Judy and Cotton McKnight: A Tale of Police Corruption and Cold-Blooded Murder

Have you heard about the vicious double murder of Judy and Thomas “Cotton” McKnight? It’s a wild tale of deep-rooted corruption and deliberate obfuscation, missing evidence and mishandling of fingerprints, and more. There are clear suspects that have never been properly investigated. Meanwhile, this case has grown moldy in the State Police evidence room. So buckle up for this wild ride.

First, some background….

Judy and Thomas “Cotton” McKnight owned the Upper McKnight sheep ranch near Picacho, NM. Cotton’s family had moved to New Mexico in 1910, before it was even a state; they established a ranch that his parents kept. Judy was from a large family in Colorado and was a single mom to a boy named Randy. She had dropped out of beauty school and junior college, and only worked at a convalescent home before meeting Cotton, meaning she didn’t have much money. Cotton did have some money as the son of a rancher, Joe McKnight, though he died over $250k in debt.  

The couple had married on the ranch in 1977. The two didn’t have the happiest marriage and Cotton’s friends reported that he planned to leave Judy due to her alcoholism and their constant fighting over finances. Judy’s friends said she was unhappy with him due to his belligerence and verbal abuse. In a prenup, it was agreed that their property would remain separate in the event of divorce, meaning Judy would leave the marriage with nothing, just as she had entered it. 

But the couple didn’t get the chance to move forward with life without each other. 

That’s because the McKnights were shot execution-style in November of 1984 by someone with a .38 caliber gun. Cotton was shot once in the chest and once in the head. Judy was shot in the back. Then both people were shot one more time as they lay on the floor dying. This final shot made sure they would never get back up again. 

They were found in their kitchen on November 15, 1984. A hunter named Dicky Don Marshall, who paid for hunting rights on the ranch, had camped on the property with his wife on the 14. He knocked that day to say hi to the McKnights, but it looked like no one was home. The next day, as he left, he stopped at the house again, knocked, peeked in the back kitchen window, and became concerned because there was still no sign of life yet their vehicles were parked at the house. He did not see their bodies on the kitchen floor through the window, so he retrieved a nearby neighbor, Virgil Smith (remember, this ranch was in the middle of nowhere, so the nearest neighbor was probably still very far away, too far to hear gunshots). Smith found the back door was slightly ajar despite being locked and he was able to push it open with some force. 

That’s when they found the bodies. 

The Scene

Due to the position of Judy’s body, it appears she was kneeling holding Cotton’s head after he was shot, before she was shot in the back. She then fell backward. Her legs fell to the side while her feet were near Cotton’s head and her head was farthest away from him.  In her hand, she held a cigarette that had been lit but was mostly unsmoked. The weird thing is that the cigarette’s cherry end was turned toward her palm, almost as if it fell out of her hand, then was placed back  to stage the scene. 

She was wearing a blue bathrobe, slippers, panties with no bra, and rings and earrings, suggesting she may have been in the middle of getting ready for bed. Police think she ran to Cotton when she heard the shots and cradled his head before being killed herself.  This suggests she was not the intended victim, but killed because she was a witness. 

Since they had been seen alive just two days before, the murders were believed to have occurred in the evening of November 13. There was no sign of forced entry; it appeared they had known their killer(s) and let him – or them – into the house willingly. Judy’s bathrobe suggests that it was nighttime and they were comfortable enough with the killer(s) to open the door, even while Judy readied herself for bed in another part of the house. 

There were beer bottles and liquor bottles arranged on the table in the kitchen. They were not the types of liquor one would normally mix together. The NMSP evidence list contains a half-empty Coors can, two empty Coors cans, a Pepsi can, vodka, tequila, cream liqueur, and whisky. The glass of these bottles had no prints, but traces of latent prints were found on the labels. Five drinking glasses were in the sink, also with very few prints. The bottle of tequila was a very expensive brand that Cotton typically left in the back of his liquor cabinet and only busted out for important company. The original investigation and newspaper articles said Cotton liked Coors, but the other stuff was probably set out for guests, as Cotton preferred bourbon and Judy preferred vodka mixed with tonic. It is thought that these bottles and five glasses indicated company, while others theorize that the bottles and glasses were staged to throw off the investigation.

I find it interesting that the evidence list mentions finding marijuana, pills, syringes, rolling papers, pipes, and other drug paraphernalia around the house, as well. The McKnights do not seem like typical drug users but I guess lots of people have secret addictions. Most of the paraphernalia was found in the room of Randy Rickley, Judy McKnight’s son from a previous marriage, though some paraphernalia were found in Judy’s things. Later on, a friend of Judy’s, Rowland Tessier, would claim that Judy snuck around behind Cotton’s back to do drugs and her son was heavily into drugs. Rowland also claimed that he and Judy did heroin together. 

