The Patagonia Marshall was shot in the chest and foot when he interrupted drug smugglers making a transfer at the small cemetery west of town. He had been medevacked to the nearest trauma hospital in Tucson. @Arizona DPS was investigating and the lead detective asked me to go to the scene the next day and see what I could find.
Patagonia, Arizona, is a small community only a dozen miles north of the border with Mexico. The low mountains between the border and Patagonia provide cover for the drug smugglers carrying bundles of marijuana on their backs up to waiting contacts on the US side of the border. One occasional pick-up point was the small cemetery just west of Patagonia.
Following directions the officer had given me, I drove to the back of the cemetery furthest from the road and searched out through the brush and trees. As described by the investigator, I found a pile of wrappings consisting of black garbage bags, cling wrap, and rough ¼” hemp rope bindings. About a half dozen bales had been unwrapped here, judging by the amount of debris. This was the location where the Marshall had jumped the smugglers and been shot.
Using a metal detector, I located a bullet in the dirt not far from the debris. It appeared to be .38 caliber, soft lead, not jacketed. I found nothing else with the metal detector. I collected the wrapping material and the bullet and returned to the crime lab.
The next day, I met with the investigator to go over our findings. The Marshall’s statement was that even though the cemetery was technically outside of the town limits, he tried to circle through it on patrol occasionally to discourage kids who might sneak out there to drink. On the day he was shot, he had seen movement in the brush past the last curve of the cemetery road and left his vehicle to investigate. Several Mexicans were unwrapping the bundles and one had come up with a gun and shot him.
I told the investigator that the wrapping material I had collected appeared to be weeks or months old. It was dirty and the plastic was turning brittle from age. It did not appear to have just been removed from bales of marijuana.
The investigator then told me that when the EMTs in the medevac helicopter had removed the Marshall’s shirt and bullet-proof vest on the flight to Tucson, they had noted that the hole in the shirt did not align with the bullet in the vest. While that could have been due to some twisting or turning when he was shot, the EMTs were perplexed by the fact that there was no bruising on the Marshall’s chest beneath the bullet.
The EMTs were also amazed that the shot through the Marshall’s foot had passed through his boot between his big toe and second toe but had not broken the skin. Apparently, that was the bullet I had recovered using the metal detector.
The investigator and I both believed the scene was staged by the officer by laying out his shirt over his vest on the ground and shooting them. After he had dressed again, he carefully fired a bullet from a .38 revolver through the toe of his boot to miss doing any real damage. The last I heard of the case, the investigator was going to ask the Marshall to take a polygraph, but I don’t know what ever became of the case.