Rob Krentz, Douglas, Arizona border cattle rancher
Murdered 2010 on his ranch by suspected illegal
Written by
Ed Ashurst, Border Rancher
Bisbee, Arizona
“Murderers,
in general, are people who are consistent, people who are obsessed with one
idea and nothing else.” Quote by: Ugo Betti
On Saturday March 27, 2010 my family and I were
returning from a funeral in Flagstaff Arizona
Frank went on to explain how Rob
had left home early in the morning to check some wells and pipelines and was
expected home by noon . At
mid-morning he had radioed his brother Phil, and requested that he call the Border Patrol to come and
pick up an illegal alien in a pasture about 12 miles south of the house. Rob
had mentioned that he thought the Mexican was acting hurt and then the radio
went dead. Rob was never heard from again.
The Krentz family are noted for
being hard workers and exceedingly independent. Phil was the younger of the two
brothers and he and Rob spent virtually their entire lives on the ranch. They
were the closest two brothers I have ever known. Frank, Phil and other family
members started looking for Rob around noon ,
and as the day went on the search grew larger. It was close to sundown and as
Frank talked the mood was becoming increasingly serious. I asked him if he had
called the Sheriff’s Dept. and he said he had not. I told him that I would make
the call and then join the search. I called the Cochise County Sheriff, at
about 5:45 p.m. Sheriff
Dever and Rob had been friends for years and he said he would get some
assistance headed our way immediately.
At the same time I was talking with
Frank and the Sheriff, my son was having some excitement of his own. Upon
arriving home he discovered that he had been burglarized; someone had broken
into a storage shed adjacent to his house and had stolen some food out of a
freezer. He immediately called the Sheriff’s Dept. and a deputy arrived within
a few minutes. When I called to tell him about Rob’s disappearance he was
helping the deputy make out a crime report. I related my conversation with
Frank and asked if he knew anything about Rob’s whereabouts. He answered in the
negative and told me that as soon as possible he would join in the search for
Rob and inquire as to the possibility of the deputy’s assistance as well.
About 6:00 p.m. I drove down the road a few miles and met with
several members of the Krentz family and another neighbor who had set up a base
camp of sorts to organize the search for Rob. Several Border Patrol personnel
were also there offering assistance. As dusk fell people began showing up to help.
Other neighbors, miles to the east and south, began to search from different
angles and directions. The area being searched eventually covered perhaps 150
square miles, some of which lay on neighboring ranches.
In the beginning we all thought Rob
had undoubtedly had mechanical trouble with the Polaris ATV that he was
driving. Recently Rob had undergone hip replacement surgery and was still on
crutches. The family had just bought the Polaris because it had a bench seat
and Rob was able to drive it and stay involved with the day to day activities
of the ranch. As the evening wore on we began wondering if something else could
have happened and all agreed that Rob was too savvy to have gotten himself
ambushed by an outlaw mule. No, we all agreed it was definitely some other kind
of problem. There was anxious speculation about a heart attack or some other
health issue, and as the search continued we became more aware that time could
be an issue if indeed some unexpected health problem had come to the surface.
At sometime around midnight we got the word. Rob had been
found - shot dead. His favorite dog, who rode along with him on his ATV, was
wounded.
To say you are shocked when you get
news such as this is not a good description. It was for me more of a lack of
feeling, a sort of nothingness, a vacuum, or a state of being in limbo like you
are out of air and are not sure when your breath will come back. All of a
sudden I was empty. I felt stupid and just simply did not know what to say to
the Krentz family or even to myself. I think all of us involved in the search
effort that night somehow blamed ourselves even though nobody present was
guilty of anything. Perhaps, it was our mind’s way of trying to explain why
something like this had happened.
Within minutes of finding out that
Rob’s body had been found I talked via cell phone to Warner Glenn, a neighbor
who lives south of the Krentz place. Warner and another neighbor had been
conducting a search south of the area where everyone thought Rob must be.
Warner is a cattle rancher, but is also a well known lion hunter who has hunted
lions all over several counties, and one of the most widely respected trackers
in the southwest. Warner and I both thought that the man who had shot Rob was
wounded, as we all knew that Rob had a gun with him on the ATV. This turned out
to be a false assumption, as Rob never got his hand on his gun, but at the time
we agreed that maybe the killer was leaving a bloody trail. If he was, he would
be easier to track.
I told Warner that if he wanted any
help in attempting to track the murderer the next morning to call me. “I am not
going down there unless you call,” I told him. He replied that he would see
what developed in the next several hours. I got home at 2:30 a.m. on Sunday morning, and at 5:30 a.m. Warner called. “Kelly and
I, along with a boy working for us, are gonna go down and see if we can help
track that sonofagun.” Warner said. “We are meeting some law enforcement at the
gate going off the highway at seven and wondered if you would go with us as you
know exactly where to go.” I replied that I would, and I met them at the
appointed place at 7:00 a.m.
We all had horses or mules loaded in trailers hooked to our pick-ups.
