The following article is from Old West Magazine: Summer, 1974, Publisher: Western Publications Inc., USA., by Chris Weatherby.
A few weeks later, Aten and Hughes were summoned to Eagle Pass to assist the Maverick County sheriff, W. M. Cooke, in a murder investigation. Sheriff Cooke had made little headway with the case and had appealed to Governor Joseph Sayers for help. The governor had wired Captain Frank Jones, Co. D., Frontier Battalion of Texas Rangers, to assist in the case.
Since Jones was involved in tracking train robbers in Val Verde County, he in turn had detailed Sergeants Aten and Hughes. Sheriff Cooke welcomed the Rangers and gave them details of the case.
The Rio Grande had flooded in late February from rains upstream, and when the water receded, the body of a woman had been discovered by Jacob Meyer and two miners of Seco Mine Company of Eagle Pass.
The victim was a middle-aged woman. Her head had been battered and rushed, and her body had been weighted by a fortypound boulder attached with a small rope. The body was badly bloated, and no identifying marks could be found.
After the woman’s remains had been removed to the morgue in Eagle Pass, a search for clues was started along the river. On February 28, two more bodies were located upriver from where the first had been found. These were the bodies of a young man and a young woman. The following day, a fourth body, that of a girl, was discovered. The receding floodwaters had exposed the corpses where they lay in a mud flat. Like the first victim, they had been beaten, tied with a small rope and weighted with rocks. It was clear that all four people had met the same fate.
After being prepared for burial, the bodies were placed on the courthouse lawn in Eagle Pass for public viewing. It was hoped that someone might recognize them or at least offer a clue. But although many people came to look, none came forward to identify them. After a detailed description of each body was recorded, all were buried in the local cemetery. In those days (as now) it was not unusual to find corpses in the Rio Grande; however, those found were usually Mexican males, bearing bullet wounds or knife marks. The four bodies just buried did not follow the usual pattern of victims found in the river. These bodies had been found in a group, were white, and three of them were women. The authorities knew that this would be no ordinary case.
After hearing what was known of the tragedy, Aten and Hughes proceeded to the discovery site and set about searching for more clues. They located wagon tracks which led toward the river, an indication that some unknown object had been dragged in the same direction. The land near the river and in the general area was flat, with few rocks—and none that resembled those used to weight the bodies. To the Rangers this offered the probability that the victims were murdered some distance away and then transported to the river for concealment. It was also obvious that the killers were not familiar with the currents of the Rio Grande—had they been, the bodies might never have been discovered.
Aten and Hughes returned to Eagle Pass and discussed the case with Sheriff Cooke again. Then they reread the coroner’s written report and studied the description of each of the slain. As they reviewed the clues and discussed the case, they suddenly remembered the travelers they had seen in the Nueces Canyon a few weeks earlier. The four people in the new Mitchel wagon matched the description of the four victims.
The two men who had been with them became the prime suspects. At this point, the Rangers felt that the next logical step in the investigation was to go to San Saba and make inquiries. It was decided that Ira Aten would make the trip to San Saba, and Hughes would stay in Eagle Pass to search for more clues.
The murders had come at a time when Texas was desperately trying to curb outlawry in the state. Officials were anxious to have the murders solved quickly. Work of the crime spread fast. Most of the newspapers in the state carried the story.
Rumors had preceded Aten to San Saba. People there already heard that Dick Duncan was suspected of committing the crimes. Duncan also had heard the rumors and had asked a lawyer to meet him outside of the down to discuss his chances in a court of law. Duncan was told that the possibility of an acquittal was very slim because of public sentiment regarding the murders, because of the circumstantial evidence against him and because of the bad reputation Duncan had. The lawyer told Duncan that, in his opinion, the only chance he had to save himself was “to follow the setting sun and never look back.” In spite of this advice, however, Duncan turned himself in to the sheriff at San Saba and was put in jail.
When Ranger Aten reached San Saba, he checked with Joe Clark and learned that Dick Duncan had bought a new Mitchel wagon and had informed Clark that he wanted to “haul them Williamsons down to Mexico.” A visit with the Hawkins family convinced Aten that the four victims had, indeed, been Mrs. Williamson and her children.
Aten talked with other townspeople, including a dentist named Brown who had done some dental work for the Williamson family. The Ranger felt that he was about ready to close the net on Duncan.
When Aten confronted the suspect in the San Saba jail, the Ranger recognized Duncan as being one of the men he had seen in Nueces Canyon in February. Aten asked the sheriff to book Duncan on a vagrancy charge so he could be held in jail indefinitely. This would provide time to take witnesses to Eagle Pass to identify the bodies of the murder victims.