Albert Dean to the editor of the Brownsville Ranchero, February 11, 1875

Members of coroner’s jury to the editor of the Brownsville Ranchero.

Editor of the Ranchero, Brownsville, Texas:

Having seen in your paper headed accounts of the fight in Starr County, and as they are manifestly incorrect and written with the design, to reflect upon the military and post-commander of this place, we, the undersigned, members of a coroner’s jury, who were convened at ranch Solises, and held an inquest upon the bodies of the two murdered soldiers and one Mexican at the time, would respectfully request to make the following statement through your columns for the information of the public.

We were summoned by Deputy Sheriff Theodore A. Davis, on the morning of the 27th ultimo, to attend a jury of inquest at the Solises ranch, and proceeded at once to that place; on our arrival we found General Hatch with cavalry encamped there, who had secured men supposed to be implicated, who were immediately turned over to the sheriff; .and others had been requested to remain and await the sheriff’s arrival to give testimony.

We examined all the witnesses on oath carefully, and among them the clerk reported in your paper as being shot, who stated that the soldiers had never shot him or given him or any one trouble, and were orderly during their stay at the ranch; no soldiers came near the store, and that the first firing he heard on the evening of the 26th, was from the ranch into the camp of the soldiers, and that the soldiers did not return the fire, except the sentinel; the soldiers were asleep on the ground; that the soldiers did not return the fire, but that the corporal commanding the squad went to the ranch, and asked why they were being fired into. The next firing he heard was when the soldiers were fired into above the ranch. All witnesses state there had been no trouble with the soldiers, and that the soldiers did not in any manner molest the ranch.

We find seven men of those detained, and several others who were at the time, and are at present, in Mexico, as parties implicated in the foul murder of the two soldiers and one citizen, guilty, as verdict on file at the court-house in Rio Grande City will show this.

We would like to state in addition to the above, that, in our opinion, if the troops had not been under a thorough state of discipline and completely under the control of their officers, when the verdict of the jury was known, and that the murderers were in the hands of the posse of soldiers furnished the sheriff, and at the same time before them the mutilated bodies of the soldiers, who had been first killed in ambush, then horribly disfigured, robbed of everything, nothing could have saved the murderers from instant death.