Frederick Hammersley Fund, New Mexico PBS Great Southwestern Arts & Education Endowment Fund, and the Nellita E. Walker Fund for KNME-TV at the Albuquerque Community Foundation, New Mexico Arts, a division of the Department of Cultural Affairs, and by the National Endowment for the Arts and Viewers Like You these are kind of like the extreme-- very best of examples of people's lives-- Delving into 300 years of judicial records, historian Robert Torrez shares fascinating and unvarnished accounts of some of the most notorious criminal cases of New Mexico little-known Bad Girls.

Sculptor Lauren McAloon transforms simple vessels into powerful reflections on migration, identity, and the journeys that shape us.

It's all ahead on Colores!

Bad Girls of New Mexico >>Faith: So, Robert, thank you for joining me today on Colores to talk about the Bad Girls of New Mexico's history.

So, I wanted to talk about Maria Josefa and Maria Francisca's case.

Can you tell me a little bit about that case?

Because I was pretty-- >>Robert: Well, Maria Josefa and Maria Francisca were mother and daughter.

Maria Francisca was the daughter and she was in, what can best be described, as an unhappy marriage.

She was married, they were from Cochiti and the husband was from somewhere else.

And I don't know what the source of conflict was, but she was in an unhappy marriage.

And after discussion, she and the mother decided the only way to get rid of the husband was to kill him.

And this is important because they planned on a way to do that by inviting him to go with them to look for some roots that they were going to use to dye some cloth, which would've been a normal thing to do.

And while they were out there, they managed somehow to stab him and to strangle him.

And then quietly tried to convince people that he died in an accident.

But it's one of those interesting cases where they, actually, had an exhumation of the body and they determined that he had like-- you know, you don't self-stab yourself so many times, that kind of thing.

It was clearly murder.

And the catch here is, the fact that they planned it, it was premeditation.

In the case the judicial officials made-- very sure, they were very careful to see that they were able to prove the premeditation.

And because it was premeditated, that was one of the very few capital crimes during the Spanish legal system.

Treason, desertion, things of that nature were capital crimes which you could be put to death.

But premeditated murder was one of them.

So, they are executed somewhere in 1779, I forget the specific date, somewhere around Santa Fe in the plaza or very nearby.

And the catch to the orders from the Audencia is that they are to remain hanging for a number of days so that news of their execution spreads to dissuade any other wives that wanted to kill their husband.

I assume that's why they did it.

So, Governor Anza files his report that the execution taken place and that he left them hanging for an appropriate amount of time.

He didn't say for days or anything, but the records show, the records of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe shows that they were taken down from whatever device that they were used to execute them, that same afternoon at the request of the parish priest.

And they were buried in or under the parish church, which would be very typical of that time.

It's possible that their graves are still under the basilica of St. Francis of Santa Fe somewhere under there.

>>Faith: That's interesting.

So, I want to move on to the only woman that was hung during the territorial period, Paula Angel.

Can you talk a little bit about Paula and what led to her infamous status?

>>Robert: Well, she has this dubious distinction of being the only woman hanged in territorial New Mexico.

It's not the only woman that ever sentenced to death.

There were other women that were tried and sentenced to hang but there were other circumstances that didn't actually happen.

Paula Angel, as far as I know, we don't know a lot about her personally.

The only thing that we know about her comes from the oral histories that was left behind by a judge Luis Armijo, who was a district court judge in Las Vegas for San Miguel County.

According to him, the story is that Paula was in a relationship with a man whose only name we have is Miguelito, Miguel.

And the story is that he decided that they wanted to break up the relationship and she convinced him to meet.

And when they met, she stabbed him.

So, she was arrested for killing him.

And we have evidence at the state archives that the governor issued the death warrant after she was convicted.

And then on the day of her execution, the story is that they took her to the place of execution in a wagon that also carried her coffin.

So, the image I have is that we have Paula being taken to her place of execution while she's sitting on her coffin.

