Talk:Oliver M. Lee

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More information about this article... The following comments have been left for this page: Lee's activities in the 20th century, which included running the largest ranch in the state and service in the both houses of the state legislature, are barely mentioned. [1] Since Lee was never convicted of murder, I don't think he can be properly referred to as a murderer. He was an alleged murderer. That goes as well for other allegations of crimes unless he was convicted of those offenses. Walter Siegmund (talk) 15:21, 4 April 2007 (UTC) (edit)

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[edit] Murder allegation

Since Lee was never convicted of murder, I don't think he can be properly referred to as a murderer. He was an alleged murderer. That goes as well for other allegations of crimes unless he was convicted of those offenses. Lee's 20th century service in the both houses of the state legislature is not mentioned. Walter Siegmund (talk) 15:11, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

That is absolutely the single most biased and one sided account of Oliver Lee's life that I have ever read. He was a hard man in hard times and even harder country and while the author references "Tularosa: Last of the Frontier West" he obviously didn't read the book. Lee was hard handed yes, but he helped bring civilization to an area that was ruthless in itself, not to mention the men that inhabited it. Treating innuendo as fact is very poor journalisim! ~~JH~~

The current revision borderes on the absurd. Not only for the murder of Fountain, but the claims of racketeering and conspiracy have a tremendous hurdle to prove. The public funded Oliver M. Lee State Park has a significantly more balanced review of the regional politics at the time, covering a much broader span of Lee's life. Lets get together and work on this. In fact, I believe there is extreme difficulty in saying he was born in Buffalo Gap, Texas. (Kyle Lee)

I don't know. I think that Fall's later involvement in the Teapot Dome scandal warrant enough slant to mention the alleged corrupt dealings on Lee and Fall's behalf. The shenanigans in that situation didn't come out of the blue. There HAD to be a history of corruption beforehand. ~~HB~~

The murder case against Lee was circumstantial. There were no bodies, no witnesses and conflicting accounts of the supposed tracks that led to near Lee's ranch. A case like this would never even get near a grand jury much less a trial today. The politics of the time clearly show that the prominent republicans were more than willing to blame Lee for Fountains death, no matter the evidence. Lee was acquited of Henry Fountain's death and never even accused of Albert Fountain's death. I find the lack of verifiable evidence to support the claims of Lee being the murderer of Fountain laughable. TD —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.35.145.213 (talk) 01:48, August 30, 2007 (UTC)

I couldn't disagree with TD more. The case against Lee and Gililland most certainly would make it to trial today, and on top of that, had the prosecution preformed better I believe they would have had a conviction. The evidence is circumstantial, but it is abundance of circumstantial evidence all pointing to one theory that makes the case. unsigned comment added by Shootseven

[edit] Name the evidence.

As I said previously, there were no bodies and no witnesses. The supposed tracks that led to NEAR Lee's ranch were in dispute even at the time. Some trackers said they went to NEAR Lee's ranch and some said they did not. They never even traced the tracks to a particular horse, much less to a particular house or a particular person riding that horse. Let's remember that Lee's ranch was pretty big so any horses tracks that were found in the Tularosa Basin probably came somewhere near Lee's ranch. Like I said a Grand Jury today would not touch this case. If anyone knows of more evidence then please let us know. TD

Well, there's no smoking gun piece of evidence. What there is is an abundance of circumstantial evidence that all leads to the same conclusion. I'm not going to take the time or space here to go into it all. I'm assuming you've read read some of what has been published on the case to come to your conclusion, but I will try to point out some of the evidence against Oliver Lee (and a little against William McNew and James Gililland, who stand with Lee in the theory presented). First, regarding the tracks of the suspects. After the tracks split, a group followed one set of tracks that a large majority of the group thought led to Lee's Wildy Well ranch, but unfortunately, the tracks were destroyed by a herd of Lee cattle (nice coincidence) so we will never know for sure. The second set of tracks, followed by Carl Clausen and Luis Herrera, led them DIRECTLY TO Lee's Wildy Well ranch. Search party member Carl Clausen later testified that the tracks of one of the horses matched Lee's horse (Thomas Branigan also testified to the tracks matching that of Lee's horse). Branigan later matched a set of footprints at the campsite to Bill McNew. Jack Maxwell testified to Lee, McNew, and James Gililland not being at his ranch at the time of the disappearance, but returning later on worn out horses. There were other witness who claimed to have seen the suspects with the bodies, but did not come forward earlier for fear of being prosecuted for the crime they were committing at the time, stealing cattle. Unfortunately, presumably the fear got to them again, as they were no shows for trial. James Gililland made statements to a number of people incriminating himself, McNew, and Lee. This is just a summary of some of the key evidence. More detailed evidence, motive, etc., is readily available in the published accounts of the case. comment added by Shootseven —Preceding comment was added at 21:56, 2 April 2008 (UTC)