The gruesome murder of William McKelvey, a lawman called Cogburn, and frontier justice… this is not a rehash of "True Grit." This is the story of an actual murder occurring not far from El Toro in July 1892 ... and what happened after that murder.
Communications in 1892 were limited to word-of-mouth, telegraph, and the printing press. All the same, the grisly news traveled fast. William McKelvey, foreman of Arden, the canyon estate owned by famed actress Helena Modjeska, had been found dead inside the ranch’s barn, his head gashed, a stab wound to his chest and a blood-stained pickax handle nearby.
As for the seasonally working ranch hand, Francisco Torres, whom housekeeper Joaquina Lugo would later testify as being the last man to talk with McKelvey? Torres was nowhere to be found.
WHAT HAD GONE WRONG?
The Modjeska ranch and surrounding canyons were known for their tranquillity. And 55-year-old McKelvey, a former sea captain, had been universally liked, not only by his employers and El Toro’s townspeople but, most important, by the ranch hands he managed.
True, the Saddleback Valley had known desperado days, one of the more notorious examples being the murder of a San Juan Capistrano shopkeeper by Juan Flores and his gang. But that had been more than 30 years earlier, and for that murder and other crimes Flores and his men had long ago met their maker, mostly via noose. Now the sprawling valley with its acres of fruit trees, grazing cattle, and pleasant town of El Toro seemed the most idyllic of places, whether you had moved here from the Midwest, the East Coast or even from across the sea.
The latter was the case with the Polish-born Modjeska. She and her manager husband traveled from one theater engagement to another much of the year. Whenever possible, though, they returned to their canyon home, in recent years disembarking at the new El Toro depot where a conveyance would await them.
During the final weeks of July 1892, however, Modjeska and her husband had been visiting with friends in Laguna Beach. Then news of McKelvey’s murder brought an abrupt end to their holiday. Rather than return immediately to the ranch, Modjeska and her husband attended McKelvey’s funeral, stayed with friends and eventually left for her latest series of theater engagements. Modjeska was dismayed to find that wherever she went, members of the press continued to ask about the murder.
The situation, however, was about to go from bad to worse.
The situation, however, was about to go from bad to worse.
THE HOUSEKEEPER TESTIFIES
About 10 days after the murder, Torres was apprehended in San Diego County, brought to Santa Ana and incarcerated in the small brick building that served as the county jail. Talk of hanging Torres had in recent days been driven by lurid newspaper accounts, many of them based on speculation and prejudice. Now that Torres was back in Orange County, such talk rapidly accelerated.
Arraignment took place on Friday, Aug. 12, and a preliminary hearing began the following Tuesday. During this hearing, which continued to the end of week, the housekeeper Lugo testified as to what she had heard and observed.
According to Lugo, on Saturday, July 30, the day before McKelvey’s murder, he had paid the ranch hands their weekly wages, after which new-hire Torres remained, insisting he had not been correctly paid. An argument with McKelvey ensued.
What Torres did not understand—very possibly because McKelvey was not conversant in Spanish, and Torres was not conversant in English—was that Orange County, on its own since breaking away from Los Angeles County three years earlier, was now levying taxes to pay for roads, bridges and other improvements.
Finally Torres left. But the next morning he returned and, once again, Lugo heard the men raising their voices over by the barn. The sounds of a scuffle followed. Lugo went to investigate. Upon entering the barn, she found the moaning, mortally wounded McKelvey but no sign of Torres. Immediately Lugo sent for the sheriff.
Now Friday had arrived. After additional testimony, court was adjourned until Monday.
DEPUTY COGBURN VERSUS A LYNCH MOB
That evening Deputy Robert Cogburn reported for guard duty at the jail. All seemed quiet until 1 a.m., when he awoke from his cot to hear voices demanding that he open the door. Cogburn refused. Seconds later the door was smashed by sledgehammers, and a group of masked and armed men stormed in, grabbed Cogburn’s keys, opened the cell containing Torres and dragged him out into the night.
Nearby, at the corner of Sycamore and Fourth streets, a noose hanging from a telephone pole awaited Torres. Within moments he had been strung up, but rather than dying immediately from a broken neck, the noose slipped, causing Torres to struggle for some time before he died from strangulation, whereupon the masked men disappeared into the darkness, but not before pinning a sign to the dead man’s shirt: “Change of venue.”
Local people had been rightly horrified by McKelvey’s murder. But news of the unlawful hanging now spread throughout the United States and beyond, confirming what so many had long believed: That California was an uncivilized hellhole populated with hooligans and vigilantes.Janet Whitcomb filed this account with Lake Forest Patch on February 20, 2011
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