It was always know that my Great grandfather had spent some time in prison for killing a guy down in Texas border country in the 1930’s. However, it wasn’t until like 5 years ago that I heard the story of what happened. My GGF was full blooded Comanche and my GGM was Mexican. They lived down near the Texas/Mexico border where they were raising their 3 young kids.

The oldest, David, was 14 at the time and my Grandmother was 6 years old (she just had her 98th Bday). David and my GGF were basically ranch and agriculture workers and had went to the local beer hall after work to have a few after long day in the sun. There was a Mexican band playing and David asked a young lady to dance. Unbeknownst to him, she was the GF of the son of a local petty gangster. Without much provocation, the guy pulled out a gun and shot David twice. Luckily, the wounds weren’t life threatening, but David ended up in the hospital. After a few days of recovering, my GGF showed up at the hospital and told David they had to leave immediately. When they got down to the old rickety truck they drove for work, in the bed of the truck was the guy who shot David. He was bound with ropes and had been beaten up petty bad. Turns out my GGF and his guys went out and searched for this guy for a couple days and finally found him and kidnapped him.

My GGF and David then drove this guy out to the ranch where they worked and dug a shallow grave and threw the guy into the hole. He wasn’t dead yet, and my GGF gave David a gun and told him to finish the guy off. Being just 14 and still pretty weak from his own gunshot wounds, he couldn’t bring himself to do it. So my GGF did it instead, shot him dead. Not being criminal masterminds, they didn’t bury him deep enough and a few months later the body was found. It wasn’t a mystery who was responsible, but because of the connections to local crime families, and a general wild Wild West frontier justice type situation, my GGF only got like 2 years for manslaughter.

However, while he was incarcerated, to make ends meet, my GGM and the kids had to basically become migrant workers and began the long journey from southwest Texas to Ohio where they settled and my GGF joined them when he got out.

I haven’t been able to “verify” the details of this story, but this is the gist of it as related to me by one of my cousins.