It seemed that everyone profited except the Tarahumara. We hadnt seen another car in two hours. The man did what he did. His stature as a political figure and a leader of law enforcement at the time made people seek him out for advice. I still wanted to see the town where he had spent time as a boy-where many backpackers make their crossing todayso instead, I went with Rogers. From then on gunfire could routinely be heard in the town and up the canyon. Wherever I looked, in Alpine and Marfa and later Presidio, I saw makeshift villages of turnkey houses, the whitewashed barracks of Border Patrol. A month later, Chambers stood next to Vega againthis time in an El Paso courtroomfor a second and final hearing on his slightly improved sentence. The third time, though, in February 2007, Border Patrol agents found him and two others hiding in creosote bushes one hundred miles west of Las Cruces, with three backpacks that totaled 194 pounds. Hes made parole. Years earlier, while serving as an attach in Mexico City, Stinson had heard Mexican federal police mention Thompson in connection with the Ojinaga drug trade. Though the Tarahumara largely kept to themselves, poverty and hunger made them targets for narcos looking for mules willing to make the demanding trek to designated drug drop-off points in New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas. He was born on March 15, 1930, in Waynesville, North Carolina to James Guy and Hazel Medford Chambers. From there, the runners followed white arrows spray-painted on the ground into a forest of pion pine, juniper, and small oak trees. The revelation, he said, left him feeling used, humiliated and dumb.. He had grown up on the ancient tales of men who sprinkled bone dust on the course the night before, thought to induce fatigue in your competitors. In the summer of 2016, drug traffickers moved on the town of Basihuare, near Chvezs hometown of Rejogochi, stealing the funds from the towns ejido, a government-supported agriculture cooperative. Visit megapho There were comments like, I wonder how much he kept?, the sheriff said. The sheriffs office in Marfa where former Sheriff Rick Thompson. They were close now, a few hours from their destination. Fisher struck deals with sponsors; he paid his runners with bags of corn and beans. Thus began a shocking small-town drama that quickly turned Marfa on its head and sent the sheriff to federal prison. The explorer Lumholtz had surveyed Urique from up here more than a century ago. That summer, he saw around four hundred cases come through the Alpine office, and within a few years its annual caseload had more than doubled. Silvino flung his bags into the sand and began to run. He also enlisted the two best Tarahumara runners: Silvino, who was 28 at the time, and his younger cousin Arnulfo Quimare Qui. Then, with the path hugging a creek, he entered tiny Porochi. It was a quick-paying job, and it would help their village. International runners arrived to find armed gangs in the streets of Urique, while local government officials assured the competitors there were no problems. Even for a strong farmer like Silvino, who used oxen to plough his fields in Huisuchi, cultivating chia in Urique proved biblical in its afflictions. Its wistful melody is reserved for joyous occasions, when Tarahumara dance to its repetitive interplay of violin and guitar. Strapped to his back were two homespun burlap packs, one filled with 45 pounds of marijuana bricks and the other with enough burritos and gallon jugs of water to survive another week in the wilderness. Eagle Realty Group & Associate, (573) 336-0003. He had run one hundred miles. Puro Tarahumara de ahora en adelante. Silvino remembered the women in Huisuchi who used to weave baskets out of the pine needles. St. Robert, MO. There was no sewer connection in their trailer, and electricity came from an extension cord that stretched from his grandparents house. He had escaped, but Silvino continued running through the night, slept half of the next day, and then ran through the afternoon and the next night. There were hairpin turns where the drop-off was thousands of feet, and he passed several roadside memorials. He had to have demonstrated loyalty to the people who were moving this type of narcotics, Barajas said. In 2006, he persuaded Scott Jurek, the top American, to travel to Urique Canyon for a trail race he was organizing that is now known as the Ultra Caballo Blanco. In March 2010, a month before Silvinos narrow escape in New Mexico, the annual Ultra Caballo Blanco had drawn a record number of international participants to Urique Canyon. The afternoon before, the two teams walked the course, quarreling over its design and the number of laps. For reasons that later became clear, Thompson would have nothing to do with the Drug Enforcement Administration, although he was close to other federal agents. Volunteers were on hand to offer cheese sandwiches, bananas, and oranges. He zigzagged around scrawny desert saplings, while the shadows cast by the dirt bikes spotlight darted around him. In the end, it was Chambers who used Thompson. From then on gunfire could routinely be heard in the town and up the canyon. Chambers remembers law enforcement coming to his house after his father had been arrested, though he was too young to comprehend the reason. Buchmeyer gave him the max: Two life terms without a chance of parole. 