The Mystery Of The Fountain Murders In New Mexico Still Baffles People Today

The murders of Colonel Albert Jennings Fountain and his young son Henry took place in February 1896. However, a century later, we’re still no closer to solving them. These crimes were shocking for several reasons: one of the victims was a child, the bodies were never found, and Fountain was a well-known, public figure.

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Fountain originally hailed from New York. After working as a lawyer in San Francisco, he served in the Union Army during the Civil War. That’s how he wound up in New Mexico, where he married and settled down. Fountain fought the Apache and Navajo before taking up lawyering once more.

Inevitably lawyers are associated with one side of a dispute and that creates enemies. However, Fountain acquired more enemies than most. At the end of the 19th century, New Mexico was still a Territory, and a wild one at that. Governor Sheldon appointed Fountain to head a volunteer taskforce against gang activity in Southern New Mexico. He was good at his job, taking down the Kinney Gang, a group operating out of Hillsboro, and the Farmington gang. He also served as a US District Attorney, targeting people who committed land fraud.

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The relationship between Fall and the trio of Oliver Lee, William McNew, and James Gilliland is unclear. However, the men certainly knew each other and when, years later, operators of large-scale ranches in the area accused Oliver Lee and his associates of unlawful cattle branding, Fall agreed to represent them. (Incidentally, Fall went on to serve as a controversial Secretary of the Interior for President Warren G. Harding.)

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While in the court, Fountain received a death threat. The note ordered him to abandon the suit or else he wouldn’t survive the trip back.

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(The pictured wagon from the 1890s is for illustration purposes only.)

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However, the fugitives refused to turn themselves in to Garrett, fearing that he’d kill them. It was a stalemate.

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The three suspects gave themselves up and, in the summer of 1899, they went on trial in Hillsboro. Fall defended them and, after a scant seven-minute deliberation, the jury declared them innocent.

Subsequently, Oliver Lee became a state representative and a senator for New Mexico. Some of his land is now the 640-acre Oliver Lee Memorial State Park, which includes the reconstruction of his Dog Canyon Ranch (pictured above).

But the question of who murdered Albert and Henry Fountain remains. Were Lee, McNew, and Gilliland actually responsible, or was the not-guilty verdict appropriate?

One alternative theory is that the crime was committed by notorious outlaw Black Jack Ketchum. Sam Ketchum alleged that his brother (Black Jack) had confessed to committing the crimes in retaliation for Fountain prosecuting his cohorts. By that point, Black Jack had already received the death penalty so it’s hard to know if there was any truth to the claim.

If cold cases interest you, read about 4 other unsolved mysteries in New Mexico in which justice has yet to be served.