's prosecution to trial. But the other man, who'd been arrested at the same time he was, was released. While William sat in jail awaiting trial, Pat Garrett set his sights on finding Oliver Lee and James Gilliland. He spent a few months tracking them in the desert, and in early July determined that they were hiding out at a ranch and had changed their appearances slightly. When a search party led by Garrett arrived at that property in the early morning hours, a gun battle quickly ensued. Oliver and James had the high ground on a rooftop and managed to evade capture. In the chaos, a deputy sheriff was shot and later died from his injuries. Oliver and James were later indicted for the crime. The Fountain murder case continued to drag on into early 1890. 9. With no real progress, William McNeugh remained behind bars awaiting trial, and Oliver Lee and James Gilliland were once again on the run. During that time, Albert Fall managed to convince the new governor of New Mexico to rezone the counties in the southern part of the territory. That proposal meant that the site where Albert and Henry Fountain had disappeared would technically fall under a completely different county's jurisdiction than it was at the time of the crime. Now, this was important for one big reason. If the crime scene fell under a different or new county's jurisdiction, that meant Dona Ana County Sheriff Pat Garrett would no longer have control over the investigation into the disappearances. Initially, the governor was not on board with Albert Falls idea to restructure the territory's county lines. But he eventually conceded when it was suggested that a newly proposed county would be named after the governor. I know. Don't even get me started on that. When the county lines changed, the sheriff over the new county struck a deal with James Gilliland and Oliver Lee to have them surrender voluntarily to authorities. In mid March 1899, both men boarded a train and traveled to turn themselves in. Prosecutors really wanted to try Oliver and James first for Albert and Henry's murders because they strongly suspected that Oliver was the ringleader of the group. They didn't want to try William McNew first because that would grant defense attorneys for Oliver and James an opportunity to learn what the prosecution's strategy was going to be. But because William had come first in the order of arrests and had been sitting in jail awaiting trial longer, the prosecution had to figure out a way to basically get his trial put on hold until Oliver and James could be prosecuted. The plan they came up with was for the prosecution to drop the murder charge against William for Albert's murder, which triggered his release. But he remained charged with Henry's murder, which meant he was out on bond. Oliver and James were then charged with Henry's murder, and it was decided they'd be tried together for that crime. They were both given bonds and allowed to live their lives as free men while they awaited trial on May 26, 1899, the stage was set for them to have their day in court. Interestingly, leading up to that date, a handful of witnesses from the cattle industry had come forward to prosecutors, claiming they had damning information against the defendants. These witnesses explained that the reason they'd not spoken up sooner was because they, like the accused, had dabbled in cattle wrestling. But when the trial got underway, it quickly became apparent that the prosecution's case was on shaky footing because so much time had passed. Several witnesses like Jack Maxwell, who'd previously testified at William McNew's preliminary hearing, claimed they were either sick or were just nowhere to be found. Oh, and all those 11th hour witnesses I just told you about who'd come forward with alleged damning information about Oliver James and William, well, they were also no shows. So the first witness who testified for the prosecution was the former governor of New Mexico, who could only offer up what he knew regarding the blood that had been found at the crime scene. He said that blood soaked sand from the desert and hair that had been shaved from one of the Fountain's horses had been tested by a chemist and the blood was determined to be human. However, the chemist himself would later testify under cross examination that blood testing at that time was so difficult that even the most experienced scientists in the world could not be absolutely certain a particular sample had come from a specific person. Thank God. Times have changed with respect to that, though. Among the other witnesses who took the stand at Oliver and James trial were the mail carrier, Albert Fountain's oldest son and father in law, who'd both been in the search parties, a grand jury foreman who'd indicted William and Oliver in January 1896 for the cattle larceny into facing branding charges, Pat Garrett and other men who'd participated in the searches for Henry and Albert. A few days into the trial, Jack Maxwell finally showed up and testified. And he said that he had not seen Oliver James or William at Oliver's ranch on the night of February 1, 1896, or the following morning, February 2. But just like when Jack testified at Williams preliminary hearing, the defense attorneys