Florentino Cruz or Philomeno Sais?

Dragoon Mountains, Arizona Territory — March 22, 1882

The Earp Party Arrives

Four days after Morgan Earp was murdered in Tombstone, and only two days after Frank Stilwell was killed at the Tucson railroad station, Wyatt Earp and his companions were moving through southeastern Arizona.

On March 22, 1882, they reached Pete Spence’s wood camp in the South Pass of the Dragoon Mountains.

Before the day was over, a man known around the camp as Florentino was dead.

His killing became part of what would later be called Wyatt Earp’s “Vendetta Ride.” But the contemporary record presents a more complicated story than the familiar legend. There was even disagreement over the dead man’s name.

The coroner’s inquest published in the Tombstone Epitaph provides some of the closest surviving testimony to the killing.

Theodore B. Judah, a teamster from Tombstone, testified that he was staying at Pete Spence’s wood camp. Among the men there were Sam Williams, Ramon Acosta and a man Judah knew as Florentino.

Around midday, Williams went out on horseback looking for animals that had strayed from camp. Florentino soon left on foot for the same purpose.

Judah remained behind.

A short time later he saw a party of mounted men approaching. Judah identified men in the party as Wyatt Earp, Warren Earp, Sherman McMaster, Doc Holliday, Texas Jack and a man named Johnson.

The riders questioned Judah about Pete Spence and another man they were seeking. Spence was not there. The conversation then turned to the other men at the camp. Judah explained that Florentino had gone looking for animals.

The riders left.

Not long afterward, gunfire broke the quiet of the wood camp.

Florentino Under Fire

Other testimony taken at the inquest places Florentino some distance from camp when the shooting began.

Simon Acosta testified that mounted men had ridden into camp shortly before the shooting. He later heard and observed the firing in the direction Florentino had gone.

The testimony describes Florentino away from camp and the mounted party pursuing him. There is no contemporary testimony in the inquest describing Florentino standing his ground and exchanging gunfire with the Earp party.

Sam Williams had encountered Florentino shortly before the shooting. Williams himself carried a pistol, but when questioned about Florentino he testified: “Florentino was not armed as far as I know.”

Theodore Judah would provide additional evidence on that question the following morning.

The Body Beneath the Tree

Judah searched for Florentino after the shooting but initially failed to locate him.

The next morning he returned. Near a tree, not far from where he had seen members of the Earp party the previous day, Judah found Florentino dead.

The body was lying face downward. One arm was beneath his head, and his coat had been pulled over his legs.

Judah searched him. He testified: “I found no weapon of any kind on him.”

Judah returned to camp, obtained a saddle and placed the body on a mule. Florentino’s remains were eventually delivered to the coroner in Tombstone.

Dr. Goodfellow Examines the Dead Man

Dr. George E. Goodfellow examined the body and found four gunshot wounds.

One bullet had entered the right temple and penetrated the brain. Another produced a flesh wound to the shoulder. A third entered the right side near the liver and exited near the spine. A fourth struck the thigh.

Goodfellow believed the head wound and the wound through the torso were sufficient to cause death.

He also offered an important medical observation. Based upon the location and direction of the wounds, Goodfellow believed Florentino was probably lying on the ground when some of the wounds to his upper body were received.

The testimony does not tell us precisely how that occurred. It does, however, deserve to stand on its own without embellishment.

But Who Was Florentino?

The Tombstone newspapers identified the dead man as Florentino Cruz. The heading over the published coroner’s proceedings in the Epitaph read: “Upon the Body of Florentino Cruz.”

The witnesses themselves, however, repeatedly referred to the dead man simply as Florentino.

Within days, another Arizona newspaper challenged the Tombstone identification.

The Tucson Citizen reported that the dead man was not Cruz but a man named Philomeno Sais. According to the Citizen, Sais was a “half-breed Indian” who had previously been implicated in the murders of John Adams and Cornelius Finley in the Santa Rita Mountains.

More significantly, the newspaper claimed that a man who personally knew Sais had viewed the corpse and identified it as him. The identifying witness was not named.

The Citizen went further, recounting allegations that Sais had participated with other men in the 1878 attack that killed Adams and Finley, had fled into Mexico afterward, had been arrested and jailed at Magdalena, and had escaped punishment when Mexican authorities refused to surrender him to Arizona authorities.