The crime scene was about six miles
east of Highway 80 and twelve miles straight north of the border near the bottom
of Black Draw. When we got near the site, about a quarter mile away, Warner,
Kelly and I, were told by law enforcement personnel that we couldn’t go any
closer. There was an investigation team on site and, understandably so, we
weren’t welcome. There was also a lawman already on the track with a team of
dogs.
We were told that empty 9mm
cartridges had been found along with some food and the wrappers. We were also
told there was no evidence that the murderer was leaving a bloody trail. It
looked like one man with a very large boot track, size twelve, or maybe larger,
walking south toward Mexico
We stopped our rigs. Warner
unloaded his mule and went north to where the trackers were located. He was in
contact with them using two-way radios and offered to double back and meet
them. They agreed, appreciating his expertise as a tracker. They also described
what the track looked like down to a fine detail. At this time Warner
instructed Kelly and I to continue south on the two-track dirt road we were on,
checking for sign as we went. There was also another neighbor with an airplane
flying over the area attempting to help in the search. Kelly and I continued
south for three or four miles and in the process we passed a windmill in the
bottom of Black Draw, and then proceeded on to the Peterson Ranch headquarters.
We saw nothing.
About this time we received word
that the track Warner and the government agents were following had turned back
to the north. Everyone got excited thinking the murderer was close and had
turned north to reach some cover offered in that direction in the form of
mesquite trees and cactus. We thought we had him. Our excitement was short
lived, however, for the man turned south again after a quarter of a mile or so.
No one ever did figure out why he made that small circle only to reset his
course down the Black Draw drainage going south by southwest.
Kelly and I returned to the
windmill we had passed earlier which was situated in the bottom of Black Draw.
Warner and the men were on the man’s tracks several miles to the north and they
were continuing in a direction that would lead him straight to the windmill. By
radio Warner instructed Kelly that we should unload our horses and go down the
draw a ways below the well and see if we could cut some sign. There were cattle
watering at the windmill and they could have easily wiped out any visible sign
close to the watering facility.
We hit jackpot. Kelly gave me
instructions to keep a lookout for the outlaw and as we walked forward she
would keep her eyes on the ground looking for tracks, and sure enough several
hundred yards below the well in the soft dirt right in the bottom of the arroyo
she found a track and then another. Kelly radioed Warner and relayed the good
news describing the man’s track in detail. Upon hearing the news Warner and the
agent he was assisting dropped their track and came forward to where we were.
After observing the track Kelly had found they were positive it was the same
one they had just left. This leapfrog maneuver saved an hour or two, and again
we thought we were getting close.
From that site and on down several
miles Black Draw boxes up making a deeper and much rockier gorge. It was tough
tracking as there were plenty of black basalt rocks that are known as malpai
for a man walking to step on. A person could easily go eight or ten steps in
this area without ever stepping on sand or soft dirt. Sometimes the track would
be lost for a few minutes and we would double back or go way out to the side
making sure he hadn’t changed directions. In places there was thick mesquite
and other types of brush and we were aware that a murderer could be lying in
wait to ambush us. In the end the track stayed true to course and although it
would be lost and found many times it would continually be found again going
straight down the bottom of the rocky arroyo.
After progressing down this
roughest stretch of the Black Draw perhaps another mile, Warner gave
instructions to Kelly and me to climb out of the canyon on the east side. He
wanted us to go at as fast a rate as possible and position ourselves high on
the canyon rim several miles ahead. We honestly thought that we were just
moments ahead of capturing the murderer. We hoped from a good vantage point we
could catch a glimpse of him. At the place where Warner instructed us to make
our stand, Black Draw becomes wide at the bottom, in some places as much as a
half mile, very sandy and has a thick cover of mesquite trees. This part of the
drainage is known as the Big Thicket.
I stopped and found a good spot
hiding among boulders in the rim rock with a good vista of the canyon bottom
below. Kelly loped another mile or so to the south and positioned herself in a
similar spot. From where I watched I could see the Geronimo Trail several miles
to the south.
The Geronimo Trail is a dirt road
running parallel to the Mexican border. This road varies from within several
hundred yards to as far as several miles from the international boundary as it
continues east stretching from Douglas all the
way into New Mexico
At this time everyone became very
excited because no one had found any tracks crossing the Geronimo Trail, and
now less than two miles north the trackers were making good time. Because of
the sand and soft dirt in the Big Thicket tracking was easy and was moving at a
very fast rate. We were closing in.
With helicopters overhead, several
dozen Border Patrol agents and deputy Sheriffs lying in wait along the Geronimo
Trail, and Kelly and myself high pointing from the canyon rim, it seemed
certain that the fugitive’s capture was only moments away.
Nothing! When Warner and the other
men that were tracking got to the Geronimo Trail the tracks simply vanished.
