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

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15 As designated coordinator of the Frome case, Chris Fox called the first planning meeting of lawmen from various agencies, four days after the bodies were found. He would need to muster his best diplomatic skills to overcome the jurisdictional rivalries pulling the investigation in significantly different directions. The case-hardened El Paso sheriff, who was not timid about speaking his mind, vowed to use tact in dealing with the other officers on the committee. He would quickly learn not everyone on the team was going to cooperate. His power to force a direction for the investigation was limited by the title of “coordinator.” Though tacitly accepted, it did not carry the imprimatur of “leader.” Fox’sappointmentwasespeciallyirksometoSheriffAnderson,whowas not alone in his resentment over what some of the older career lawmen saw as grandstanding. Fox’s reason for accepting responsibility for the Frome investigation was similar to his justification for his earlier meddling in the DeBolt case: the Culberson County Sheriff ’s Office was too understaffed andunderfundedtohandleacasewithpotentialinterstate,andmaybeeven international, ramifications. While the argument was no doubt accurate, it did not do much to soothe the bruised egos of the small-town sheriff or old hands who still viewed Fox as something of an upstart. IntheFromecase,theElPasosheriffwasforcedtoworkclosely,notonly with Anderson, but also with a number of older DPS men who had spent their entire lives chasing miscreants all over the huge state. These lawmen suspected that Fox believed the El Paso district was a country unto itself and that he was lord of the fiefdom when it came to law enforcement. Their view was not without a grain of truth. A local-state jurisdictional dispute three years earlier still festered in the unfinished business files in Austin. In late November 1935, Fox got into a feud with agents from the Texas Liquor Board. The issue was over who was in charge of handling crimes at nightclubs, bars, and to a lesser degree, package stores. By going over the head of the chief of enforcement for the 82 fetch the devil liquor board to higher authority in Austin, Fox won what, to him, was a compromise. The liquor agents’ authority in El Paso would be restricted to collecting state liquor, beer, and wine taxes. These officers, who considered themselves lawmen, were thus reduced to tax collectors, similar to agents whose job it was to collect sales tax on gasoline and cigarettes. The agents were to leave crimes that occurred in bars and package stores to the local police department and sheriff ’s office. These rules seemed only to apply to El Paso County, way out on the tip of Texas. What Fox saw as a compromise ,theliquoragentsconsideredausurpingoftheirlawenforcementroles. The uneasy truce held until late January 1937, when ten state inspectors suddenly came to town to conduct unannounced raids. The raids resulted in the licenses of four El Paso bars that sold liquor by the drink beingrevoked.SheriffFoxandtwohundredbaroperatorsbesiegedAustin, claiming the agents had violated the truce. That feud with the state was still simmering when the Frome case erupted. More problematic was Fox’s on-again, off-again relationship with the Texas Rangers. He had angrily stormed Austin in the spring of 1936, after three Rangers rode into El Paso and began searching local bars for a fugitive they believed to be in the area.77 The visiting Rangers did not have the courtesy to let Sheriff Fox know they were operating in his bailiwick. When the sheriff began getting calls that the state officers were searching local saloons, he fired off an angry protest to Austin. As usual, the Rangers got their man and quickly left town. But feelings were hurt on both sides. TogetanythingdoneintheFromecase,SheriffFoxwouldneedtowork, not only with his disgruntled neighbor, Sheriff Anderson, but with the TexasRangersaswell. TheRangerswerealsonot lackingin ego.Oneof the RangersassignedtotheFromecasewasnoneotherthanthewell-respected Pete Crawford, whom Fox had tried to run out of El Paso two years earlier. Fox clearly wanted to assume a leadership role in the case, despite his history of jurisdictional disputes with the state officers. At a press conference , he told newsmen he had been asked to enter the case by Weston G. FromeandthechiefofpoliceatBerkeley,California,becausetheybelieved the killers had followed the women from El Paso.78 When Fox took over, several Rangers and DPS investigators were already working in Pecos, Van Horn, and El Paso to assist local officers with separate aspects of the case. murder in the desert 83 The first coordination meeting of the...