Talk:Oliver Lee (New Mexico gunfighter)

Murder allegation
Since Lee was never convicted of murder, I don't think he can be properly referred to as a murderer. He was an alleged murderer. That goes as well for other allegations of crimes unless he was convicted of those offenses. Lee's 20th century service in the both houses of the state legislature is not mentioned. Walter Siegmund (talk) 15:11, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

That is absolutely the single most biased and one sided account of Oliver Lee's life that I have ever read. He was a hard man in hard times and even harder country and while the author references "Tularosa: Last of the Frontier West" he obviously didn't read the book. Lee was hard handed yes, but he helped bring civilization to an area that was ruthless in itself, not to mention the men that inhabited it. Treating innuendo as fact is very poor journalisim! JH

The current revision borderes on the absurd. Not only for the murder of Fountain, but the claims of racketeering and conspiracy have a tremendous hurdle to prove. The public funded Oliver M. Lee State Park has a significantly more balanced review of the regional politics at the time, covering a much broader span of Lee's life. Lets get together and work on this. In fact, I believe there is extreme difficulty in saying he was born in Buffalo Gap, Texas. (Kyle Lee)

I don't know. I think that Fall's later involvement in the Teapot Dome scandal warrant enough slant to mention the alleged corrupt dealings on Lee and Fall's behalf. The shenanigans in that situation didn't come out of the blue. There HAD to be a history of corruption beforehand. HB

The murder case against Lee was circumstantial. There were no bodies, no witnesses and conflicting accounts of the supposed tracks that led to near Lee's ranch. A case like this would never even get near a grand jury much less a trial today. The politics of the time clearly show that the prominent republicans were more than willing to blame Lee for Fountains death, no matter the evidence. Lee was acquited of Henry Fountain's death and never even accused of Albert Fountain's death. I find the lack of verifiable evidence to support the claims of Lee being the murderer of Fountain laughable. TD —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.35.145.213 (talk) 01:48, August 30, 2007 (UTC)

I couldn't disagree with TD more. The case against Lee and Gililland most certainly would make it to trial today, and on top of that, had the prosecution preformed better I believe they would have had a conviction. The evidence is circumstantial, but it is abundance of circumstantial evidence all pointing to one theory that makes the case. unsigned comment added by Shootseven

Name the evidence.
As I said previously, there were no bodies and no witnesses. The supposed tracks that led to NEAR Lee's ranch were in dispute even at the time. Some trackers said they went to NEAR Lee's ranch and some said they did not. They never even traced the tracks to a particular horse, much less to a particular house or a particular person riding that horse. Let's remember that Lee's ranch was pretty big so any horses tracks that were found in the Tularosa Basin probably came somewhere near Lee's ranch. Like I said a Grand Jury today would not touch this case. If anyone knows of more evidence then please let us know. TD

Well, there's no smoking gun piece of evidence. What there is is an abundance of circumstantial evidence that all leads to the same conclusion. I'm not going to take the time or space here to go into it all. I'm assuming you've read read some of what has been published on the case to come to your conclusion, but I will try to point out some of the evidence against Oliver Lee (and a little against William McNew and James Gililland, who stand with Lee in the theory presented). First, regarding the tracks of the suspects. After the tracks split, a group followed one set of tracks that a large majority of the group thought led to Lee's Wildy Well ranch, but unfortunately, the tracks were destroyed by a herd of Lee cattle (nice coincidence) so we will never know for sure. The second set of tracks, followed by Carl Clausen and Luis Herrera, led them DIRECTLY TO Lee's Wildy Well ranch. Search party member Carl Clausen later testified that the tracks of one of the horses matched Lee's horse (Thomas Branigan also testified to the tracks matching that of Lee's horse). Branigan later matched a set of footprints at the campsite to Bill McNew. Jack Maxwell testified to Lee, McNew, and James Gililland not being at his ranch at the time of the disappearance, but returning later on worn out horses. There were other witness who claimed to have seen the suspects with the bodies, but did not come forward earlier for fear of being prosecuted for the crime they were committing at the time, stealing cattle. Unfortunately, presumably the fear got to them again, as they were no shows for trial. James Gililland made statements to a number of people incriminating himself, McNew, and Lee. This is just a summary of some of the key evidence. More detailed evidence, motive, etc., is readily available in the published accounts of the case. comment added by Shootseven —Preceding comment was added at 21:56, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Name the Evidence 2
So if someone today makes an allegation but does not show up for trial then we are to believe what we heard they said?? This goes doubly true for things said many generations ago? Who were the people who said that they saw the bodies? Why did they not go to trial. Lee and his men were in the minority party back then. If someone had evidence I think they would show up to trial even if Lee was such a bad guy given that there were many more epowerful people against him than for him.

But that cannot even be debated as there is absolutely no evidence of Lee being involved in this murder. He was never even charged with the father's murder! It would be like a hundred years from now us talking about the Lewinsky scandal or Scooter Liiby's involvement with Valery Plaim. We can only go by the evidence and the results of the trial. We have to go by the decisions of the jury at the time. They had much more evidence and understanding of the case then we ever will. i.e. NOT GUILTY! TD —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.42.121.130 (talk) 06:08, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm not here to try to change your opinion, but, honestly, "We have to go by the decisions of the jury at the time." is a cop out. Unless you can say that juries are right 100% of the time, that is not an argument. Not to mention the fact that in our justice, the trial very much favors the defendant (and rightly so) with the reasoning that it is better to let a guilty man go free than convict an innocent man.

