Thread: NYT: Ranchers Alarmed by Killing Near Border

Ranchers Alarmed by Killing Near Border

Joshua Lott for The New York Times
Border Patrol agents on the road leading to the ranch of Robert N. Krentz Jr., who was killed. More Photos »

By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD
Published: April 4, 2010

DOUGLAS, Ariz. — Sooner or later, they all feared, one of them would be killed.

The ranchers, retirees and others who prefer to live off the grid in the vast desert near the Mexican border regularly confront the desperate and dehydrated illegal border crossers, who knock on their doors for directions and water, and lately more of the less innocent, who scurry across their land or lie low in the brush, stooped with marijuana and other drugs bundled on their backs.

Now, according to the leading police theory, the inevitable has occurred, whipping up a political storm and sending a shiver through a community not easily shaken.

Robert N. Krentz Jr., 58, the scion of one of the best-known and oldest ranching families here in southeast Arizona, was found shot to death March 27 on his vast, remote ranch north of here after radioing to his brother that he was aiding someone he believed to be an illegal immigrant.

Mr. Krentz went missing shortly after that call, and the police found his body several hours later in his all-terrain vehicle, his guns untouched in the back, his dog shot and critically wounded. Fresh footprints led from the scene to the Mexican border 20 miles away.

Given Mr. Krentz’s radio transmission, the footprints and heavy drug and illegal immigrant trafficking in that area, investigators are working on the assumption that he encountered a smuggler, possibly heading back to Mexico.

“You never know who you’re dealing with out here because you get all kinds of traffic through here,â€

I wonder what page of the NYT this was on?

Originally Posted by Captainron

I wonder what page of the NYT this was on?

A version of this article appeared in print on April 5, 2010, on page A9 of the New York edition