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Sheriff

Sheriff in La Mesa, New Mexico Territory in 1876.[1] (May 30, 1836 – June 20, 1879)[2]

The Jeweled Gun: In May of 1876, the sheriff responded to the scene of a shooting at the La Mesa Hotel. Upon arrival, he was met by the hotel clerk at the door to the room of Bart Maverick and Daisy Haskell. Once inside the room, the sheriff learned that Daisy had shot Bart, who had been hired by her to travel with her from Santa Fe posing as her husband, John Haskell. But Bart, who had grown suspicious of Daisy's behavior and had replaced the bullets in her derringer with blanks. He survived the shooting and feigned dying. After the sheriff questioned Daisy about the shooting, he inspected the Winchester carbine that Henrique Fillipe, Daisy's lover, had given Bart for protection along the trail. He found its hollowed stock contained Daisy's missing jeweled necklace and derringer, confirming Bart's story. With the cooperation of the sheriff and La Mesa's undertaker, Bart played his own corpse at the funerla parlor to convince Daisy and Fillipe that she had really killed him. The sheriff attended a mock funeral for "John Haskell" with the undertaker to complete the ruse. Afterwards, Bart hid in the shadows of Daisy's hotel room and overheard her and Fillipe describe the success of their plan, making it appear that Haskell had been killed in La Mesa during a robbery, rather than by Fillipe in Santa Fe. With this new evidence, the sheriff arrested Daisy and Fillipe and returned them to Santa Fe to stand trial for the murder of John Haskell and the attempted murder of Bart Maverick.[1]