The crime scene had been meticulously cleaned. People said Judy was not the best housekeeper and normally her house was not that immaculate. Even the TV knobs had been wiped down and there were very few fingerprints on the glasses on the table; a total of thirty-six were lifted but they were mere traces without enough points for a viable match. This suggests that the killer was smart and knew what forensic evidence could be collected. Mike Lee, one of the original investigators, was suspicious at how clean the house was, leaving little evidence available. There was also little blood, though there were large bloodstains on the carpet in the kitchen and blood chips on the walls. The bloody carpet was eventually cut out by a tenant living in the house. The tenant did this at Joe McKnight’s request. 

Despite the crime scene being clean, five shell casings and some lead bullet fragments were recovered from the scene. Why would someone clean everything up but leave the shell casings behind? Maybe because they were afraid of being caught with those casings and thus being convicted?

A skid mark was noted outside in the gravel drive, and some think it was left by the killer(s) leaving in a hurry. But if someone took the time to meticulously clean up the crime scene after shooting Cotton and Judy, I don’t see why they were in a rush to leave in their vehicle after. I wonder if the skid mark came from some other occasion. Maybe it’s evidence that someone had been at the ranch earlier and had gotten into a fight with Cotton and left in a fury. Later, this same person may have returned with a cold, hardened heart and committed this crime in a methodical way. Or maybe, the killer was taking his sweet time cleaning the house but then he saw someone approach the ranch house so he panicked and left. Or maybe the skid mark was unrelated to the double homicide. 

Another thing of note is that the killer(s) locked the door behind them on their way out of the ranch house and shut the gate behind them as they drove away from the ranch, suggesting they had an interest in taking care of the ranch and protecting the sheep, which were valuable sources of income. This would match the potential profile of Poncho and Joe McKnight, who also were stakeholders in the ranch. However, I grew up in New Mexico ranch land, and it is just custom to close gates behind you if they were closed when you found them. The killer may have locked the doors behind him on his way out because it was habit. Or maybe it was an act of finality, symbolically shutting the door on the horrific act he had just committed. 

Another possibility is that the person locked the doors and closed the gates to make the scene look normal and avoid arousing suspicion. This would delay the discovery of the bodies. Had they left the gates open, someone would have known right away something was wrong and investigated. This could have been an attempt to stall the investigation and delay justice.

On November 20, 1984, a second search of the McKnight residence found a pack of Merit cigarettes tossed in the woodstove and partially burned. This had been overlooked in the original sweep of the house. I think this is an interesting clue. Maybe the killer(s) burned these cigarettes because he was known for smoking that brand. The state police evidence list doesn’t mention if any Merit cigarette butts were found in ashtrays in the house; this could point to whether the cigarettes belonged to the McKnights or some other person. If this evidence is still in the evidence locker, then maybe it could be tested for DNA. 

The Botched Investigation

The investigation was originally handled by the Lincoln County sheriffs with assistance by the state police, which the sheriffs apparently resented. The sheriff of Lincoln County at the time was Tom Sullivan. The lead investigators in the double homicide were Ray Garner and Mike Lee. When a task force containing NM state police was proposed, Chief Deputy Cox shot it down due to his personal issues with the state police. Cox announced that they had a strong suspect and were about to solve the case and didn’t need any outside help. Obviously, they never made an arrest.

From the beginning, evidence was mishandled and fingerprints were never properly taken from suspects. Mike Lee and Ray Garner made special efforts to solve this crime but their progress appeared to be deliberately hampered. 

Lee, a fingerprint expert, lifted 36 fingerprints from the bottles and beer can in the home, though he noticed that it appeared most of the fingerprints had been deliberately wiped away. He found that most of the prints matched Cotton and Judy, but a few did not. He noted unusual features in a few of the fingerprints that matched Phil Baiers’ fingerprint card with the State Police. Phil was a State Police officer and the husband of Cotton’s ex-wife. Lee also noticed possible similarities to fingerprints he nabbed from Anthony Fabry’s sheriff’s application. Fabry was a Chavez County Sheriffs Deputy who was childhood best friends with Cotton. Remember both of these names, as they are key players in this saga.

Unfortunately, there were not enough comparison points to be sure about the match. Lee noted that the State Police stalled on getting better fingerprint standards from Phil Baiers. That is pretty weird, given he was a state cop.

A palm print was also found at the scene. Ray Garner suspected Fabry, so he surreptitiously obtained Anthony Fabry’s palm print at the office where they worked together. However, he was then ordered not to dig too deep into the case by Sheriff Tom Sullivan, so he never compared that print to the one found at the scene. He just slipped the palm print into the evidence file without a note.  Fresh fingerprints were never taken from Fabry, either. 

In 1984, Mike Lee took the bottles to Texas Tech to try out new laser print technology to get better impressions of the prints. His supervisor at the state police reamed him for breaking the chain of custody on the bottles and beer can. Since he was a key investigator in the case, he technically did not break the chain of custody and appeared to be doing exactly what an investigator should do. The laser was able to get a better picture of the prints, which were then run through AFIS and determined to still not be of sufficient quality for a match. I think they had probably been pretty mutilated by the thorough cleaning of the house.

