You may have heard about the Fountain Murders…one of New Mexico’s oldest known mysteries. But you probably haven’t heard about Frenchy’s murder in Dog Canyon, which is believed to be orchestrated by the same person as the Fountain Murders. Here are these two old mysteries, revealing that crime and greed are not new but instead are a reality of the human condition.
Frenchy’s Cabin
Frenchy, or Francois-Jean Rochas, or just Frank, was born in France in 1843. He complained of headaches and stomach pains that made him leave the mountains of France and his family for the States. He eventually ended up in New Mexico in the 1880s. People thought he was strange. He didn’t bother to learn English well, he dressed shabbily, and he seldom bathed. He preferred to keep to himself, which is why he was probably drawn to Dog Canyon, outside of Alamogordo. People warned him Dog Canyon was a lawless place but he didn’t care.
Initially, Frenchy seemed to succeed in Dog Canyon. He built a cabin and stone fences for his cattle. He had orchards and vineyards. Around the same time, eighteen-year-old Oliver Lee settled Dog Canyon with his brother Perry Altman. Lee soon started his own ranch, raising horses and cattle. The two formed a working relationship to build irrigation systems throughout Dog Canyon.
However, as time went on, Lee became increasingly violent. People accused him of rustling cattle and stealing land and disrespecting others’ water rights. Water became scarce in Dog Canyon and Lee and Frenchy apparently had many disputes about it. Their friendship rapidly soured.
Around Christmas of 1884, Frenchy was found dead in his cabin of a gunshot wound. The scene had been staged to look like a suicide. But everyone local knew it was murder. They suspected either Oliver Lee or one of Lee’s ranchhands.
Another possible suspect is a man named Morrison. Morrison had been working for Frenchy when Frenchy realized Morrison was stealing from him. He signed an arrest warrant and Morrison was arrested. When Morrison got out, he hid behind a rock near Frenchy’s cabin in wait. Frenchy made breakfast, then left his cabin to work. That’s when Morrison shot him with an old Winchester. Frenchy covered his shot wound with his hand to staunch the bleeding and tried to return to his cabin when Morrison shot him again. Frenchy still managed to get into the safety of his cabin, where he huddled in bed. Morrison decided to wait until night to finish Frenchy off. He broke into the cabin and met Frenchy, who was waiting with a loaded rifle. Frenchy shot Morrison and Morrison took off bleeding. Frenchy made it to a neighbor’s and reported his story, and a sheriff’s posse found Morrison and apprehended him in Las Cruces.
Frenchy made many other enemies due to the fact he was squatting and did not actually own the land where he built his cabin, his cattle fences, and his orchards and vineyards. He was not afraid to tell people off. With five hundred head of cattle at his ranch’s prime, Frenchy was quite successful, which tempted thieves. Frenchy did not shy away from having people arrested if they touched his things. He had many who wanted him dead as a result.
Today, some stone remnants of the old irrigation canals remain throughout Dog Canyon. Frenchy’s cabin is also a little stone foundation that you can hike to through Dog Canyon. It is a seven-mile hike that is quite beautiful.
The Fountain Murders
Frenchy’s murder is not the only time Oliver Lee is suspected of killing someone.
Colonel Albert Jennings Fountain was a lawyer who was part of a task force fighting land fraud and taking down gangs in New Mexico. At the time he disappeared, he was a US District Attorney. He was in the process of prosecuting Oliver Lee, William McNew, and James Gilliland for illicit cattle branding. The three men were represented by Fountain’s arch nemesis, A.B. Fall, his former rival for the US District Attorney seat. Fountain lived in Mesilla, but in 1896, he made the journey over the Organs, across White Sands, and through the Sacramentos to file the charges in Lincoln for unlawful cattle branding by Lee, McNew, and Gilliland. He brought his little son with him, Henry, who was eight.
At the Lincoln courthouse, he received a note, warning him to abandon the lawsuit or else he would not survive the trip back home. But Fountain was a determined man. He still filed the charges.
While returning home to Mesilla on February 1, 1896, Fountain noticed several men riding in the shimmering distance behind them. The men made him nervous but he couldn’t do anything about them. When he and his son stopped for the night to set up camp in White Sands, near the San Augustin Pass into the Mesilla Valley, the men apparently gained on them and killed them. At least, that’s what we think happened. The bodies have never been found. All that remained was their looted wagon and some blood stains in the sand, and various horse tracks leading toward Oliver Lee’s ranch.
The case was turned over to Pat Garrett, the sheriff at the time who is famous for shooting Billy the Kid. Garrett immediately began investigating Oliver Lee, William McNew, and James Gilliland. The three criminals knew he would shoot them so they refused to turn themselves in. Then Dona Ana county was split up and Otero County formed. A new sheriff took over Otero County and the investigation fell into his jurisdiction. The three men turned themselves into the new sheriff, received a jury trial in Hillsboro in 1899, and were found not guilty. Probably because of the influence of fear they held over the area and its people.
Oliver Lee went on to become a New Mexico state senator. There is a state park named after him near Dog Canyon. Which happens to be the place where Frenchy had been murdered years before, possibly at the hands of Lee. What irony.