Clark County NV Archives Obituaries.....VERDUGO, Guadalupe April 23, 1923
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Gerry Perry missgerry@cox.net March 6, 2005, 11:11 pm

Las Vegas Age - 4/28/1923


KNIFE OF VERDUGO DOES GHASTLY WORK



MURDEROUS MEXICAN SLASHES THROATS OF TWO WOMEN AND HIMSELF; ONE WOMAN DEAD



    Jesus VERDUGO, filled with the bitterness of disappointed love, chose 

the bloody knife as the solution of his troubles.  His troubles, however, 

are not at an end, since he lies in the county hospital with his slashed 

throat healing and faces an ignomitious death at the hands of justice for 

the ghastly murder of his paramour, and the wounding of another woman, Maria 

HERNANDEZ.

    It was just before noon Monday when the tragedy took place.  On Carson 

street near the corner of Main, are four small houses belonging to Mrs. 

Bessie GAMBLE.  Beginning with the one near Main street, they are numbered 

1, 2, 3 and 4.  In number 3, Jesus VERDUGO, Guadalupe VERDUGO, the woman 

with whom he had been living for the past two or three years and the mother 

of his children, and Maria HERNANDEZ, sister of the man who had supplanted 

Verdugo's place in the affections of Guadalupe, engaged in an altercation.

    It appears that the HERNANDEZ woman took Guadalupe's part.  There was a 

scream.  Mollie JACKSON, a colored woman who occupied apartment 2 ran out of 

her back door in time to see Maria HERNANDEZ come out and fall to the 

ground, her throat cut from ear to ear.  Then out came the other woman, 

screaming of fright and ran for safety, through the yard in the back of the 

GAMBLE houses, across the alley and into the back yard of the house formerly 

occupied by Thomas KIERNAN and family.

    After her, covered with blood and in a frenzy of murderous rage, came 

the vengeful Verdugo.  Just at the side of the Kiernan house he caught his 

victim, threw her down and--slash, slash, slash--time and again the knife 

tore its way through her throat.  Then he began on his own throat but the 

knife, an ordinary paring knife ground to a keen edge had been broken by the 

fierceness of his onslaught on the woman, leaving but a stub of blade an 

inch long.  Dropping this beside the body of the woman, he ran again 

dripping with blood, back across the alley into apartment 1 where he had 

been living with the woman he had  murdered.  Here he seized a case knife 

from the dresser and again slashed his own throat, then threw himself on his 

face on the bed, hoping to die.

    The scene of the tragedies quickly attracted many people.  The pitiful 

remnant of the murdered woman was covered with a bit of old canvas.  The 

HERNANDEZ woman, her throat roughly bandaged by Mollie JACKSON, had 

attempted to walk toward town but fell on the walk beside the Elwell store. 

In apartment 1, gory and hideous as the blood spurted from his wounds, 

Verdugo lay on the bed.  The officers and physicians expected to see him die 

in a few moments and the crowd pressed to the door to view the sight.

    Unfortunately Verdugo did not die.  He was taken to the county hospital 

and an unkind fate decreed that he should live to pay full penalty to the 

law for his horrid deed.  His throat is terribly slashed, his windpipe being 

severed and his aesophagus so cut that when he drinks water gushes from the 

wound in his throat, but he will live, Dr. HEWETSON believes.

    Maria HERNANDEZ will also recover.  Yesterday she was able to walk a few 

steps and in a few days she will be strong enough to leave the hospital.

    The story is sordid.  VERDUGO when he came here brought the woman he has 

murdered with him, but she was not his wife.  They lived together and had 

two children, one of which died.  The woman it seems recently tired of 

Verdugo and took a fancy to one Hernandez.

    April 9 Hernandez and the woman secured a marriage license from the 

county clerk and went to Judge LILLIS to be married.  The Judge made some 

inquiries and the woman admitted that she was still living with Verdugo. 

Judge LILLIS then refused to perform the ceremony, telling the couple that 

if they wished to marry the woman should first leave Verdugo and live apart 

from him for awhile.   They were not married by anyone else it appears since 

the license has not been returned to the county recorder for record.

    W. G. MORSE, J. M. RIGGEN and Joe KEATE composed the coroner's jury 

which investigated the killing.  Wednesday they returned a verdict as 

follows:

    "That we find the deceased was named Guadalupe Verdugo, was a native of 

Mexico and aged about 36 years, that she came to her death on the 23rd day 

of April, 1923, in the county of Clark, state of Nevada, by having her 

throat cut across from ear to ear, on vacant ground on the north side of the 

Kiernan house situated on the west side of First Street between Carson 

street and Bridger street in and city of Las Vegas, county of Clark, and 

state of Nevada, and we find that the deceased, Guadalupe Verdugo, came to 

her death on said 23rd day of April, 1923, from a wound in the neck 

inflicted by a knife in the hands of one Jesus Verdugo."

    Those who testified at the inquest were:  W. H. ELWELL, Mollie JACKSON, 

Albert TRACY, Mrs. DIXON, Mrs. Naomi CROWLEY and Mrs. CHAMBERS.

    And Jesus Verdugo, it appears, will be tried for murder.











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