I mean, it doesn't say that, but that's the image that I have.

So, they get to the place of execution.

There is already a noose that is dangling.

The Sheriff Herrera drives the wagon under the noose, gets out, puts the noose around her neck, tightens it up and drives the wagon forward.

He looks back and to his horror, he finds not Paula hanging, but Paula trying to climb the rope to keep herself from hanging.

And so, he had forgotten to tie her hands.

And so, I don't know if he was shocked for a second, but he jumps off the wagon and for a few seconds he jumps around her waist according to the story and tries to pull her down while Paula is trying to pull herself up.

So, the crowd, these are public executions, the crowd watches this for a while.

They can't take it.

They rush forward, pull him away and cut her down.

And they have just about convinced Sheriff Herrera that there is an unwritten law that says that they have to cut her loose.

You let her go because there's an unwritten law that says if you survive an attempted execution, you're supposed to be set free.

I don't know if that-- if it's unwritten I've never seen it.

[Both Laugh] So, apparently the crowd was winning that argument.

And a man steps forward by the name of Jose De Sena and he hushes the crowd and he pulls out a piece of paper and he says, this is the death warrant for Paula Angel.

And it says on here that she's supposed to be hanged until she's dead.

And that has not happened.

So, the order of execution has not been carried out.

So, then they hang her again, for sure.

There's no burial records.

So, we don't know if-- I assume she was buried somewhere around Las Vegas.

Her family took her, whatever the case may be.

And like I said, she's not the only one that was ever sentenced to death.

There were others, but she's the only one that we know that was actually executed.

It's a dubious distinction, but she's famous.

Yeah.

>>Faith: Infamous.

[Laughs] So, the next story I wanted to talk about was very interesting, Ada Humes trial.

So, in 1889, Ada Humes captured the attention of territorial New Mexico.

And I kind of wanted to know what-- who was Ada Humes?

What did she do?

>>Robert: I wish I knew more about her.

But Ada Humes was convicted for third-degree murder of killing a partner, a man in Silver City.

The story is that she had been abandoned by her husband.

And so, she earned a living to support her daughter by playing the piano in saloons.

And she entered into a relationship with an individual gambler, darn, I wish I remembered his name, but who did not have a good reputation, but apparently it turned out to be an abusive relationship.

And he sent her a note one night that he no longer wanted to do anything with her and the story according to the newspapers.

And later on, it shows up in the court record.

She took a gun, tucked it into her bosom, according to the story, goes to the saloon where he was playing cards and shoots him in full view of so many.

I mean-- her guilt is never an issue.

But when she went to trial, her defense attorney did a masterful job of convicting the victim.

In that he was a bad person.

What was the term that he used?

He said he put forth the dark history of this individual.

And so, the jury convicted her of third- degree murder, and she was sentenced to two or three years in the penitentiary because she had been indicted for first-degree murder.

So, she could have been hanged for the crime.

So, they sent her to the territorial penitentiary within a month of her being at the territorial penitentiary.

There are stories in the newspapers about this woman Ada Humes, who is receiving preferential treatment at the territorial penitentiary.

They have her in a separate, they called it an apartment that's lavishly furnished, and she has a piano to play and she's even allowed to go out of the penitentiary grounds, you know, that kind of stuff.

Preferential treatment.

So, the governor investigates.

And so, he sends Jose Francisco Chaves initially, who after Chavez County is named of, and he was our first official historian for New Mexico, early territorial period.

But anyway, J. Francisco Chavez discovers that the stories of preferential treatment are true, and the warden gets fired.

I don't know if he was the one that was giving preferential-- but he gets fired.

J. Francisco Chavez takes over.

And so, things are quiet for a while until Ada Humes petitions Governor Al Bradford Prince for a pardon or for a release.

And she has the audacity to say, governor, if you'll come over, I will personally, ask you for a pardon.