Mike Lee later tried to run the prints through AFIS a second time and was ordered not to by DA Dana Martwick. To this day, he remains certain that they belonged to Phil Baiers and maybe Anthony Fabry, but he was never allowed to confirm that. 

When Cox rekindled the case in 2010, someone tried to look at the prints again, but the bottles were mysteriously lost from the evidence room. So the only remaining evidence, the one shot at solving this crime, are just…gone. Weird, right?

The case was turned over to the NM State Police and the Attorney General in September 1985. Lawrence Montoya and Vance Adams spearheaded the investigation. The state police fingered sheriff candidate Charlie Cox as their main suspect, due to the fact he may have had an affair with Judy McKnight and he also was suspected of a different murder from Chavez County. Cox  stole some evidence files from the state police to find out his status in the investigation. Ultimately, he was never charged. Meanwhile, the NMSP continued to avoid taking fresh fingerprints from any of the suspects and they never compared the fingerprints or ran them through AFIS again. 

Later you will read about an investigative journalist named Mark and his extensive work on this case. But here is a good place to mention that Mark requested records from the State Police on the case and he requested prints be ran again. The NMSP complied – and did the same crap as before. They compared the prints to old Xeroxed copies of Phil’s original fingerprint card from the 80s and didn’t get any conclusive results. They still refused to obtain fresh prints from Phil Baiers, Anthony Fabry, or any of the other suspects in the case for a better comparison. More on the suspects and more on Mark later, though.

The case is unsolved today as a result of this constant mishandling. Cox tried to charge someone early on but was unable to. Ray Garner also said that he thought he could have solved the case, had the state police not come into the picture and muddled everything. To complicate matters even more, people often refused to discuss the case, and the few witness testimonies they got appear to be based on rumors and hearsay. 

Thus, the case became cold. While it was never officially closed, it fell to the wayside and began to collect dust on the shelves of the State Police. 

 In 2010, Charlie Cox and his sons pushed to rekindle the case, and the NMSP granted them permission to investigate. Cox made some significant headway this time and fingered Anthony Fabry as a very suspicious individual due to some of his actions and conflicting stories following the case. But he also found Vicki  Baier, Cotton’s ex-wife, and Donald Poncho McKnight, Cotton’s brother, to be suspiciously reticent to talk about the crime. He felt they knew things they didn’t want to disclose, possibly for their own protection. He also noted that there were additional suspects also with motive to kill the McKnights. 

The Suspects

So now let’s get to Mark. Mark is a journalist who heard about the double homicide while he worked at a paper in Roswell. He started investigating the crime for a Master’s thesis, but ultimately never used it for the project. Instead, he became personally invested in exposing the corruption he uncovered within the New Mexico law enforcement community – primarily the state police. Through his Facebook page, Justice for Judy and Cotton McKnight, he advocates for the victims and shares pages and pages of documents and hours and hours of recorded interviews. 

Mark used the cleanliness of the scene as part of the foundation of his theory that the murder was committed by a law enforcement officer who knew what evidence investigators would look for. Cotton had been the county commissioner and was friends with various law enforcement agents. Also, Mark thinks that the mess created around the investigation was intentional and the law enforcement, namely the NM State Police, were actively hiding something. He points out how law enforcement agents were warned not to dig too deep by Tom Sullivan, the sheriff at the time in Lincoln County, and the state district attorney. 

Mark also built his investigation around suspects that the sheriff’s office identified and the fact that the McKnights appeared to know their killer or killers. According to Mark’s review of the case and documents, there are currently four main suspects – Phil Baiers, Anthony Fabry, Joe McKnight, and Donald “Poncho” McKnight. The case files reveal a few other suspects and persons of interest, as well.

1. Phil Baiers was a state police officer in 1984 and had married Vicki McKnight for her money after she divorced Cotton. He was also close to Joe McKnight. He came under suspicion for how involved he was in the investigation from the beginning, even though it was outside his jurisdiction. He was one of the first officers on the scene and personally escorted Joe McKnight to view the bodies. 

 Also, years after the initial investigation, one of his wives called Tom Sullivan and asked if the case was still open. Then she stated she thought Phil might have done it. By this time, Phil Baiers was in the FBI, but his wife felt he was capable of the crimes.

 Meanwhile, Vicki, Phil’s first ex-wife, is dead silent about the murder. She and Cotton’s son, Judson, don’t give interviews or talk about the crime. Some people think that she knows what really happened and she is afraid of Phil. Baiers claims they don’t talk anymore, despite having a child together. 