1992 Press Photo Grand Isle Mayor Andy Valence addressing the City Council . At the square, a dozen bedraggled municipal police, a few seemingly too young to grow facial hair, loitered with unloaded AK-47sgoats horns, they called them. It seemed that everyone profited except the Tarahumara. It was amazing. (Courtesy of Presidio County Sheriff's Office) By Brbara Anguiano Leave a sympathy message to the family in the guestbook on this memorial page of Robert Leroy Chambers to show support. The only liquids to be found were two cans of Lone Star and three cans of Bud Light that had been left for Boyd at his headstone. DISCLAIMER NOTICE: ALL ARE PRESUMED INNOCENT. When they arrived at the orchard, there were no pecans. A pair of uncles on his moms side also went to prison for drug offenses, and so did a paternal uncle. And when cocaine starts flowing across the Mexican border like never before, Robert dives in headfirst. Thompson is scheduled to get out April 14, 2018.). There was also a lot of work leading up to that trial that required international relationships, he said. The tribes runners had never ventured far from home and remained largely unknown until 1993, when an opportunistic American photographer named Rick Fisher brought several members, including a 55-year-old grandfather and a 40-something goat farmer, to an old Colorado mining town called Leadville to enter its 100-mile ultramarathon. FCS Financial will contact you about financing this property. He claimed $1.5 million in narcotics seized when in fact $5,000 was seized. Just across the border were powerful drug lords such as Pablo Acosta, the boss of Ojinaga, who was killed in a shootout in Mexico in April 1987. An agent on a dirt bike tore after him as the others scattered. But, as they staked it out, they realized they were not alone. But Thompson, with brains, nerve and political savvy, proved up to the all-consuming job of being a rural West Texas sheriff. Ponton had to retrieve his attorney fees for Chambers defense by traveling to Juarez to pick up $100,000 in cash, which caused a considerable stir at the border when he re-entered the U.S. Now County Attorney for Presidio County, Ponton was featured in the recent Netflix documentary, Confession Killer, for his role in proving that alleged serial killer Henry Lee Lucas could not be responsible for most of the murders he confessed to. When they neared the San Isidro Lodge, Silvino was in fourth but still in range of the leaders. A little time in the Western District of Texas jail isnt going to keep you from trying to feed your family.. Family and friends are welcome to send flowers or leave their condolences on this memorial page and share them with the . Carrillo earned the nickname, Lord of the Skies, by bringing airliners packed with cocaine directly from Colombia to Mexico, with some of it bound for Presidio County. Up here, he realized, right before the 2008 Semana Santa celebrations, assassins from the Sinaloa cartel had kidnapped around a dozen people from Uriquethe chief of police, other officers, government officialsand beheaded all but two, whom they sent back to town, stripped naked and hands tied, to tell the story. Rick wasnt the kingpin. Ryan Goldberg is a freelance journalist based in New York. Two weeks earlier, sicarios, or hit men, had stopped in Rejogochi to ask for Chvez, the young activist, and her father, Makawi. About three hours later, the agents moved in to inspect the trailer, parked with the sheriffs other equipment. ROBERT D CHAMBERS Private / Unlisted Po Box 4, May, Brown County, TX-76857 Cellular: No mobile line available Edit / Delete Person *Reflects database record as of Sunday, December 25, 2022. PECOS, Texas (AP) _ A former county sheriff and a rancher were sentenced to life in prison Friday for supervising a midnight haul of cocaine worth $48 million last December. Under any circumstances, safeguarding so vast and wild a county with the help of only two deputies was a daunting job. Then the judge asked Vega if he had anything to add. At approximately 1:15 a.m., Agent Fort observed a green Chevrolet Suburban driving east on the Fairgrounds Road with the lights off, DEA Agent Dale Stinson testified at a later court hearing. In 1977, on a highway south of Marfa, Presidio County Sheriff Rick Thompson, far right, posed for Texas Monthly with his crew (left to right) Jailer Robert Guevara, Deputy Gary Painter, and Deputy Roger Brito. Read more:Rickhoff kicks off Bexar County judge race with attacks on Wolff for "pay to play," art spending. (Robert Chambers was released in 2005 after serving 13 years. 1992 Press Photo Mayor and council members in City Hall chambers, Texas . Studied Registered Nurse at Lone Star College System Class of 2008 Associates of Applied Science in Nursing Studied Trumpet Performance at Eastman School of Music, University of Rochester September 1, 1993 - May 15, 1994 Studied at Spring High School Class of 1993 High school Went to Spring High School Photos See all photos After drug traffickers had taken over the ejido in Basihuare, Makawi had given an interview to a newspaper in Chihuahua, describing the situation and the growing recruitment of Tarahumara youth into organized crime. International runners and film crews descended on the Sierra Tarahumara. His mother, Christine, didnt want to stay in Alpine because of the publicity. Chambers had seen many of these harsh sentences handed out, including to drug runners who were essentially forced into smuggling. They moved up and down the Interstate 35 corridor so often that Chambers lost count of the number of schools he attended. He was the town favorite, recalled Carl Robinson, 85, a former longtime school superintendent who retired in 1992. People who know me, know Im not that kind of person, Dominguez said. They currently reside in Houston with their son, William. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate, Former Presidio County Sheriff Rick Thompson. His wife, Hilda, begged him not to go, but he felt he had no choice. He also was the first to question the close relationship Chambers had with Thompson. Theyre some of the toughest people in the world.. Had he been arrested the second time in New Mexico, she said, he would have faced a mandatory five years in prison. According to the Mexico Citybased magazine Proceso, at least five indigenous activists were assassinated in 2015 and 2016. Two weeks earlier. The great size of the load, the property of the Jurez Cartel, raised unsettling questions about what might have occurred earlier. Read more:Elvis performed in San Antonio several times in his heyday. 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