Parts of that background can be independently traced through contemporary accounts of the Adams-Finley case. But the identification of the corpse as Sais was immediately disputed.

“Not the Man”

J. A. Browder wrote to the Arizona Star after reading the Citizen’s account. His letter appeared under the simple headline: “Not the Man.”

Browder stated directly that the Citizen was mistaken in the identity of the man killed by the Earp party in the Dragoon Mountains.

Browder said the Tombstone newspapers had identified the dead man as Florentino Cruz. Unlike someone merely repeating a newspaper report, Browder claimed personal knowledge of Cruz: “I know the man Florentino Cruz.”

According to Browder, Cruz had worked for B. Roble and himself in the Santa Rita Mountains and later for J. Sredovich and Browder at their mine near Calabasas.

Browder concluded: “We always found Cruz to be a harmless and inoffensive man.”

Two contemporary accounts therefore presented sharply different identities for the same corpse.

The Citizen said the dead man was Philomeno Sais, supposedly identified by someone who knew Sais personally. Browder said he knew Florentino Cruz personally and rejected the Citizen’s identification.

Neither statement completely resolves the problem. The Citizen did not name the man who supposedly identified Sais’s body. Browder, meanwhile, did not say that he personally viewed the corpse.

Was He “Indian Charlie”?

Another identification eventually became attached to the dead man.

Later histories frequently identify Florentino Cruz—or Sais—as “Indian Charlie,” one of the men implicated in Morgan Earp’s murder.

That connection requires caution.

Contemporary proceedings surrounding Morgan’s murder referred to a man called Indian Charlie or an Indian half-breed named Charlie. The evidence presently examined does not establish that Charlie’s legal name was Florentino Cruz.

Nor does the coroner’s testimony concerning the Dragoon killing establish that the man called Florentino was Indian Charlie.

Over time, several names became joined together: Florentino Cruz, Philomeno or Florentino Sais, and Indian Charlie.

They may represent the same man. But the contemporary evidence examined so far does not establish that beyond dispute.

What Can Be Documented

Some facts are considerably firmer.

On March 22, 1882, Wyatt Earp’s party arrived at Pete Spence’s wood camp in the Dragoon Mountains. A worker known to the men at the camp as Florentino was away looking for stray animals. Shortly afterward, members of the mounted party pursued him and shots were fired.

Florentino was killed.

A man who had seen him shortly beforehand believed he was unarmed. When Theodore Judah recovered the body the following morning, he found no weapon.

Dr. Goodfellow found four gunshot wounds and believed Florentino may have been on the ground when some of the wounds were received.

The Tombstone newspapers called the dead man Florentino Cruz. The Tucson Citizen called him Philomeno Sais and claimed his body had been identified by someone who knew Sais. J. A. Browder publicly challenged that identification, stating that he personally knew Florentino Cruz.

The disagreement occurred not generations later, but within days of the killing itself.

A Name Lost in the Vendetta

The death of Florentino has usually been reduced to another episode in Wyatt Earp’s pursuit of the men believed responsible for Morgan Earp’s murder.

The surviving contemporary evidence leaves a more difficult story.

A man was pursued and shot to death in the Dragoons. Witnesses knew him as Florentino. No weapon was found on his body.

Almost immediately, Arizona newspapers began arguing about who he actually was.

Was he Florentino Cruz, the laborer J. A. Browder remembered as harmless and inoffensive?

Was he Philomeno Sais, the fugitive the Citizen associated with an earlier double murder?

Was either man the mysterious “Indian Charlie” implicated in Morgan Earp’s death?

More than a century later, those questions remain difficult to answer with certainty.

What the contemporary record does show is that the uncertainty did not begin with modern historians.

They were arguing about the identity of the dead man in 1882.

Primary Sources Used in This Post

Tombstone Epitaph, March 1882 — published proceedings of the coroner’s inquest into Florentino’s death.

Arizona Weekly Citizen, 1882 — report identifying the dead man as Philomeno Sais and connecting Sais with the Adams-Finley murders.

Arizona Star, 1882 — J. A. Browder letter, “Not the Man,” disputing the Citizen’s identification and identifying the dead man as Florentino Cruz.