Baiers was allegedly in some sort of financial dispute with Cotton. Some of the fingerprints at the scene matched him, though the fingerprinting work done was shoddy and not very accurate. The police was also reticent about sharing Phil’s fingerprint card, suggesting a cover-up. Phil claimed he had never, ever been to the ranch. Numerous witnesses stated that he had in fact been to the ranch, however. Why would he have lied about this?

When the investigation opened, Phil refused a polygraph and hired a top-tier attorney right away. This is quite suspicious. To this day, he won’t talk about the murders without being very evasive. 

An eye witness claimed they spotted a State Police cruiser leaving the ranch via the back roads the day of the murders. But in the 80s, Chaves County deputy vehicles looked similar in color to State Police. This leaves room for the next suspect…. 

2. Anthony Fabry was a Chavez County Sheriff’s deputy and he had dated Vicki Baiers previously. He had been close friends with Cotton since childhood.

 After the murders, he was questioned on November 28, 1984. Interestingly, he claimed that he had seen Cotton a few days before the murder at the Elks Lodge and Cotton confided that he had some unidentified “problem” that he was grappling with, for which he needed Fabry’s help. Fabry offered to come up to the ranch and help on the 16 or 17, the same day he was being questioned, but by then Cotton was already dead. In the interview, he stated that Phil Baiers helped with this mysterious problem of Cotton’s, and also that Baiers was the one who committed the murders. However, some of Fabry’s claims didn’t match up to evidence and later statements. 

There is also a witness who claims Fabry told him he had found the bodies prior to police being called to the ranch house but didn’t radio it in. Why wouldn’t he radio it in? Another witness said that Fabry spoke with Cotton at the Elks Lodge and decided to go out to the ranch the next day. 

Ray Garner was the first officer to interrogate Fabry, and he became suspicious of gaps in Fabry’s story. Since Fabry was his co-worker, he surreptitiously obtained Fabry’s palm print, which he slipped into an evidence file without notation. He then got yelled at by then Sheriff Tom Sullivan to not dig too deep into the case, so he never did anything with the palm print. However, he did confront Fabry with his suspicions. Fabry became violent and had to be restrained by other sheriff deputies in the office. Shortly after, Fabry moved to the Marshall Islands for two years, where he worked as a cop. He told everyone he had moved to the Marshall Islands prior to the murders but in reality it was about two months after the murders. 

Rumors swirled that Febry was having some financial hardships with his side business, a security company called New Mexico State Patrol. Around the time of the double homicide, he suddenly had lots of unexplained cash, with which he paid off back taxes on the business. He also supposedly got drug trafficking charges of some kind against Cotton McKnight dismissed. This made people believe that Fabry and Cotton were running drugs together. In addition, the Chavez County state police office always believed Fabry was the biggest suspect, but they never put this in official records, as if they were afraid of him. 

Later, when Charlie Cox reopened the case, a suspicious figure was captured on his game camera on his property late at night. Fabry’s ex-wife identified it as him. 

3. Joe McKnight was Cotton’s father and the two had a contentious relationship. It is rumored that Joe wanted to take control of Cotton’s ranch. Cotton was a ten percent partner in the ranch company and made payments to his father for the ranch land he used for sheep. But Cotton was not a good businessman and Joe claimed Cotton had racked up a lot of debt. Evidence of loans Cotton had taken out were found in the ranch house to confirm this. The murder may have been related to this and to the money that Cotton supposedly had trouble with. If he was costing his family money by mismanaging the ranch, his father may have had motive to kill him. His other son, Donald “Poncho” McKnight, said that he thought his father may have killed Cotton. 

Joe McKnight lied often throughout the investigation. However, he did admit he and Cotton had been fighting about money. Cotton was deeply in debt to the tune of a quarter of a million dollars by the time he died. Maybe there was a family conflict that led to Joe pulling the trigger on his own son. Most people seem to think that Joe McKnight knew more than he was letting on. But they don’t think he was the actual gunman.

One thing that cast suspicion on Joe was his earnest smear campaign of Charlie Cox. He broadcasted his suspicions of Cox to the newspapers and helped create an enduring rumor that ruined Cox’s law enforcement career. Why was he so determined to pin the crime on this man? There was no real evidence ever pointing to Charlie Cox. 

4. Some think Donald “Poncho” McKnight was involved due to his contention with Cotton and his suspected involvement in drug running. Joe also tended to place blame on his son Poncho, even saying in some interviews that he suspected his son to be involved. An FBI profiler who worked on the case felt Poncho knew more than he let on. 

Poncho ran the “Lower Ranch” while Cotton ran the “Upper Ranch” and Joe McKnight took issue with how both sons ran their ranches. He actually planned to take back the Lower Ranch from Poncho, and he once refused to give Poncho the deed to the ranch. This would give him motive to kill his dad but not Cotton. 

A tip that came in later from retired NMSP Officer Ted Burke, who stated that Donald “Poncho” McKnight did narcotics and loved guns, and therefore may have been involved. The DEA did discover a marijuana plantation on Poncho’s ranch a few years previously and an agent came to eradicate the plants but found they were gone. Cotton was seen talking to sheriffs deputies shortly before he died, and some think that he may have been outing his brother for growing. This was given as a possible motive for Poncho to kill Cotton. 

