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

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16 Noticeably absent at the organizational meeting was Sheriff Albert Anderson of Culberson County. The twice-spurned lawman from the county where the bodies were discovered used a legitimate excuse for ignoring the gathering in El Paso. He said he was too busy to sit around jawing about the case in a distant location, when there was real police work to be done where the murders had actually occurred. Sure enough, the disgruntled sheriff was about to prove his point. The day the group met for the first time, one of Anderson’s search parties stumbledupontheplacewherethekillersapparentlytooktheFromePackardto ransack the women’s belongings. The site was thirty miles east of where the bodies were found and several hundred yards off US 80, in a spot secluded enough for a leisurely search. Sheriff Anderson had organized a search party on his own initiative. He sent one group walking east from Van Horn, where the bodies were found. Sheriff Louis Robertson of Reeves County dispatched another group to walk the highway west from near Balmorhea, where the Packard was discovered. The two search parties, comprised of a total of one hundred deputies, volunteer civilians, soldiers, and workers from federal highway gangs, scoured the desert several hundred yards on either side of the highway. The idea was to have the groups meet up somewhere in that fifty-mile stretch of road, even if it took several days of hard walking in the rugged terrain. A team of CCC workers in the Anderson party made the first discovery. What led them to the spot were pages of Los Angeles and San Francisco newspapers, dated the week the women left California, scattered across the desert. Pop Frome had mentioned to Anderson that both Hazel and NancywereavidnewshoundsandhadlefthomewithunreadSanFrancisco papers in their luggage. The women had apparently picked up LA papers when they stopped at the Biltmore on the first night of their trip. murder in the desert 85 The newspapers were tangled in the spiny branches of cacti and tasajillo bushes. By retracing the direction downwind from the prevailing breezes, Sheriff Anderson found tire tracks and other disturbances in the rough earth. There were signs of recent human activity at the spot, including an empty wine bottle and bloody paper tissues. Curiously, in the debris was a pair of crumpled, thin rubber gloves, like the ones used by physicians. The gloves were wrapped in a page from one of the California papers found at the desert scene. While Sheriff Anderson was exulting in the discovery of these latest clues, two hundred miles away Sheriff Fox was setting the parameters for what he hoped would be a methodical, thorough investigation. He established his office in El Paso as the central gathering place for all evidence previously discovered and made arrangements for investigators to drop off any new clues. A stenographer in his office was assigned to be on call for any investigator , be it local lawman, federal agent, or state officer, to transcribe notes from interrogations and interviews. Incoming tips from the public, as well as correspondence and contacts from out-of-state law enforcement agencies, would add to the collection. Fox said any officer working on the case would have access to the whole file at any time, and he would compile weekly summaries of all this information, to be typed by his clerical staff. He would provide copies to all local agencies working on the case and Berkeley police chief Jack A. Greening. The Frome murders were designated as El Paso Sheriff ’s Office Case #9628. Sheriff Fox’s coordinated plan sounded good in theory. But it left out onekeyfactor:thejurisdictionalproprietorshipandunspokenprofessional jealousies that historically hamstrung any genuine cooperation between authorities. Some of that interagency suspicion, particularly between local lawmen and the feds and Rangers, was probably justified. In the topsy-turvy, often lawless Depression era, when G-men or Rangers came to town, it was as often to investigate the malfeasance of the local officials as it was to hunt down other criminals. Politics and politicians were also constantly intruding in criminal investigations, sometimes to help their cronies out of legal jams. 86 fetch the devil The Rangers at the table were still smarting from such big-time political interference. Only five years earlier, a Texas governor named Miriam A. “Ma” Ferguson had fired the entire Ranger force, believing its members supported her opponent. Accused of selling pardons at the rate of more thanahundredamonth,thatgovernorappointedhundredsofnotoriously corrupt...