In September, 1912, Mr. and Mrs. Connell and their two little children went out to drive and passed Mr Porter's house. Porter arose from his seat on the porch and came toward the road. Mrs. Connell looked back to see If the little girl, Florence, on a burro, was keeping up with them In their buggy, and saw Porter coming at a rapid walk behind them, with clinched hands, red face and glaring eyes. Connell turned the horse and buggy entirely out of the road and Porter crowded up against the wheel, jeering at the Connells' threateningly, and then he turned and walked away.Regarding Connell's last flew hours, Mrs. Connell had been with her husband all the morning, as they had arisen at 5 o'clock, and saw him up to a half hour before his death. Noah Bullard, Orin Key, Jose Duran, Denito Duran and Florence Connell were with Connell, driving cattle. Mr. Connell had been awarded the government contract for 80,000 pounds of fresh beef and they were taking the cattle to the agency where Key and Durard would kill them and deliver the beef to the government as needed. Mrs. Connell had joined her husband and after talking awhile went home and got her mother and baby and went out another way to drive along with her husband behind the cattle as far as the outskirts of Tularosa. and then returned home. This was at about 7:30, and at 8 o'clock her little nine-year-old daughter, Florence, came riding rapidly, screaming, "They have killed papa." and to inquiries answered, "In front of Porter's house." Mrs. Connell started to go to Porter's and was asked and begged not to go as she, too, would be killed. A man kept her from going, she testified. A little later a wagon came with the husband's body wrapped in a canvas and they laid him in the road in front of his own house. He was dead. Ralph S. Connell was buried at Omaha, where his parents lived.When Connell was killed be had on a dark grey coat, dungaree shirt and a Stetson hat. Mrs. Connell took from a satchel the blood-stained garments in which her husband died. Bullet holes in the garments were shown and undershirt, shirt and coat had all been pierced by a bullet. Mr. and Mrs. Connell rode the morning of the shooting a saddle horse he had ridden for years, and showed the jury a photograph of her husband on the handsome, large horse, which was taken a year before Mr. Connell's death. Little Florence Connell, on a pony also appeared in the picture. The saddle horse was 15 hands and 2 inches above the shoe. Mrs. Connell testified her husband's height was just her height and his weight 138 pounds.Mrs. Connell is a tall, perfectly formed woman of fine appearance physically and mentally. The pictures and clothing wore admitted in evidence.

Las Cruces Sun-News 10 Sep 1915