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The Little Old Murder From Pasadena
A retired police sergeant and a historian discuss history and true crime in the City of Roses.
The Little Old Murder From Pasadena
Tiburcio Vasquez
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Alyse and Victor discuss Tiburcio Vasquez, an outlaw who was eventually arrested and hanged in 1875 for his crimes. But before that, Vasquez and his posse encountered Pasadena's founding fathers while they worked on a pipeline in the Arroyo Seco. Did the bandido Vasquez rob Pasadena's most prominent men? Listen to find out!
Music credits to Fesilyan Studios.
Welcome back to the little old murder film The Hasadena. I'm laughing because we are halfway schmammered at this point on some cocktail.
SPEAKER_00:Something like day drinking while you're doing a podcast.
SPEAKER_01:A little podcast day drinking. Um and we are going to be talking to you today about the bandito Tobercio Vasquez.
SPEAKER_00:Well, don't forget to introduce yourself.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, I am Elise. Hi.
SPEAKER_00:And I am Victor Cass, uh retired police sergeant with the Pasadena, California Police Department. Why is this important? Because all of the cases on the little old murder from Pasadena take place in Pasadena.
SPEAKER_01:And he also just literally whooped out a book that he wrote about this. So and I'm just Elise. I need only one word. That's all you need to know about me. I'm Elise. So Tabersio Vasquez was born in uh what was then Mexico.
SPEAKER_00:That's correct. In the province known as Alta California, which would today be California.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, in uh, yeah, Monterey he lived in.
SPEAKER_00:He's actually from a, interestingly enough, he was from a very kind of prominent family, a uh landowning family that would be considered upper middle class, um educated. Um he was sent to good schools. Um he spoke English and Spanish fluently, was well versed in the musical and literature arts, you know, kind of a ladies' man.
SPEAKER_01:He was, you know, uh he was like uh a Casanova almost.
SPEAKER_00:Yes.
SPEAKER_01:He was, they say, the inspiration for Zorro. That's right. He was very into writing poetry, he really loved the ladies. The ladies was his rise and fall.
SPEAKER_02:To some degree, yes.
SPEAKER_00:Um, but you know, as we know, uh by the time he is a young adult, uh in 1852, he becomes associated with um one of California's most notorious uh bandits, uh, Anastasio Garcia, and it kind of starts his crime career from then on.
SPEAKER_01:But like you were saying, he was from his his grandfather or grandfather and great grandfather was in the Deanza expedition.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so he has some ties to you know the exploration and development of California um from the uh Spanish colonial era. Um and then of course, you know, he grows up in what is then Mexico, and then he lives through the US-Mexican War when California then becomes part of the United States. So, why is that interesting or critical for his uh history is because a lot of what you know what kind of history says was motivating Vasquez was kind of this anti-American, anti-Norte Americano gringo uh sentiment that he's kind of railing against and fighting against, which kind of which endeared him to a lot of you know Hispanic people in California in this post, you know, uh 1847, 1848 era.
SPEAKER_01:Um Right, because he lived in Monterey when these white people began to show up. Like he was there before them. And one of his uh motivations was he was complaining a lot about uh the dances that they had, and he was saying, I'm trying to find this quote here.
SPEAKER_00:He felt like he felt like kind of like that the Mexican population was kind of being pushed around and humiliated by Americans. I mean and not we're not trying to we're not trying to say that this is uh an excuse or anything for his criminal activity. This is just kind of factually the narrative.
SPEAKER_01:Well, I mean he he later said that it was. Right, but I mean this is He he so I found the quote. He was saying that like they would these white guys, they would start showing up to the dances and they would start monopolizing it and like taking it over and like starting to dance with all of the uh the ladies that were there. And he said, and this is a quote a spirit of hatred and revenge took possession of me. I had numerous fights in defense of what I believe to be my rights and those of my countrymen.
SPEAKER_00:Right. But you know, I'm not sure what that ties into them going and robbing stores and banks and stealing from, you know.
