Death at Aunty Jane

Repeal of Prohibition in the U. S., legalizing of horse racing in California and the sudden suppression of public gambling in Mexico have reduced the border town of Tijuana (literally "Aunty Jane") from an egregious haunt for U. S. tourists to a bedraggled ghost city of boarded-up saloons and flapping signs. Some excitement occurred two months ago when 400 unemployed barricaded themselves in the big Agua Caliente (literally "Hot Water") hotel and defied the garrison of 28 soldiers to oust them. Since then Aunty Jane has been tomb-quiet.

On Monday last week a sandaled peasant woman wandered into an abandoned garage and found the body of an 8-year-old girl, Olga Comacho, daughter of a bartender. Her throat was slashed. She had been ravished while returning from the village meat market. Through all the flyspecked rabbit warrens of Tijuana the news spread and quickly more news followed: a soldier from the garrison had been caught with the package of meat Olga Comacho was bringing home.

A crowd of angry Mexicans armed with shotguns and rifles appeared from alleys and adobe huts. Young men, clinging to the running boards of automobiles, raced through the street firing shots in the air. At the temporary jail, the crowd smashed windows and set it afire with wads of gasoline-soaked rags. Some of the mob kept fire engines away by lying prone in the street. Not finding the prisoner, the crowd next attacked the police station, burned it also. Next call was the stone Federal building, where Federal troops were drawn up with loaded rifles. As the mob approached. General Manuel Contreras shouted: "Justice will be meted out to this prisoner! Justice will be meted out to this prisoner!" but the crowd swept on. A volley crashed out over their heads, then another straight at the leaders. The crowd broke. Dead in the gutter lay Romano Maldonado, 8; Salvadore Vasquez, 14; Vidal Torres, 56. Fourteen others lay wounded.

Murder is not a capital crime in Lower California, but General Contreras took no chances in waiting for a trial. All the next night a court martial sat. At sunrise the prisoner. Private Juan Castillo Morales, 24, was hustled to the cemetery on a nearby hill, told to run for his life. A firing squad of his fellow soldiers finished him quickly.

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