However, Poncho was one of the main people who circulated a petition to assemble a grand jury to review the available evidence and try to get indictments. While the grand jury merely determined more investigation needed to be performed, this move on Poncho’s part means he was invested in getting the crimes solved. It makes him look less guilty in my opinion.

5. Charlie Cox was the Lincoln County Chief Deputy Sheriff at the time and he ran for sheriff in 1986, but lost. Various people attempted to pin the murder on him, despite a lack of evidence that he was involved. Some said he was seen cleaning out the ranch house with his wife to remove evidence. Some also said that he was having an affair with Judy McKnight, which Cotton was planning to expose. Mark believes politics played a role in these accusations against Cox. 

Ultimately, Cox cooperated the most with Mark on his investigative journalism. He also had the case reopened in 2010 and made much headway with an investigative team he assembled that included his own son. He was not able to solve the case, though. He passed away in his 80s without getting justice for the McKnight couple.

6. Randy Rickley was the son of Judy McKnight. Randy has maintained total silence on this matter. He refuses to speak about it and gets defensive and belligerent when asked about the murders. He also never provided his whereabouts for the 13 and 14 of November. In the days after his mother and stepfather were killed, he showed no emotion. 

It was rumored that he did lots of drugs and therefore he may have been the one responsible for the high amount of drugs and paraphernalia found in the ranch house after the murders. 

The day prior to the murders, someone saw Randy Rickley on the road to the ranch. However, Randy claimed he had not been in the area at the time and had not visited the ranch for a long time. 

Judy McKnight had $30000 in certificates of deposit for her son. She refused to let him have the money. Once she died, he got the cash. 

7. Donald Duncan was a friend of Randy’s with a criminal history involving drugs and child sexual abuse against his stepdaughters, for which he did eight years in prison starting in 1985. His wife, Lisa Duncan-Lockett, reported him for the molestation of their children and he went to prison for a few years, getting out in April 1993. Lisa disappeared in June 1993 and was found handcuffed, shot in the back of the head, and buried in Sandoval County (the Bernalillo area). Duncan was ruled out as her murderer, but many claimed he was the one who killed the McKnights. He was a definite person of interest that police watched throughout the case. 

The most common rumor was that he was using the ranch’s private airstrip to run drugs with Randy Rickley and a man named Joe Corrie. Cotton caught him, and was going to meet with Tony Fabry and someone from the FBI after Thanksgiving to report what he had witnessed. However, Duncan took care of him before that meeting could transpire. Another rumor is that Donald Duncan directly asked him if he could use the airstrip, and Cotton said no, resulting in his murder. Some said that Joe Corrie may have committed the murders with Duncan, and buried the murder weapon on his private property. 

Duncan allegedly told Lisa once that he had killed the McKnights to help Randy Rickley get rich. He also told this to Joe Lockett, Lisa’s brother, to keep him from telling anyone about the drugs and counterfeit money schemes they were involved in together. As Duncan was investigated, numerous witnesses came forward saying he had bragged about killing the McKnights. 

He had a .357 gun that he sent to a brother in Amarillo after the murders. It was tested and found not to match the crime scene. However, he later told his ex-wife that he borrowed some keys to the welding room at ENMU-Roswell to dispose of a gun. To police, he claimed he had been in school at ENMU Roswell on November 13, but Lisa Duncan-Lockett said she had not seen him there and he did not return home until midnight that night. Those unaccounted-for hours would have given him plenty of time to commit the murders. At the funeral, he told Lisa Duncan that the McKnights did not look as bad as they did. 

Additional Evidence

A month prior to the murder, sheriff deputies were dispatched to the Upper McKnight Ranch to investigate a “prowler.” Judy was very upset about this unidentified person creeping around, which I would be too as a woman living in the middle of nowhere. But I wonder if this prowler might be related to the murders? After all, the ranch was basically in the middle of nowhere. Vagrants and bored people would not be prone to walking around the area at random. Someone would have to get out there by vehicle and make a deliberate effort to get onto the ranch through fences and gates. The amount of effort that would go into prowling at a ranch in such a remote location suggests that the person was intentionally stalking the house. Why?

A few days before the murder, Cotton began talking to his friends about a “problem.” This problem was apparently undisclosed but it bothered Cotton enough to rattle him. He was stressed and told his friend Anthony Fabry that he needed help. Fabry was to come by on November 16 or 17 and bring along his son to hang out with  Baier’ son, Judson. 

Similarly, Judy was seen crying and laughing in a serious cycle of mood swings while drinking at a bar the last day she was seen alive. She had also been seen with a sheriff deputy sometime close to the murders. 

Something was bothering this couple. 

