b'WICKENBURG MASSACRE STILL A WHODUNITPART 2 By Bill Roberts Reprinted from The TravelerK RUGER AND MOLLIE SHEPPARD arrived in Los Angeles early in January following the November massacre. In an interview with a reporter for the News Kruger made some bizarre claims. He said that the bodies of Loring, Shoholm, Adams, and Hemel were given decent burials in Wickenburg after their bodies were removed from the scene and the inquest held. But then Kruger claimed that Salmon was buried in the middle of the road where the attack occurred. Kruger said that so little effort was made to cover Salmons remains that parts of the body were left exposed.Making his tale as gory as possible, Kruger said that coyoteswas considerable talk of forming a mob to kill all of theparade ground could reach their camp. Within minutes, so stripped the exposed parts of Salmons body to the boneIndians on the Date Creek Reservation. Concerned andblood covered the parade ground at Date Camp Creek. and when he and Miss Sheppard passed the scene on theirmore rational old timers in Wickenburg sent word to Ft.Soldiers had opened up on the Yavapai with both rifles and way to Los Angeles, Salmons bones could still be seenWhipple that something had to be done to cool down thesix-shooters. Eight lay dead. Several others were wounded, protruding above the roadway from his shallow grave. Morehot heads the Miner was feeding. Something was done butsome shot in the back as they tried to flee.than enough to shock any reader of the News, this tale alsonot what the pioneers expected.was enough to build up considerable sympathy for KrugerThe Yavapai and Genung had been betrayed and Crooks and Sheppard in Los Angeles. Kruger also claimed that theGeneral Crook came to Camp Date Creek from Ft.devious intrigue had resulted in more than double the toll scoundrels who treated Salmons remains so disgracefullyWhipple. Instead of toning down the situation andof the stage massacre at Wickenburg nearly a year earlier. had the audacity to bill the mans estate $95 for the burialcountering the Miners Indian bashing, he instead devisedGenung gave Crook hell and rode out of the bloody camp. and collected their fee from the dead mans pocket. a plan filled with intrigue to capture the bad IndiansLater that month soldiers caught up with a band of Yavapai Checking out Krugers claims, it turned out that Salmon wasallegedly responsible. Crook sent word to Genung, who hadwho had fled the reservation at Date Creek to camp along buried in a deep grave on a hillside south of the massacrea crew of Indians working on the road from Kirkland tothe Santa Maria. Forty were slaughtered, many of them site. The scoundrels who buried Salmon in this deepWickenburg via Stanton, that he wanted a peace conferenceGenungs road workers and friends of whites. gravesite were some of Wickenburgs most civic-mindedwith the Yavapai and hoped to recruit the Yavapai to serve citizens. They did, indeed, remove cash from the dead mansas scouts for him against the Apache. Crook never attempted to bring the surviving Mexicans pockets before burying him and turned it all over to a Lt.who had committed the Wickenburg massacre to justice. He Lockwood for return to Salmons relatives. Lockwood knewGenung used his strong friendship with the Yavapai tohad, however, with the Camp Date Creek massacre and the one of the victims, Hamel, as they both had been on thebeckon them to the parley which took place on Septemberkilling of 40 Yavapai on the Santa Maria, endeared himself Wheeler expedition.7, 1872, nearly a year after the massacre. Unbeknownstwith the editor of the Miner, who dumped praise on him for to Genung, Crook had been contacted by the head chiefthe rest of the generals tour in Arizona Territory. The more Kruger blabbed his conflicting and bizarre storiesof the Mohaves, Irritaba, who claimed to of the massacre to the press in Los Angeles, the moreknow who the Yavapai were who staged the suspicious some in Wickenburg became. Some asked if itmassacre. Irritaba said he would point out were possible that Kruger had hired the Mexican gang tothe culprits in exchange for better treatment attack the stage and take funds from the couples luggage,for his people, at least as good a treatment funds that were obtained from the illegal sale of governmentas the Yavapai were receiving.mules and equipment under Krugers control. Had Kruger made a deal to pay the Mexicans for robbing the embezzledAs the Yavapai chiefs, Genung, Crook, and government funds and to return the balance to him in Losa detachment of soldiers met on the parade Angeles later? Those suspicions were never answered butground at Camp Date Creek, Genung was linger in the minds of some to this day. surprised to see Irritaba there. As speeches were made, Irritaba worked through the MINER RANTS, ANOTHER SLAUGHTER gathered Yavapai, handing out offerings The rantings of the Miner against Indians in general,of tobacco to some and not to others. the Yavapai in particular, and any whites who knew andSuddenly, the soldiers rushed the Yavapai sympathized with the Indians definitely had no influence onthat Irritaba had handed tobacco to. The the verdict of the inquest held in the wake of the massacre,startled and betrayed Indians, who had left although the prejudice of some of the members might have.their weapons at home except for hunting The Miners ravings over the massacre came after the inquestknives, started to fight the soldiers best they jurors had reached their hasty decision. In fact, the Minercould. Others fled toward the reservation used that verdict as proof that its ravings against the Indiansin an effort to get their weapons. The were based on official evidence. soldiers surrounding the Indians began firing. Others raced to the reservation The frontier papers invective did have an impact onand recovered the weapons the Indians the public, particularly in Wickenburg, where therehad left behind before those fleeing the 44 December 2022'