The fact that Lee was never charged with the father's murder means nothing. Those charges were being saved in the event that new evidence came out. He was charged with Henry's murder. Are you going to make the argument that the people who murdered Henry did not murder Albert? And if you want to say we're to far removed to know as much about the case as the people who were there, fine, but then you have to deal with the fact that the men who knew the most about the case, those investigating it, thought Oliver Lee was guilty.

You also said,"But that cannot even be debated as there is absolutely no evidence of Lee being involved in this murder." I'm not going to rewrite the entire above paragraph about tracks, witnesses, later confessions, etc. How reliable each piece of evidence is can be debated, but to say that "there is absolutely no evidence of Lee being involved in this murder" is dishonest and shows that you are coming into this debate with a pro-Oliver Lee prejudice that seems to prevent you from looking at the case objectively.comment added by Shootseven


 * The standard for inclusion in articles is whether content can be verified from published reliable sources. A jury verdict would likely be considered a reliable source, but published studies by historians, e.g., Sonnichsen, and journalists may often qualify as well. When facts are disputed, it is often best to discuss the opposing points of view and the evidence for them in accordance with WP:NPOV. Please review WP:RS and WP:V for more information. Also, you can sign your comments with four tildes, " ~ ". Best wishes, Walter Siegmund (talk) 01:19, 28 July 2008 (UTC)


 * And the evidence I've mentioned here can all be verified in published sources. Every published source mentioned is in the article and footnotes, regardless of each author's conclusion, mentions some of this evidence against Lee.  Shootseven (talk) 21:13, 10 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Please log into your account and end your comments with ~ . If you add footnotes to the article, the specific source of each statement will be made clear. Thanks. Walter Siegmund (talk) 15:54, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

I have been studying the A. M. Gibson biography of Colonel Fountain and the events that finally culminated in the murder of Pat Garrett. I have read most of the other references given for this article as well. The Gibson book is the best documented and most detailed book on this subject I've read. Based on what I've read I agree with Shootseven.

Gibson had access to the Pinkerton reports that had been stolen after the trial of Lee and only resurfaced in the Tularosa area "recently", presumably in the 1960s. These reports include much more detail than I found in other references. In my opinion they carry great weight. To understand the motivations of the principals requires following Fall's career after he appeared in La Mesilla and began his activities there. I don't see how anyone could read all this and conclude that Oliver Lee was ever a pillar of the community. His friends were no better. There is substantial evidence that Lee, McNew, and Gilliland were conspirators in a rustling operation that pitted them against the large established ranches of the area. There is substantial evidence that Fall was involved with the rustlers and even participated in the ambush of deputy Ben Williams. According to the Pinkerton Reports he admitted shooting Williams.

Lee had a large white horse whose shod tracks led Clausen to Wildy Well. There he talked with Oliver Lee, and Lee rode away on that horse. Clausen was able to verify that this was the horse he had tracked by comparing hoof prints. Later, in Las Cruces this was corroborated by Van Patton and Brannigan who found the horse at a Las Cruces livery stable and compared the hoof prints. There are many more facts in the Pinkerton reports that are extremely incriminating.

The book also establishes that Lee had killed a number of men. He was feared as a bully and a gunman in the La Mesilla/Las Cruces area. He and McNew and Gilliland served as deputies to the Dona Ana sheriff, who was a Fall lackey.

I think this article should be fleshed out using material from the Gibson book. Apparently the Fall/Lee cabal did a very good job with PR. Otherwise I doubt that there would be a state park named after Lee. Texas Star Thrower 00:30, 17 May 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Zambaman (talk • contribs)

I do not think we can flesh out an article using only one book as a source. If we did then which one? Sonnichsen's Book goes into detail on the Pinkerton files and it was originally written in the 1960s. The revision that I read was written in the 1970s. I did not see a smoking gun in his details of the Pinkerton files. This article is about Oliver Lee not Albert Fall or Albert Fountain. To say that Albert Fall was involved in the Teapot Dome scandal many years later in no way incriminates Lee in a murder in my opinion. Also, my knowledge of the Teapot Dome scandal does not point to Fall really acting in that terrible a manner. In fact Fall was convicted of taking a bribe but the man who supposedly gave him the bribe (Edward Doheny) was acquited. Kind of makes me wonder... - but that is irrelevant. Additionally if we are going to incriminate people for murder based on the perceived reputation then we might as well incriminate Albert Fountain himself. He was no angel and was known to have killed a few people in his time (laid out by Sonnichsen in his book). Fountain was known as a bully in the area also and rightly so (Sonnichsen). I have seen no written evidence that would describe Lee as a lackey of anyone. If you have a reliable source for that one let me know. As for it being PR that got a park named after Olver Lee, I disagree. Lee owned all the land that Alomogordo was built on and worked with a railroad developer to make it into a town. Additionally Oliver Lee either owned, controlled or developed the water rights to much of the area. In the Alomogordo and Tularosa areas land, water and the railroad pretty much meant everything to developing the area for later generations. So I think a park named after the man who put all that together makes sense to me.76.121.120.172 (talk) 00:10, 29 April 2011 (UTC)TD


 * When reliable sources disagree, we include all viewpoints and avoid giving undue weight to any particular point of view. --Walter Siegmund (talk) 01:10, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

Assessment comment
Substituted at 01:48, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

Political Affiliation
The article mentions Lee's association with Albert Fall, later famous for taking bribes during the Teapot Dome scandal. But the article then says that this friendship "put him on the side of the Democrats"--apparently in reference to his antipathy toward Fountain, who was also a Republican. The writer may have assumed that since Fountain was Republican, that Lee and Albert were Democrats, which is not true.

Before offering a correction, I am hoping to hear from experts in the period. Perhaps I misinterpreted, but it seems like a mistake to me. 97.101.87.125 (talk) 13:30, 24 February 2021 (UTC)