Fetch the Devil: The Sierra Diablo Murders and Nazi Espionage in America

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46 By early 1941, international events overshadowed almost everything else on the front pages of the newspapers. Sheriff Fox and his select deputies were now dedicating significant time to assisting the FBI with the hushhush surveillance in their own backyard. The only Texas Ranger assigned full time to the Frome case unexpectedly left the force to join the feds in the rapidly expanding counterespionage endeavor. In effect, the Frome murder case was stalled, with not enough new angles to justify even parttime , regular manpower. Ranger Hugh Pharies was recruited by J. Edgar Hoover shortly after returning from his in-depth interview with Pop Frome. After completing a basic refresher course, he was assigned to spy-chasing activities in the Philadelphia area. While the young former Ranger threw himself into his new duties, he wrote Fox a somewhat apologetic letter about leaving the Frome case cold. “To me, that will always be the most interesting case I have ever known,” Pharies said. “Even here, when I handle anyone who has ever been in that section of the country, I always question them about the Frome case. I would really appreciate your keeping me posted of any important developments in the case. I had rather know just what happened out there in the desert that day than most anything I know of.”301 Pharies suggested Fox get acquainted with a new FBI agent assigned to El Paso, with whom he had gone through training at the academy. He said he had heard through the grapevine about Fox’s valuable cooperation on top-secret work of interest to Director Hoover. After Pharies left for the federal police job, the manpower-strapped Texas Rangers did not designate a replacement. It was the first time in the almost three years since the Frome women were slain that the Rangers did not have at least one full-time investigator assigned to the case. There was no one at the El Paso Sheriff ’s Office on it full time either. Sheriff Albert Anderson, who had fought so hard to have the case re- an enemy within 265 turnedtohisjurisdictioninCulbersonCounty,neverhadthemeanstodevote to it. He was forced to use his meager resources to chase cattle rustlers and miscreant drifters off his vast range. No one had ever whole-heartedly championed the investigation in the victims’ hometown, at least partially due to the political intervention on behalf of Weston Frome. When Fox and his men joined the feds to begin surveillance of the German doctor Wolfgang Ebell, the last thing on the minds of any of the newlyminted,counterespionagesnoopswasthepossibilityofaconnection between the spies and the murders of Hazel and Nancy Frome. The federal agents working with the local sheriff certainly had no interest in the old murders.AndwhileHazelandNancyremainedonthesheriff’smind,they were not on his agenda. He concentrated any spare time and resources he could muster on his new challenge—defending the national security. In his usual, methodical approach to any investigation, Sheriff Fox set up details for around-the-clock shadowing of the suspected Nazi agent. Plainclothes detectives from his office began recording license-plate numbers of cars appearing at the doctor’s suburban home. Detectives discreetly tailed the doctor as he made his rounds in the city and on his frequent trips across the border. They noted the meetings he attended and the people he visited. His office was watched. His associates were identified. As in the Frome case, Fox and his investigators quickly built a huge file on the target, and regularly supplied reports to the El Paso office of the FBI. Apersonasoonemergedthatwasfardifferentfromthatoftheseemingly well-assimilated German immigrant doctor. Ebell’s only previously known public activities included weekly attendance at his service-club luncheon in a downtown café and a German American social club that met at the Log Cabin Tavern, 2217 East Texas Street, for a Saturday night dance and songfest. Of late, however, Ebell had abandoned these social activities for more private gatherings in his own home. He was also observed to be spendingmoretimeinJuarezandtakingfrequenttripsdeeperintoMexico. Soon after discovering Ebell was an active Nazi agent, the FBI learned he had been practicing the dark arts of espionage in America since at least 1933. He was either dispatched or specifically recruited to establish a major conduit between North America and Germany. 266 fetch the devil An arrested Nazi agent revealed under interrogation that Ebell was the linchpin in a Nazi transit chain from the West Coast of the United States...