And it just-- there's something about the tone of the things that she asked for.

But the governor didn't accept that, you know, he didn't agree to that.

But he did send a woman, Ms. Teal, to talk to her.

This lady was a leader in the Christian Temperance Union to talk to Ada Humes.

And this lady talks to Ada Humes, I don't know how many times, but she files a report to Governor Prince that says, and underlines it in the report says, "this woman has no greater ambition than to return to her former wicked life," whatever that means, that the lady had been, and she underlined it in the report.

But it was obvious that Ada had mental issues.

So, the governor authorized examinations and a couple of doctors reports, one of them says that she's an nymphomaniac, I don't know if he's a psychiatrist, I don't think they had psychiatrists in the 1890s, but that's what he diagnoses with her.

Another one says that her mental situation is deteriorating and that she should be pardoned so that she can seek proper medical help.

So, Governor Prince issues her a pardon and she's released, but that's a point that I don't follow her anymore.

So, I don't know what became of her.

I assume she went back to Silver City and maybe she straightened out her life and maybe she resumed her former wicked life, whatever that consisted of.

You know, but she is one of the most interesting personalities that shows up through the documented record.

And I've mentioned this when I talk about her, because I really wish that I would've been able to find a picture of her because she's described in the newspapers during her trial as an attractive woman.

I don't know if that's what she uses in order to get her way, preferential treatment, that kind of stuff.

Very interesting character.

Yeah.

>>Faith: Everything just went Ada's way.

Yeah, That's crazy.

[laughs] So, why would you say it's important to tell these stories of the Bad Girls of New Mexico's History?

>>Robert: Well, I always open when I talk about them, I use the term Bad Girls.

It has a bad connotation, obviously.

Maybe it doesn't say what I really think in terms of that.

But we have to admit that they got in trouble with the law for a reason.

They did something that was against the law, something that was-- that we, society, terms as "bad."

That's why they had to be done away with, put away with, you know, that kind of stuff.

So, Bad Girls is just a term that I love to use because it draws attention.

[Both Laugh] And these are kind of like the extreme-- very best examples of of people's lives.

They kind of explain how it is that they get in trouble, how it is that they're adjudicated and what becomes of them.

Extreme with Maria Francisca and Maria, the mother, I mean, they were executed for what they did.

Ada Humes-- maybe gets away with it, who knows?

You know, it's just a matter of how-- it shows us how the adjudication process worked from a technical standpoint.

But it also shows us a lot about people's lives.

And I suspect that if a graduate student wants to pick up and try to find out what happened to Ada Humes that would be an interesting story in and of itself.

You know, that kind of thing.

So, it's one of the really neat things about history is a lot of it is a mystery, yeah.

Crossing Waters >>Lauren: Lauren McAloon.

Lauren Proctor McAloon, specifically.

I'm a sculptress, been here for about 30 years.

I work in a variety of materials.

More recently, I've been really honed-in on the base of most of the work of being in boat shape or vessels.

And so I call them The Vessel series.

And they've been coming out for me for the last, I'd say ten years.

And this is a very specific-- this exhibit is a specific body of work within that Vessel series.

[Music] >> Lauren: My studio is located on Stock Island.

The next key up going towards Miami from Key West.

quite a few artists are out here.

I'm in a compound called the Stockyard Studios.

And there are stone workers, woodworkers, painters, assemblage artists.

It's a really good community here.

We leave each other alone, but also pop in on each other.

And if I need a critique or, they're all-- everybody's always happy to help.

[Music] I come from a family that's very-- uses their hands a lot for doing things extremely creative.

Mother was a painter.

Father was an architect, but also could pretty much do anything.

I had incredible childhood growing up, and since then, have dabbled-- one of those people that knows a little about a lot of things.

Worked on boats for a while, building boats for a while.

Fishmonger for a while here in the Keys and-- but I realize all of it kind of fed into a sense of design, and, three dimensions as opposed to two-dimensional work.