After a short discussion everyone agreed the man had simply taken his boots off
and walked across the road in his stocking feet. By the time we all converged
on the Geronimo Trail it was nearing 3:00
p.m. After hours of law enforcement personnel walking, as well as multiple
vehicles passing, and stirring up dust, picking up the tracks of a man in socks
was impossible. Then Warner was told by ranking Border Patrol that agents had
tracked the outlaw all the way to the border fence. They had picked up his
tracks south of the road several hundred yards and followed them all the way to
the border. Everyone began loading up into vehicles and leaving, and the two
helicopters flew away leaving Warner and Kelly Glenn, along with me and the
young man who worked for them, standing there. There was evidently nothing left
to do.
“By golly,
I kind’a would like to see that bugger’s tracks for myself,” Warner exclaimed
as we stood there contemplating our situation.
“Well as far as I’m concerned,
beings it’s this late in the day, I’m not going to get anything else accomplished,
so if you want to keep tracking, let’s go,” I replied. Everyone agreed.
From where we were the border fence
was about two miles south, and with Warner leading the way we rode south in the
bottom of the creek bed. Within a quarter mile we picked up the outlaw’s track
and we couldn’t help but notice that it was by itself: no other tracks were
found nearby. The creek bed from this point south to the border becomes very
overgrown with vegetation in the form of cottonwood, sycamore and mesquite
trees, and a great deal of catclaw and whitethorn brush. Deadfall limbs and
leaves litter the ground. Although the Black Draw from this spot north was
usually dry, here it became a running stream fed by numerous artesian wells in
the area.
Tracking was difficult due to the
brush, the water, the dead tree limbs and leaves. As before we would have the
track for a ways and then lose it, but it was obvious the track was going in as
straight a route as possible, headed for Mexico
The last place we found the track
was up out of the creek on the east side. There had been an old farm there at
one time. The man had walked in the soft dirt of an abandoned hay field the
last five hundred yards to the border. This last stretch was out in the open
away from any brush or trees which meant without a doubt he had reached this
spot before daylight. He had been confident that he was home free and had quit
trying to hide. We were, quite simply, about 12 hours behind him.
At no point between the Geronimo
Trail and the Mexican border did we observe any evidence of other tracks
anywhere near the outlaw’s trail. We had been lied to; neither the Border
Patrol nor anyone else had tracked the man anywhere.
When we got to the border there
were three Border Patrol officers leaned up against the fence making small
talk. I got the impression that they knew nothing of the Rob Krentz murder.
They certainly did not exhibit a feeling of urgency. It was just another day on
the job. It was about 4:45 p.m.
and therefore almost time for a shift change. Union rules require that you be
diligent about shift changes.
In the days immediately following
Rob Krentz’s murder there was an overabundance of theories concerning, who was the
killer, why did it happen, was it a planned “hit” etc. The response from the
media was astounding and there was a great deal of good reporting, but there
was also a fair bit of misinformation. Erroneous theories abounded especially
on the internet.
Most people who live in the area
and are aware of the day to day activities of local ranchers are in agreement
with the basic details of the murder. The individual who killed Rob was without
a doubt a “mule” or drug smuggler, perhaps a leader of a group of mules going
north with marijuana, probably making their drop somewhere in the Portal area
20 miles or so northeast of the Krentz ranch. Several days before Rob’s murder
a Glock 9mm pistol was stolen out of a vehicle in the Portal area. Rob was
killed by a 9mm pistol. Numerous empty 9mm brass cartridges were found at the
crime scene.
The morning he killed Rob the
murderer walked by my son’s home and burglarized it, stealing some food. Then
the outlaw left and walked straight south about five and a half miles. There is
a faint two-track dirt road the entire way. No doubt he was resting and getting
a bite to eat when Rob disturbed him. That same food was found with the spent
9mm cartridges at the murder scene.
I believe the individual who murdered
Rob was one of the worst, a lone individual from a large reservoir filled with
many of the most dangerous men on earth. In an article written by Heather
MacDonald in the City Journal the winter of 2004, she stated that in Los Angeles 18th
Street California Houston
I personally have read numerous
statistics that say anywhere from 8 to 35 percent of all illegal aliens
apprehended have a record of some type of violent crime: rape, murder,
kidnapping or child molestation. Other statistics will say the 6 to 30 percent
of illegal aliens have an outstanding warrant for their arrest somewhere in the
United States Mexico
It is my belief that Rob’s murderer
had an outstanding warrant for his arrest somewhere in the States. He probably
understood he was looking at some hard time in a federal facility if he was
apprehended and he had made a decision that he would not allow himself to be
arrested. Possessing the Glock pistol facilitated that decision. In Rob’s last
communication via radio to his brother which was also heard by several
neighbors with radios turned on to the same frequency, Rob indicated the man
looked like someone who needed some help. He no doubt thought he was going to
assist someone in need, but when he got within close range the murderer opened
fire. Tire tracks at the crime scene showed that Rob stepped on the accelerator
and sped away as fast as the Polaris ATV would go. Rob died 1000 feet away.
There is no evidence that Rob ever got his hands on a gun.
Simply put, Rob Krentz was in the
wrong place at the wrong time. While doing his job on his property,
contributing to the local, state and national economy, raising a family and
paying his taxes, he was in the wrong place in the wrong time.
Ed
Ashurst
Apache,
Arizona
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