SPEAKER_01:So he Yeah, so that's the debate. So on one hand, it's he's uh like a hero for a lot of people, and a lot of people really loved and uh idolized him, but then on the other hand, there were uh one of his victims was uh Italian, and his wife and his kid was Mexican. Another one of his uh victims was um uh Hispanic, also. So not all of them, it's not like he was always targeting white guys.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, let's be real. The majority of his victims were innocent store owners, business people, people that own shops, stores, I mean, individuals. He's stealing money from them, thousands of dollars. He's stealing gold, jewelry, cash. He's a bandito. I mean, he is a criminal, you know. Um, and so whatever kind of socio-political motivations he gives for his activities, the reality is he is a bandit. He's a criminal, and he is, you know, getting in gunfights with cops uh throughout Northern California. Um, he's wanted by numerous counties.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, but I'm gonna play Devil's Advocate because you know that I have to play Devil's Advocate with you. Um he was a bandit, he was a criminal, but just on the wrong side of history. A lot of our founders were criminals themselves, and um, I know you were complaining about like there was this high school that was named later named after it was an elementary school that they actually changed the name of in 2016. I thought it was a high school. I thought it was a high school. There's but anyway, how many high schools are named after white guys who decided it was cool to like own slaves and stuff? Right. I mean So yeah, he was a bandit, but so were a lot of our founders who we also have schools named after. Just saying.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, okay, maybe. But why this is important for Pasadena history, you know, granted, the majority of Vasquez's crime career took place in Northern California. Near the end of his crime career, he did flee to Southern California. And in particular, the San Gabriel Valley.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, so there was what was called as uh there was a guy named Repetto, and so he went to go rob Han.
SPEAKER_00:Well, yes, let's talk about that. Before he hit Rapetto, when he he got Repetto for ransom, but the next day, that was April 15th, 1874, and the next day, April 16th, he ends up in the Arroyo Seiko.
SPEAKER_01:That was the same day.
SPEAKER_00:It was the same day. I read it was the same day.
SPEAKER_01:No, it was the very same day. He was at Repetto's first.
SPEAKER_02:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:And then the story that I read is that he's they get to the Repetto place, but no one really has enough money. So they send the young Repetto son to go to the bank with a banknote to take out like eight eight hundred dollars. And then the owner of the bank got suspicious, so like they lock the young rapetto son into the room, and they like form a posse to go out and capture Vasquez.
SPEAKER_02:Right.
SPEAKER_01:Um, but in the meantime, the young Repetto's son was saying, like, they're going to kill my dad if you don't let me back. And so he was able to like talk his way out of getting out of this room. And he takes this shortcut and he beats the posse back to Vasquez, and he's able to alert Vasquez. And that's when Vasquez takes off, and then he goes up through the Arroyo.
SPEAKER_00:Right, that's right. Because the posse's in hot pursuit. So this is uh the time. This is LA County Sheriff's Deputy Albert Johnson and his posse that are chasing Vasquez. They end up in the Arroyo Seiko, and unbeknownst to Vasquez, there's about 20 men, literally, a who's who of the founding of the city of Pasadena.
SPEAKER_01:So they're in the process of laying water pipes from the Devil's Gate Reservoir down to the Orange Grove Reservoir. And so there are these two guys, what are their names? George Osborne, sorry, Mr. Miles, and then he's with his truck driver, George Osborne. And they are leaving this group of men who's up by the Devil's Gate further up in the Arroyo. They're on their way back to LA when Vasquez and about four other men come and stop him. And they stop the wagon. And they start to demand some money, but they don't really have any money on him. So Vasquez looks at one of the guys and sees that he has a gold watch on him. And the guy realizing that his watch is worth about$300, God knows how much that's even worth today.
SPEAKER_00:Like, who knows? Maybe a thousand bucks in 2024.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so he he tries to play like, huh? What what watch? I don't know what you're talking about. And Vasquez is like, don't play dumb with me. Like, I have a whole posse after me. Give me your goddamn watch. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So he gives him he cocked his rifle, Winchester rifle, and his dumb.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so he takes the watch from the guy, and then they keep riding down to the group of men working on the colony ditch. And this is the who's who that you were talking about. A.O. Porter, one of the founders of Pasadena. Uh PM Green, he was the president of the first national bank. Uh, he was one of the first board members of Throop University, which eventually became Caltech.
SPEAKER_00:Terry Green, Andrew Porter.
SPEAKER_01:Mm-hmm. And Colonel Banbury.
SPEAKER_00:That's Jabez Banbury, yeah. He's a big name in Pasadena.
