Fifty Years a Detective: 35 Real Detective Stories

by Thomas Furlong

I succeeded in locating Magon, Villerreal and Rivera in a cabin in the western part of Los Angeles, where they were entire strangers and their real identity was known to but two people in the city. Magon had made it a rule to never trust his fellow countrymen, or any one else. Many Mexicans in Los Angeles knew Magon was in or near the city, and knew him as the leader of the Mexican rebellion, but did not know him personally, nor would he permit them to know him.

There was a man there by the name of Modeska Diaz, who knew Magon and his party was in the city and visited him in his sanctum, always between midnight and daylight. Magon used this man's name, Modeska Diaz, as the editor of his paper in Los Angeles. There was also a married woman, a Mexican, fairly good looking, thirty-eight or forty years of age, light complexioned and an admirer of Ricardo Flores Magon, and this admiration was reciprocated. She visited him occasionally, always at late hours. She and the man Diaz were the only persons in Los Angeles who were aware of Magon's place of abode. They were also the only people in Los Angeles who knew him personally.

After I had succeeded in locating the cabin where these men were living, I was fortunate in securing rooms just across the street and from my window was able to watch everything that went on in the retreat of the Magon party. I kept them under surveillance, day and night, for a month before making the arrests. They left in the day time and did all their work at night, beginning as soon as it got dark and keeping up their work until daylight.

I soon discovered that Villerreal was absent. He had been arrested by the United States authorities the year before at El Paso, Texas, and placed in jail, where he remained for months, and was finally put in charge of a deputy United States marshal, who started to escort him across the line, as an undesirable citizen, but en route he obtained permission from his guard to enter a telegraph office at El Paso, claiming that he wished to notify his sisters, by telegraph, that he was being deported. He left the officer standing at the front door of the telegraph office and passed through the place and escaped by the rear door, and thereby established a great reputation for himself among the lower classes of his fellow countrymen. The newspapers made a great sensation of the affair, and referred to it as a hair-breadth and miraculous escape from the United States authorities. The facts are, that his escape was from one deputy United States marshal, a half-breed Mexican, who was almost immediately after Villerreal's escape dismissed from the service. It was afterwards rumored around El Paso that the deputy had been bribed. For this reason I decided not to arrest the others until Villerreal appeared on the scene. I felt sure that it would be only a question of time when he would join his master, Magon, in Los Angeles, as it would be necessary for him to make his report to Magon on the progress in the mission that had been assigned to him in Arizona.

Finally, on the night of August 22nd, about midnight, Villerreal was seen to enter the cabin. Satisfying myself as to his identity, I decided to arrest them the following day, August 23rd.

We had discovered that the inmates of the cabin used large coal-oil lamps, and, as I expected Magon and his companions would resist arrest, there was a chance that the lamps might be upset and explode. This would set fire to the place, and thereby destroy papers and documentary proofs, and for this reason I decided to make the arrests in daylight.

At five o'clock on the evening of the 23rd, we surrounded the cabin. I had with me two Los Angeles police officers and two of my own men. We found Villerreal and Magon asleep, and Rivera sitting in a chair, also in slumberland, although he was supposed to be on guard at the back door. Our appearance had been so quietly arranged that the parties were completely taken by surprise and did not have time to reach their arms. They fought hard, however, and continued to struggle all the way from the cabin to the jail, a distance of at least three miles. A wagon happened to pass the place at the time and I pressed it into service, and it kept us busy to keep the prisoners in the wagon, as they struggled and fought the entire distance, and kept up a continual squawking, which reminded one of a flock of wild geese. None of them spoke English, and the only things they could say were that they were being kidnapped and the words "help" and "Liberales."

It was just the time in the evening when people were leaving their places of work and going home, and the streets were thronged with people. We had to go north on Spring street, the principal street of the city. By reason of the continual uproar created by the prisoners it proved to be the most sensational arrest that had ever been made in Los Angeles up to that time.

We landed them safely in the city prison, and without any one sustaining serious injury, except a few teeth knocked out, bruised faces and black eyes. To my great surprise Villerreal, who had been so much lauded for his undaunted courage, was the easiest one of the party to subdue, and seemed to possess the least courage of anyone in the party.

A remarkable feature of this affair was that this party of agitators appealed to the sympathy of the working element. The laboring classes, nearly to a man, were in sympathy with them. I know that none of them had ever been connected with the working man's interests, nor were they laboring men themselves. They were simply agitators and people who were always trying to obtain something for nothing.