at Oliver and James murder trial, which included Albert Fall, brought up the fact that he had been promised money in exchange for his testimony. Despite this, though, Jack stuck to his story that the defendants seemed to be unaccounted for during the window of time that Albert Fountain and his son had vanished. When it came time for closing arguments, an attorney for the defense told jurors that they needed to remember Oliver and James were on trial for Henry's murder, not Albert Fountain. The attorney argued that neither of the defendants had a motive to want to kill Henry. But the lead prosecutor contested that logic by claiming that the killers had a lot of motive to kill Henry because he was likely a living witness to his father's murder and therefore couldn't be left alive. The prosecutor emphasized that it didn't really matter whose murder the jury was weighing because the fact of the matter was the father and son had been killed. Likely around the same time. And then their bodies were transported elsewhere in the desert, never to be found. Late at night, on the last day of the trial, the jury deliberated for less than eight minutes and returned with a verdict of not guilty. The pending murder charges against Oliver James and William for Henry's death were dismissed, and by the time summer ended in 1899, the three defendants were no longer facing homicide charges for Albert Fountain's murder either, or the shooting death of the deputy who died while trying to help Pat Garrett apprehend Oliver and James in 1898. To this day, the remains of Albert and Henry Fountain have never been found, and no one has ever been convicted for their murders. In October 1900, a set of charred remains belonging to a man and boy were later discovered in a canyon in a mountain range more than 50 miles away from White Sands National Park. But authorities were never able to definitively say whether the remains were Albert and Henry. Dona Ana County Sheriff Pat Garrett didn't believe the discovery was related to the missing father and son, but one of the Fountain's sons wasn't so sure. He suspected it could be his father and younger brother, and according to the Albuquerque Daily Citizen, eventually he came to terms with the possibility that the remains were likely his family members, simply because no other people except his dad and brother had gone missing from the area and matched the description of the charred remains. Over the years, it was never definitively proven whether Albert Fall had any hand in the Fountain matter, because no physical evidence or testimony was ever developed that tied him to the murders. So the question of whether he was the mastermind, as some officials suspected, was never answered. However, it's worth noting, but in the 1920s, Albert Fall went on to be appointed to the position of Secretary of the Interior by then US President Warren Harding. But within two years of getting that role, Fall was forced to resign when he was accused and eventually convicted of accepting bribes from oil companies in what has become known as the Teapot Dome scandal. For that offense, Albert Fall became the first member of a president's cabinet to be sent to prison while in office. Corey Recco wrote in his book that James Gilliland, one of the defendants, allegedly revealed to a close friend that he had knowledge of the murders and participated in the crime. Among James declarations, which came many years later in the late 1930s or early 40s, he claimed that a grave on his property held a lot of secrets and was possibly the final resting place of Albert and Henry James also allegedly expressed to this close friend that Albert's death had never really bothered him. But Henry's murder did haunt him. According to what James told his friend, Albert died after being shot while driving the horse drawn carriage, but Henry had been kept alive for a while and taken to a campsite the killers made in the desert. Eventually, the group drew straws to determine who would take care of the youngest Fountain, and James was ultimately the person responsible for the boy's demise. By 1950, though, James, William McNew, Albert Fall and Oliver Lee were all dead. Pat Garrett, the man who'd tried diligently to catch them for the Fountains murders, had also died. In 1908, an assassin shot him in the head and stomach during an ambush and the offender later claimed self defense but was acquitted thanks to legal representation from, you guessed it, Albert Fall. Today a memorial for Albert and Henry Fountain exists at a Masonic cemetery in Las Cruces, New Mexico. A historical marker was also erected alongside U.S. highway 70 about 28 miles east of Las Cruces. It designates the place where Albert and Henry were believed to have been murdered. If you ever find yourself passing through this part of the country, I doubt you'll be able to forget the names Albert and Henry Fountain. And in my opinion, I think that's a good thing because their memories should continue to live on. Park Predators is an Audio Chuck production. You can view a list of all the source material for this episode on our website parkpredators.com and you can also follow Park Predators on Instagram at Park Predators. I think Chuck would approve.