Old Lea County, N.M.

Tag: law enforcement

  • Deputy Jack Seay

    Albuquerque Journal, 27 Jun 1932.

    The deputy went by Jack Seay, but his name was Thomas William Caspian Seay, Jr. He was born August 21, 1893 in Liberty Hill, Texas to Thomas William Seay and Bunett Louise Bingham Seay. Jack grew up in the Hill Country of Texas in Marble Falls.


    Jack registered for the World War I draft in New Wilson, Oklahoma at the age of 24 around 1916, giving his profession as undertaker. Jack served in the United States Army from September 19, 1917 to May 6, 1919.

    Jack is first mentioned in law enforcement as having served on the Jal Police Department, perhaps even being chief of police, before coming to serve as a deputy sheriff under Sheriff Bob Beverly of Lea County.

    1932 saw several major arrests. On April 19, deputies Jack Seay and Don McCombs followed a tip that individuals connected to a bank robbery in O’Donnell, Texas the week before might be in Hobbs. Accompanied by federal agent George E. Lilley working out of El Paso, they approached a house in which a car fitting the description of the suspect’s vehicle was parked. As they neared the front door, it opened and gunfire erupted from inside. They backed away and called for backup as the suspects fled in their car. Shortly afterward, they stole another car from a local resident, but in so doing, were delayed long enough for the lawmen to catch up with them. One of the suspects was shot in the ensuing gunfight. The remaining suspects were later arrested in Texas.

    The next day, Seay and Lilly arrested two men on charges of passing counterfeit currency in Hobbs, unrelated to the earlier case. Two months later, on June 25, 1932, Seay was ambushed and shot during the investigation of another counterfeiting case. The alleged assailant was Fritz Kilpatrick, believed to be passing counterfeit $10 bills in the area. The attack took place at a rooming house where Kilpatrick had been staying. Kilpatrick was said to have opened fire on Seay as he came to Kilpatrick’s room. Seay was seriously injured resulting in his partial paralysis and other injuries and never regained the ability to walk. Immediately after Seay’s shooting, he was taken to Lubbock where he survived the first of many surgeries.

    In 1933, Kilpatrick was tried and convicted of counterfeiting and sentenced to fifteen years in prison. Seay was carried into the courtroom by four men and had testified at the trial.

    Deputy Seay died in 1953 and is buried in Fairview Cemetery in Albuquerque along with his wife, Mary Little Seay, who had predeceased him in 1951. The Seays had lived in Albuquerque for a number of years. While living in Albuquerque, Jack had been a rancher and tourist court owner. He had been an active member of the Elks Lodge and the American Legion, according to his obituary.

  • Deputy Sheriff J. M. Clifton (1903-1932)

    The Hobbs Flare (Hobbs, NM) of June 19, 1959 carried a column called “News of Yesteryears.” That day, the column quoted an out of print newspaper called the Lovington Tribune from February 26, 1932 and read as follows:

    “Deputy sheriff and two men were killed in a gunfight at Crossroads. The late Bob Beverly was sheriff. J. M. Clifton, stationed at Tatum was searching for robbers of Dean Hardware in Lovington and saw two men in a car at Crossroads. He went to question them, and one drew a gun, shot him in the left arm and stomach. After Clifton was shot, he was able to draw his own gun and kill both men. He then drove to Crossroads where he was taken by plane to Lubbock, Texas, dying enroute. The two men were John O’Dell and Walter Carlock. Odell was from Hobbs and Carlock from Oklahoma. Mr and Mrs. Bob Dow of Lovington were returning home from Clovis and came up on the shooting.

    Afterwards there was recovered from one of the men a watch belonging to M. P. Elsey of Corpus Christi. The news story went on to say the car was stolen.”

    Deputy Clifton had died on February 24. An aircraft had been summoned from Roswell to take him to Lubbock for emergency medical treatment, but the pilot said that the deputy had passed away about forty minutes into the flight near the Texas-New Mexico line. The incident had occurred at the community of Crossroads, about fifteen miles north of Tatum. Deputy Clifton had been badly wounded but an Albuquerque Journal article from the following day had said that he had been able to tell authorities about the incident.

    In the 1932 article, the deceased suspects were listed as Walter Carlocke of Healdon, Oklahoma and John O’Dell of Hobbs who were believed to have robbed the Lea County Hardware store. Quoting Lea County Sheriff Bob Beverly, the article continued to say that Carlocke was wanted for robbing a bank at Waurika, Oklahoma and O’Dell was believed to have been an escapee from an Oklahoma penitentiary.

    Further details included the account of an unnamed rancher who heard the shooting and ran to the location, finding Clifton barely conscious and the two suspects deceased in their car. The rancher said that Clifton had given him a brief account before he was taken to Tatum, placed in an airplane to be rushed to medical treatment in Lubbock. The suspects were apparently not involved in the hardware store robbery, as no items stolen (firearms, ammunition, knives and other articles valued at between $500 and $700) were found in the vehicle. The search continued for the robbers.

    Image credit: findagrave.com

    Officer Clifton was about 28 years old when he died. He was survived by his wife and children and was buried in Tatum Cemetery. Some of the account differs from our telling of the story, which is mostly taken from Lea County newspaper articles from 1932, but this is Deputy Clifton’s page on Officer Down Memorial Page.