An eye witness claimed that Anthony Fabry found the bodies before anyone else but didn’t radio it in. I’m not sure how reliable this witness is. The witness asked to be anonymous. Fabry’s alibi was that he was at the scene of a car accident on the night of November 13. This has not been confirmed as far as I could tell.

So many questions.

There were also a ton of guns found in the house, which also isn’t unusual for this area or this type of family. Ranchers love their guns and need them as tools against rustlers, wild animals, and other threats. Most people I’ve met in New Mexico own guns and some have rather impressive collections. A ballistics lab in Texas compared the five shell casings from the crime scene to the firearms in the house and did not find matches in their opinion. This means that whoever killed the couple had their own weapon or stole a weapon from the house. Many different guns use .38 bullets so it is difficult to determine the type of gun used in the murders. Rumors swirled about lost guns after the double homicide, and about Anthony Fabry taking apart a gun that used .38 bullets after the double homicide. Donald Duncan also supposedly took apart a gun. 

The Tips

After KRQE aired a segment on the case, tips began pouring in. One tip that I found interesting was a statement from a woman named Wanda Woltz. When a man named John Hale committed suicide, Deputy William Woltz began investigating it. John Hale’s sister told him that her daughter, Wanda Danley, had some information about John Hale and the McKnight murders. 

Wanda was then interviewed and she told Deputy Woltz that John Hale had met her at the Ruidoso Downs racetrack and said he knew who killed the McKnights. He said it was an ex-sheriff (though of which county is unclear) and Reverend Harridison. The McKnights were blackmailing someone and got killed for it. He then asked Wanda to take his gun and cap while he went to rehab. Wanda took the hat but refused the gun because she was a convicted felon, so then John Hale had her help him hide the gun in a vehicle near the racetrack. It’s not clear if this gun was retrieved and run through ballistics tests.

Another tip came from a state police officer named Ted Burke, who claimed that Charlie Cox and Judy McKnight were having an affair. Cotton planned to expose them because Cox was running for sheriff and Judy for County Treasurer. He claimed Cox had a personal vendetta against the state police and refused to grant them entrance to the crime scene. Later, Cox told Burke that Baiers’ prints matched those found at the scene, and he wanted Burke to be a character witness against Baiers. He tried to manipulate Burke into doing this. The Chavez County sheriff, Ron Brown, even told Ted Burke that he suspected Cox of a different murder from earlier as well. Ted Burke believes Cox may have committed the crime. 

Burke also mentioned that Donald Poncho was a known drug user and he and Cotton hated each other. Poncho’s involvement could fit with the evidence at the crime scene, such as Cotton’s and Judy’s comfort with the victim and the numerous narcotics and drug paraphernalia found in the home. There were other people who thought Poncho did it, including Joe McKnight himself.

A woman named Tina called in and claimed that she knew some people who were involved. Her dad had had a conversation with a man named Richard DeVara. De Vara and Sofio Hernandez, Gilbert Padilla, and Michael Urban were drinking near the ranch when they wanted money for more liquor. De Vara said they drove up to the McKnight house and asked Cotton for money, or tried to sell him some weapons, which he declined. As a result, they killed him and Judy. Liz Urban, Micheal’s sister, confirmed they borrowed her truck but no other evidence has been found trying them to the crime. However, Sofio Hernandez and Michael Urban had already been named in earlier case files, due to the fact they bragged about committing the murders in bars. On top of that fact, Urban committed the murder of a woman named Dorothy Marrujo in Tularosa. Urban apparently killed Marrujo because she was talking about the McKnight double murder in a bar.

A Mr. Woolf called in a tip about a William Ronald Wingfield, who was the Chavez County manager at the time of the murders. He said Wingfield was drunk and talking about the murders and a lost gun. Wingfield was interviewed earlier in the investigation and denied having anything to do with the crime. He also denied seeing Judy McKnight around the time of the murders, but eye witnesses reported they had been seen together. Wingfield was a close associate of the McKnights’, and some said he was having an affair with Judy McKnight.

Lorraine Lockett, mother of Lisa Duncan, had a lot to say about Donald Duncan and Joe Corrie. She said Duncan was involved in a motorcycle gang in Roswell and ran marijuana, then bought cocaine with a man named Joe Corrie and they split the profits. Duncan often bragged about killing the McKnights and getting Randy Rickley rich, though he also claimed Rickley was not involved in the murders.

These tips all sound like barroom accounts and third-hand and even fourth-hand accounts of things to me. Undoubtedly the McKnight murders stirred up a lot of excitement in the area, which can get pretty boring at times. People like to talk and add to the drama. Even when I lived in Lincoln County in the 2010’s, I heard gossip about the McKnight case. However, gossip generally contains grains of truth. Common themes of local gossip about the McKnight murders concerned drugs, affairs on both sides, and a lost gun. Could these rumors offer glimpses of what was really going on with the McKnights?

