Coming soon from Cross Timbers Press.

Book signing at Silver City Museum, Aug. 9 at 2 p.m.

Jerry J. Lobdill lobdillj@att.net

Texas State Historian, Bill O'Neal commented:
"Holy cow! You've uncovered a dynamite story! A murder-for-hire gang first assembled by Killer Miller. The brutal murder of a cattle king. The astounding connection with Hamer in Sweetwater. El Paso's biggest trial. On and on--wow! I've just tried to call you in my enthusiasm, moments after finishing your book, but your voice mail is full."

Synopsis
Last Train to El Paso—the mysterious unsolved murder of a cattle baron

Logline-- A cattle baroness's pursuit of justice for her brutally murdered husband unveils a chilling truth and produces a mystery that endures for a century.

Last Train to El Paso--the mysterious unsolved murder of a cattle baron is about the murder of Thomas Lyons in El Paso in 1917. It was the most sensational murder case in El Paso history from the standpoint of public attendance. Seventy-five articles about the case appeared in the El Paso Herald, and a roughly equal number appeared in the El Paso Morning Times. The trial ended nine months after the murder was committed.

The outcome of the case was a gross miscarriage of justice. There were three co-defendants. One was the murder-for-hire agent who hired the hit man and who provided his own brother as driver of the murder vehicle. There was a third unindicted co-conspirator who participated in the get-away of the hit man and was one of the kingpins of the conspiracy. There was a key witness who heard the hit man's confession two days after the hit and provided an amazing deposition as a condition for qualifying for a $10,000 reward. The deposition contained details that investigators were unaware of. These all turned out to be true. All three defendants were principals in the crime. But, the cases were severed for no legitimate legal reason, and the charges were dismissed against the agent and his brother. Only the hit man stood trial and was convicted. Following this conviction the case was closed, and no one was ever charged with ordering the hit or filling the roles of the necessary conspirators. No clear motive was ever established.

The victim was the owner of the largest ranch in the US at the time. His LCs ranch, centered at Silver City NM, encompassed over 1.5 million acres of contiguous land. The district attorney and the judge held the hearing for severance and months later another for the first dismissal, and then about two months later, a third for the second dismissal, all in judge's chambers without notice to the widow or her personal attorney, and in none of these three instances did they follow Texas Code of Criminal Procedure (TCCP) rules for severance and dismissal. They deliberately did not produce and file the required statement of facts and the judge's reasoning supporting his decision in any of these actions, because they had no credible reason for these actions. After the trial the widow of the victim, originally focused on justice, said she received a deposition from the defense attorneys through the sheriff of El Paso County, and she abruptly announced that she would pursue the matter no further.

In the appeal by the defense neither the prosecution nor the defense complained about the procedural irregularities, and the appeals court, though commenting on the missing documents, declined to consider these issues since neither side complained.

No one seemed to know (or didn't admit knowing) that the two dismissed defendants were not the wealthy cattlemen the news claimed they were, and that the key witness for the defense was not the crusty old honest cattleman from Colorado City that he was said to be.

Last Train to El Paso deals with all of this and is backed by over two years of research.

Praise for Last Train To El Paso
Holy cow! You've uncovered a dynamite story! A murder-for-hire gang first assembled by Killer Miller. The brutal murder of a cattle king. The astounding connection with Hamer in Sweetwater. El Paso's biggest trial. On and on--wow! I've just tried to call you in my enthusiasm, moments after finishing your book, but your voice mail is full.
--Bill O'Neal, Texas State Historian, Author

With all the determination and perseverance of the dedicated cold case detective, Jerry Lobdill has uncovered and brought into bright light a long ignored criminal conspiracy, and produced an excellent work and a fascinating read.
--Robert K. DeArment , Old West Author

Strange things happen in courtrooms today, but it is doubtful if what happened in
the El Paso courtrooms in 1918 could possibly happen today. Jerry J. Lobdill has, after
years of research, provided us with an exceptional treatment of a murder for hire, the
investigation, the trial and the outcome. The victim was Thomas Lyons, owner of the
largest ranch in the United States at the time. All that is certain is that he was murdered,
but who all were involved in his death? Who was the actual "hit man?" Why was he
killed? Who all did benefit from his death? Was it a simple revenge killing or were there
much larger forces at work, such as international intrigue with participants in the
Mexican Revolution?
One who is today familiar with crime dramas on TV may wonder how such a
miscarriage of justice could occur in our United States. Lobdill presents convincingly
what happened and why.
-- Chuck Parsons, Old West Author

"The evil that men do lives after them." If author Jerry Lobdill is right, Mark Antony's reflection on the assassinated Julius Caesar, courtesy of William Shakespeare, applies equally to Old West hired assassin Jim Miller. In Last Train to El Paso, Lobdill tells the fascinating story of a once sensational but long-forgotten west Texas murder that ended in a court-approved miscarriage of justice. In a narrative based on surviving court records, newspaper accounts, and private documents not intended for daylight, Lobdill makes a strong case that, nearly a decade after the vigilante hanging of "Killer Miller," the feared assassin's tactics were used by surviving criminal associates to intimidate El Paso's officers of the court into burying the murder of a New Mexico cattle king.
-- Paul Cool, Old West Author

In Last Train to El Paso, Jerry Lobdill has uncovered a long forgotten but important episode in Western history: the 1917 El Paso murder of New Mexico cattle baron Thomas Lyons. This killing, and the legal proceedings which followed, mark plainly the end of the gunfighter era in El Paso. Lobdill shows that Lyons' murderers had been confederates of the notorious killer-for-hire Jim Miller, whose bloody career ended on a lynch rope in 1909. This is an exhaustively researched book which opens a window into the final years of the Wild West.
-- John Boessenecker, Old West Author