SPEAKER_01:A.O. Bristol, I'm sure you know about who was Bristol. A.O.
SPEAKER_00:Bristol was um the first policeman in Pasadena, one of our founding officers from my old department. Um, and also, of course, Judge Benjamin Eaton.
SPEAKER_01:Yes. No. Uh-huh. And Benjamin Eaton was he was one of the first guys who was here. And then D.M. Barry, who is also at this site on this day. Daniel Barry. Yeah, he's the one that came scouting the area looking for the Indiana colony that it later became. He met with Judge Eaton, uh, who owned a part of the uh rancho San Pascual. That's right. And so he bought part of that property from him. So it's literally the founders, the like the most the important people of Pasadena at this time.
SPEAKER_00:Talking about Pasadena history, these are the guys. These are the guys that founded the city that subdivide the lot that purchased the first properties in Pasadena. These are literally the builders of early.
SPEAKER_01:And uh sorry, I forgot one. Uh Clapp, WT Clapp.
SPEAKER_00:Yes.
SPEAKER_01:Uh he was the founder. He's the very first school in Pasadena was in his house. And then his daughter, Jenny Clapp, was the very first school teacher in Pasadena.
SPEAKER_00:And their first students were the famous blonde little twins, Jenny and Jesse Banbury, daughters of Colonel J. Benbury. All these people, by the way, are buried up at Mountain View Cemetery.
SPEAKER_01:Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_00:Right here in beautiful Pasadena. Yes.
SPEAKER_01:So did the Bandito Traversio Vasquez jack all of Pasadena's founding pocket.
SPEAKER_00:Traverso Vasquez holds the record.
SPEAKER_01:Well, well, hold on though. He he got to these guys. And so it was Eaton, Judge Eaton, Porter, and Green. They're walking back down from they called the sandbox. I don't know what that is.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:But they have all their shirt sleeves rolled up.
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_01:And they don't have any like watches or anything like that on them.
SPEAKER_00:They appear to be like people of any means or worth anything.
SPEAKER_01:They just look like another laborer.
SPEAKER_00:Gay laborers, literally. And so, which I guess ultimately worked in their favor.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Because here's this hardcore killer bandit who just robbed two of their buddies, you know, and they're all this is lunchtime too.
SPEAKER_01:They had their lunch and they were taking their like their afternoon break. And so they're all relaxed, you know, they don't have their watches on or anything like that. Um, and so by the time that Vasquez gets to all of our lovely founders, they just look like laborers. And Vasquez has this posse who's coming after him, and he's like, it's just it's not worth it. There's too many guys.
SPEAKER_00:He has more important things to worry about. Yes. Yeah. So you got the watch, and the first two guys sees the founders of Pasadena and says, eh, no.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And he rides on.
SPEAKER_01:One interesting note, by the way, is like someone, uh, one of his guys, one of Vasquez's guys, called out to the people there saying that he was a gentleman, a perfect gentleman. He wasn't gonna do anything to them. And he didn't, not to those guys after he stole the last guy's watch, but um, but actually they did have stuff on them. It was just hidden from Vasquez.
SPEAKER_00:If Vasquez and his guys had had more time, they would have gotten some stuff on them.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, three watches and forty-eight dollars. Who knows how much that was today? That was in 1874, so you know that's a lot of money.
SPEAKER_00:That's that's some money for sure.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so that was the same day as the Rapetto.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and so yeah, and then they uh they moved on and they ended up at a little hideout in the hills near Santa Monica, um, where they were eventually uh, as we all know now, caught. Yes. Vasquez was shipped off to what was it, San Jose, where he stood trial.
SPEAKER_01:And uh he got sent to San Quentin, I know that.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah. So he uh was convicted and uh went to the gallows, you know, with a stiff upper lip and was hung.
SPEAKER_01:The only thing he said was pronto.
SPEAKER_00:Pronto, yes. Um and uh that was really kind of Pasadena's first experience with like big league crime, you know. And um it's ironic that uh legendary colonist Albert O'Bristle was almost a victim there of Pasadena's first crime history because he was at the fore of many of Pasadena's firsts. He was one of the first original colonists of Pasadena, uh being a founding member of the Indiana colony. He was the first member of the San Gabriel Orange Grove Association to select a parcel of land allotted to each investor. And he happened to be, as I mentioned earlier, the first law enforcement officer in Pasadena.
