State Police reported that they were summoned to investigate a knife attack on a passenger aboard an Amtrak train during September.
The train — en route from Los Angeles to Chicago — had to be stopped along its route through Valencia County so the incident could be investigated, according to a report by KOAT-TV in Albuquerque.
The story identified the attacker as Gerald Bell and the victim as Charles Cowley, who suffered a knife wound to his head. Witnesses on the train said the knife used in the attack was very large — more like a machete. Authorities say that the incident started as a result of a shouting match between the two passengers. At one point, one of the men claimed the other had a gun, but no gun was found during the investigation.
The suspect in the stabbing has been charged with attempted murder. And when authorities questioned the victim, they found 20 pounds of methamphetamine in his posession. For reasons not clear, he was not charged for that incident.
New Mexico has had its share of strange incidents on trains. The RailRunner commuter train between Albuquerque and Santa Fe struck a wandering cow on its first trip between the two cities. And another time, the train was late starting its route because the engineer could not find the keys to the locomotive.
But perhaps New Mexico’s most notorious train incidents were robberies initiated by the outlaw Thomas Edward “Black Jack” Ketchum and his gang. I know I’ve written about this before but it’s still a spicy tale about the Old West.
Ketchum and his brother Sam were originally cowboys who grew up in San Saba County, Texas, then moved to New Mexico to work on cattle ranches. When they learned that a more lucrative trade could be had as outlaws, they formed a gang which sometimes rode with the infamous Butch Cassidy and his Wild Bunch.
Eventually, the Ketchum gang began a habit of robbing trains in northeastern New Mexico. Their method was to stop the train, decouple the mail and express cars, move them about a mile away from the rest of the passenger cars and then proceed to loot them.
A train heist by the gang on July 11, 1899 apparently was the last straw for lawmen in northeastern New Mexico. Although Black Jack was not involved in the heist that netted the robbers $50,000, the gang was chased back to their hideout near Cimarron. In the ensuing gun battle, Sam Ketchum and others were wounded. Sam was taken into custody, placed in jail in Santa Fe but died from gangrene before he could be tried.
Brother Black Jack, apparently unaware of his gang’s train robbery and the capture and death of his brother, decided to hold up a train near Folsum, NM, on Aug. 16, 1899. A conductor on that train had been robbed three times before and had had enough of these incidents when Ketchum showed up in the mail car. The conductor drew his gun but was shot by Ketchum first. However, the conductor still managed to get a shot off that almost severed the outlaw’s arm. Ketchum tumbled out of the mail car and managed to get away on horseback. Because of his frail condition, he gave himself up the next day.
He was taken to a hospital in Trinidad, CO, where his arm was amputated, then was convicted of the crime of “felonious assault on a railroad train” and sentenced to be hanged. (Ironically, the law was later deemed to be unconstitutional, but the ruling was too late to benefit Ketchum.)
On the day of his hanging, Ketchum was led to the gallows and told onlookers “Hurry up boys, let’s get this over with” and then admonished them to “bury me deep so the coyotes don’t get me.” When the sheriff cut the rope and Ketchum’s body fell through the trap, he was immediately decapitated. His severed head was attached to a black shroud that had been pinned on his torso prior to the execution and appeared to be the only thing that kept it from rolling toward onlookers gasping in horror.
Fortunately, the undertaker was able to sew the Ketchum’s head back on the body before his funeral.
If you want the gruesome details, there is a photo of the decapitated Ketchum after the hanging. Scroll down a little further and you’ll see it:
aero-cordero.com 