The Silence

Even more concerning than the rumors, were the people who did not talk. People who quite possibly had knowledge of the crime, or who were involved in investigating it from Day One. 

Charlie Cox claimed that during the murder investigation in the 80s, he had a rattlesnake thrown on his porch. He also stated that many others were threatened and stalked in relation to the case, and many people feared for their lives if they spoke up too much or asked too many questions. 

Then there was Ray Garner, who stopped digging after a direct order from Tom Sullivan. Mark thinks Garner was threatened into silence. Garner took what he knew about the case to the grave. When “Mark” later reached out to chat with him, he simply advised “Mark” to arm up and be careful. Others mentioned being careful to Mark, as well. What did everyone have to fear?

We also saw both suspects, Phil Baiers and Tony Fabry, become less than cooperative in the investigation. Both had ex-wives claim they were violent men, capable of the crime. Both evaded giving quality fingerprints. Then you have the law enforcement vehicle spotted in the back roads near the ranch, which could have been either a State Police or Chavez County Sheriff’s vehicle. And then you have Cotton talking about a “problem” and arranging a meeting with law enforcement for an unspecified reason. It certainly seems like law enforcement is entangled in this, like the Mattie and Patty case.  

The Grand Jury

In August of 1985, a grand jury was called for by Poncho McKnight. But the judge refused to assemble one. The Supreme Court overruled the judge based on a petition that Poncho got and so a grand jury convened. While the jury documents remain sealed, one person who was on the panel of jurors later told Mark (the investigative journalist) that it was a nightmare. The jury felt “manipulated.” There was a sharp lack of evidence and lots of conflicting statements that confused the jurors. They ultimately decided that more evidence needed to be collected for any indictments to be filed. 

A lot of useful evidence was submitted to this grand jury panel. But sadly, grand jury records are secret and cannot be accessed publicly. Hence, this information is hidden. Some documents were recovered in the state police files which Mark then posted on his Facebook page. One I found particularly riveting was a list of evidence exhibited, including the liquor bottles and beer cans and half-burned cigarette pack at the scene. 

Mark’s Theory

Mark truly believes that law enforcement helped cover the murders up, and he makes a convincing case. He has many examples of the police making glaringly obvious blunders in the case. He offers links to interviews he conducted with Charlie Cox and Mike Lee, who both talked about how various people shut down their attempts to solve the case. For instance, Tom Sullivan ordering his people not to dig too deep, or the DA, Dana Martwick, refused to allow Mike Lee to run fingerprints through AFIS a second time. Why were so many upper-level law enforcement officers preventing this from being solved? I think Stephen Sandlin’s murder is just one of many examples of deep corruption in the New Mexico law enforcement community.

Mark mentions rumors about dirty cops in the Roswell area, running drugs and committing murder for hire for a powerful biker gang. It isn’t that the Roswell cops are protecting one of their own; they are protecting the entire police force. Since Phil  Baier originally worked for the Roswell Police Department before becoming a state cop, it could mean that he was involved in something crooked that he really wanted to keep secret. 

This all makes him a stronger suspect than Fabry.Interestingly, he was the top suspect of the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office as they originally investigated the case. He was even told not to show up to work in his uniform one day in case he was arrested. But he never was arrested. 

Years later, Baiers moved onto the FBI and thrived with a successful law enforcement career.

However, when Mark was on the True Consequences podcast,he stated blatantly that he thinks Anthony Fabry did it. As a Lincoln County sheriff, Fabry may have been involved in the police-level illegal behavior. I think that Baiers makes a stronger suspect, but Mark points out that Fabry in his law enforcement position could have done some of the same things that Baiers could have done to cover up the crime. 

When Mark interviewed Fabry, he claimed not to know Baiers. This is weird, considering the two had mutual friends and were both in law enforcement. Later in the same interview, Fabry admits that he knew a lot about Baiers and believed him to be guilty. Why the different stories?

There is also a person who says Fabry admitted to finding the bodies prior to their discovery by others. This means that he failed to call it in. Why wouldn’t he radio his colleagues in Lincoln County to come to the ranch house if he found the bodies? Why would he leave the bodies there, especially since Cotton was his best friend from childhood? Honestly, I’m not sure how reliable this witness is. Mark refuses to name the witness for the witness’s protection. 

While Phil Baiers seems like a strong suspect to me, Mark insists that his interviews with Fabry were suspicious. He also mentions various witnesses talking about drug trafficking and some type of feud or grudge between Fabry and Cotton McKnight, possibly giving Fabry motive. Mark finds it convenient that Fabry was treated as only a witness to the murders, questioned one time and then never again.

Many people in Lincoln County conducted a smear campaign on the man running for sheriff at the time, Charlie Cox, even claiming that he and his wife were seen cleaning the crime scene. But Mark thinks Cox was one of the few people who actively helped try to solve the case, often at the threat of his own life. He expressed mourning on the Facebook page when Cox died. For these reasons, he writes off Cox as a suspect. But many people in Lincoln County still opine that Cox did it.