SPEAKER_01:Right. And this was um towards the end. He had been wanted for a long time.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, by many penalties, a lot of money on his head.
SPEAKER_01:I read that he owned his own like saloonslash gambling hall at the age of 17. I don't know.
SPEAKER_00:Wouldn't surprise me.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, but there was a murder that occurred in this uh dance hall that he owned, and so that's why he became an outlaw very young, and so he was kind of on the run for most of his life. But the thing is that he was so beloved and he was so charismatic, and like so many people loved him and were hiding him and didn't want him to be caught, and so he wasn't really, really wanted until like the the very end, um right when he was um you know trying to jack our founding fathers of Pasadena.
SPEAKER_00:And let's let's let's be let's be real. I mean, the governor of California had put a$15,000 bounty on his head. Uh posties were formed in Santa Clara, Monterey, San Joaquin, Fresno, and Tulari counties to go after him. I mean, he was a wanted dude, he was very important, uh uh, arguably the most notorious bandit in California history.
SPEAKER_01:But I remember he walked into some place and the guy had known Vasquez for a long time. He was a sheriff or something like that, and he was tasked with arresting him. But because they were long friends, they just sat and talked for a while, and then Vasquez, he let Vasquez go, you know, just because of that close connection that they had.
SPEAKER_00:You know, it was funny with these with these guys like Vasquez, um years later, um, especially in say like the Vietnam era, the Chicano civil rights movement, uh the historiography of this guy or you know, the Mexican-Americans at the time, uh they really kind of built him up, you know. Um they wrote plays about him, popular culture TV episodes.
SPEAKER_01:He was a cool guy. He's Zorro.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, yeah. I mean, for sure. I mean, the guy was definitely you you you can't talk about the history of California, the history of Pasadena, without mentioning this guy.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, he represented many Californios, the people who were living in California before it was a part of the United States, and had lost a lot, both legally and illegally, to the white people. There were a lot of people who were really angry and really upset about what had happened, and he represented them. He was he was their hero, their champion.
SPEAKER_00:You could say that he was, you know, arguably one of the patron saints of the Chicano rights movement, the brown brays, what have you. In any state history where there's you know changing allegiances and changing countries and wars, there's gonna be characters like this guy that are gonna stir debate and but yeah, but it for those of you guys out there who are interested in seeing historical artifacts and whatnot, if you go to the Andres Pico Adobe and Mission Hills um in the San Fernando Valley, you will get to see a trunk and a knife that belonged to to Borcio.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, I think I saw a news article about that. And also, by the way, there is the Vasquez Rocks out by uh Santa Clarita, somewhere around there, and that's where I think they no, they didn't catch him there, but he would hide out there a lot.
SPEAKER_00:You can visit Vasquez Canyon in Saugas, California. Um, there's the Vasquez Tree in Morgan Hill, um, the Vazquez day use area in the Angeles National Forest, um Roberts Roost, yeah. Um, also known as Bandit Rock in Kern County, is uh supposedly named for Vasquez as well. And if you're in Monterey, California, which is a beautiful place to go visit, um the Vasquez house is in Monterey, and that is California Historical Landmark number 351, and that's where his sister lived, and he stayed there.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, interesting.
SPEAKER_00:So a little we're going back in time to some older Pasadena history with this one. Yeah, Tabercio Vasquez.
SPEAKER_01:But we had to uh talk about we had to get to the background, and this was like as far back as we can.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, you couldn't you couldn't talk about crime in Pasadena without talking about this guy.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, definitely. And we got to talk about our founders to set the stage for some other things.
SPEAKER_00:And if you're ever in Pasadena, definitely go visit uh uh Mountain View Cemetery and you will see the grave sites of all these people that we just talked about.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, they have uh founders' circle, it's like a whole circle. All of these guys are buried in the most prominent place, basically.
SPEAKER_00:Definitely a place to go visit if you are in Pasadena.
SPEAKER_01:Yes. And we will be back with another little old murder from Pasadena. I don't know what kind, but it should be a good one. It'll be good, I promise.
SPEAKER_00:Maybe a little more sober, too.
SPEAKER_01:We'll see. This was fun. Yes.