Description

In February 1903, two Mexican men shot up Goddard Station, near the Agua Fria River, in Yavapai County, Arizona.

One story, that may explain the shooting as revenge, is that rancher Charles Goddard hired extra help each year during the sheep-shearing season. A dispute arose between Francisco Renteria and another shearer. Goddard intervened and struck Renteria across the face with his gun, knocking him to the ground. Two years later, Renteria (or Rentario, or Rentezia) returned with Hilario Hidalgo and shot to death Charles Goddard and bystander Frank Cox.

At the time, the shooters got away, but law enforcement decided that a couple of railroad workers on the Mexican side of the border matched their description, and contrived to lure them into Arizona where they could be arrested.

On April 6, 1903 after their capture, the prisoners were taken to Prescott and housed in the Yavapai County Jail, which was located in the Courthouse basement. On June 2nd the two defendants pled not guilty and the trial was set for June 10th. The two defendants were positively identified as the murderers by Rosa Goddard, Milton Turnbull and Francisco Rodriguez, a shepherd who claimed to have conversed with the men outside Goddard Station just before the shooting. After only thirty minutes of deliberation both men were found guilty of first-degree murder, appeals were forbidden, and they were sentenced to hang on July 31, 1903. This was the last hanging in the Prescott Courthouse Plaza.

Photographs of the hanging are also in the Sharlot Hall collection: 1045-0105-0001-0005.

Sources: azmemory.azlibrary.gov; executedtoday.com; Sharlot Hall Museum photographs.