Ogden Standard-Examiner / August 28, 1921
American and Mexican Forces Join in Search for Nogales Raiders
NOGALES, Arizona, Aug. 27 - American border patrols, detachments of cavalry, Arizona “line riders” and Mexican federal troops tonight joined in an international search for seven Mexican bandits who brutally murdered Frank J. Pearson, postmaster at Ruby, Arizona, and his wife late yesterday.
Mrs. Pearson's head was severed by the bandits after she had been attacked.
The search for the bandits was picked up by American troops from border patrols at the direction of Francis J. Dyer, American consul at Nogales, Sonora, while Governor Francisco Elias, of Sonora, ordered the Mexican detachment into action. A sheriff’s posse had lost the bandits’ trail at the border after a sixty-mile pursuit through Arizona.
Miss Irene Purcell, 18-year-old sister of Mrs. Pearson, was shot in the hand while fleeing the bandits during the attack on the Pearson home. She carried the five-year-old daughter of the Pearsons 12 miles across the plains to Arivaca where she notified army officials of the attack.
She was enabled to flee from the house when her sister Elizabeth, 15 years old, staged a hand-to-hand battle with the Mexicans. The younger girl was badly beaten by the bandits.
According to the story of Miss Purcell, the gang, which numbered seven men, mounted and armed, appeared yesterday morning from the Mexican border, three miles south of Ruby and shot Pearson, who was standing in front of the postoffice building, also used as a store and residence.
Mrs. Pearson saw her husband killed and, taking a rifle, went to the door of their home to answer the fire. She fell dead when several bullets from a volley fired by the bandits pierced her body.
The gang then closed in on the house in which were the two Purcell sisters and the Pearson child. They entered the building and attempted to molest the women. The elder sister then fled while Elizabeth put up a terrific hand-to-hand battle, engaging the attention of the bandits.