Joe McKnight is another suspect that stands out to Mark. So does Poncho. Mark is not sure if they actually killed Cotton, but he thinks they know who did. Mark also reflects often on Donald Duncan and Randy Rickley and their drug activity.

In the end, Mark posted about how resigned he became over the case. He realized that he will never solve it. But he feels he exposed a lot of corruption that is interwoven into the very heard of New Mexico. We have been a corrupt state since the days of the Spanish conquistadores, and the days of the Wild West. It will probably never change. People like Judy and Cotton McKnight are just some of the countless victims who have been failed by New Mexico’s law enforcement and justice system.

My Theory

At face value, this crime was cold, calculated, and clearly done by someone known to the victims. The perpetrator shot two people, cleaned the scene, staged at least a few elements, then locked up behind him. He then went on to get away with it for decades. 

I think it’s possible that the double homicide was a lot simpler than we make it out to be. I feel it was probably committed over drugs and involved the McKnights’ family and close friends. That’s why Judy felt comfortable getting into night clothes somewhere else in the house. The fact Cotton took down his bottle of expensive tequila tells me one of the guests was a VIP, or maybe he wanted to balm a difficult conversation. I think the murders had to do with whatever Cotton’s big “problem” was, and I think his big problem had to do with drugs and money. 

Due to five glasses in the sink and a beer can, I think there were four guests drinking with Cotton and Judy McKnight. Judy and the three guests drank liquor from glasses, while Cotton drank his customary Coors. The guests had some reason for killing Cotton. Why? Possibly because Cotton was interested in ratting on drug trafficking through his ranch and he had appointments with law enforcement. Or he was in on the drug running to help pay his debts, and he got cold feet.

Who was doing that drug trafficking through the ranch? Donald Duncan, Randy Rickley, and Poncho. Who was unaccounted for the night of the murders? Donald Duncan and Randy Rickley; I’m not sure if Poncho had an alibi, so maybe Poncho, too. Who did Cotton reach out to for help with his “problem”? First Fabry, then later Baiers. Baiers supposedly helped him with his “problem,” at least according to Fabry. After that, Cotton and Judy ended up dead.

Here’s a possible scenario: Baiers showed up to talk about the “problem.” With him, he brought Donald Duncan, Randy Rickley or Poncho McKnight, and maybe Anthony Fabry, because they were all in on the drug running together. Cotton knew it would be a tough conversation, so he took down his bottle of expensive tequila. They drank together. Then Judy got bored and went to ready for bed, while the men got into an argument. Cotton wasn’t about to budge on the drugs, and he was furious to learn his childhood best friend Fabry was involved. They had to shoot him because they knew he would go to higher authorities. 

Judy ran into the kitchen upon hearing the shots and cradled her husband’s head, when she was shot herself. Duncan panicked and bolted from the house, leaving the skid mark, while Baiers and Fabry then meticulously cleaned and staged the crime scene. One of them was pretty shaken, hence why he put the cigarette in Judy’s hand backwards and tossed the cigarette pack into the woodstove; the other was cold, calm, and collected, able to use his law enforcement knowledge to neaten the scene perfectly.

Or maybe this scenario happened: Baiers and Fabry were in on the drugs but not the murders. Donald Duncan and Randy Rickley committed the murders. They had the most to gain from the couple being dead. Rickley inherited $30k in CDs, and Duncan got to run drugs through the ranch. They then bolted from the scene, leaving the skid mark. Later, Baiers and Fabry came by and found the bodies. They knew who did it and they were involved in the drugs, so they had a lot to lose if the murderers got caught. So they helped stage and clean up the scene, only leaving a few partial prints and a palm print behind. Then they went on to keep the secret of what happened for decades. 

In Conclusion

There is a lot of evidence in this case and quite likely some sabotage from within that kept it from being solved. Someone – maybe many people – didn’t want this case to be solved because they had a lot at stake. Too many people were scared to talk, indicating that too many people knew who did it. Maybe somebody will come forward someday and blow this case wide open, as key players slowly die off and the fear lifts.

Until then, I don’t really know what happened to Cotton and Judy McKnight. I do know that Cotton had plans for his future, but he died the day before he turned 32. I also know that Judy was well-loved by many. The Hondo Valley community was deeply stunned and saddened by this crime, their illusion of safety forever shattered. The couple was not happy, but they didn’t get the chance to separate and find happiness. 

I am sad that this couple died such violent deaths and their killer or killers have never been brought to justice. This is the sad conclusion of a sad story. Maybe one day I can come back and report a happier ending – a conviction. 

Until then, rest in peace, Cotton and Judy. 

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/unsolved-cotton-and-judy-mcknight/id1484748807?i=1000455220236

https://share.crimedoor.com/articles/CP565mqhC4LEY2V74ZdI

https://www.facebook.com/McKnightColdCase