That's my joy.

And here in the Keys, started to take it seriously.

Had a piece accepted when I first learned welding for Sculpture Key West, which used to be an annual exhibit out at Fort Zachary Taylor and then different other venues.

And when that piece was accepted to be shown, I kind of started really thinking seriously about it.

The Boat series, The Vessel series that I've been working on pretty much for the last ten years, started with starting to learn about ceramics, and I literally dropped a piece of clay through-- not, well, I dropped it and it elongated out and I was like, "Whoa!"

And then I purposely threw it and continually, depending on the clay body and how malleable it was, different, this boat shape would come out.

And I've been playing with that for quite a while, and then taking them apart and putting them back together, adding things to, reference basically, what I'm thinking about.

[Music] I'mmigration It's immigration but with the apostrophe.

It's pronounced "I'm Migration" and that is a reference to the fact that we all, by force or by choice, have migration or immigration in our personal histories.

And that's really important for people not to forget.

The reaction to the exhibit has been overwhelmingly positive-- actually humbling.

So, a lot of people have seen my work over the years.

One piece here, one piece there.

But to see a quantity in a number of pieces and all within a theme within The Vessel series, surprised a lot of people, I think they were like, "Whoa!"

But a lot of people were waiting to see-- the pressure was big time, waiting to see what I was going to do after having left the studios, having time now and having this incredible space, to work in people.

I was able to go big and bigger than I ever been able to before, and that was a lot of fun.

The rudders, those are off of the Dry Tortugas.

Back when there was the Wet Foot, Dry Foot policy.

So, they're all bent because getting close to any type of landform, you didn't go slow.

You ride up on land, and so all the rudders have this bend in them going up on land.

And they are-- each one is so different from another.

And to me, it just is amazing that people put their trust in something that looks so simple to get them all the way across.

They're just amazing.

I mean, the rope was on it still.

I have a few others.

One had carefully stitched leather on the handle, but I mean, they're all different.

They're all homemade out of what people could find.

My hope that conversations-- it would instigate conversations about personal migration.

Immigration for people happened, at least at the opening.

You know, "Where's your family from?"

Well, "My family came on the Mayflower."

"Oh, mine came two years ago."

And people-- especially with the current, situations with immigration and migration all over the world, has been right at the forefront of a lot of people's mind.

And there was a space to, have it be okay to have a conversation about it and that that was really heartening to see happen.

[Music] >> Lauren: If it keeps coming out, then I'm just going to keep doing it because I really enjoy it.

There's, other things I've been playing with.

The palm fronds, the royal palm fronds.

I've been collecting them for a while now because they-- some of them come down and they're extremely dress-like, and I really like that.

So, now I have the space to continue working with them.

Some time, I would get enough of them that I like that I want to make all these -- you know, dancing dresses, all in a circle.

[Music] You know, people always ask, "What do you like about Key West that makes you stay?"

And, generally the answer is, "Well, I like the water."

"I like the weather."

the people, of course.

and for me, environmentally, it's the sky.

The sky here is just phenomenal.

And people-wise, it's one of the very few places I've ever lived where people don't pigeonhole you.

They allow you to-- they truly allow and support you to change on your own personal journey.

I came here as a fishmonger, they supported me at that, and then morphed into spending more and more, then the facilities manager, at the Studios, and that there was great support for that.

And my artwork, I mean, it's overwhelming the support for that, for that change.

And I've never seen that anywhere else where people truly support a person's journey as it changes over time, as it's inevitable it should.

And to me, that's what the Keys has done.

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Funding for COLORES was provided in part by: Frederick Hammersley Fund, New Mexico PBS Great Southwestern Arts & Education Endowment Fund, and the Nellita E. Walker Fund for KNME-TV at the Albuquerque Community Foundation New Mexico Arts, a division of the Department of Cultural Affairs, and by the National Endowment for the Arts and Viewers Like You