Cricket in the Web: The 1949 Unsolved Murder that Unraveled Politics in New Mexico

Ovida "Cricket" Coogler was last seen alive entering a mysterious car driven by an unknown man in downtown Las Cruces, New Mexico, around 3:00 on the morning of March 31, 1949. Seventeen days later, her body was found in a hastily dug grave near Mesquite, New Mexico. The discovery of the eighteen-year-old waitress's body launched a series of court inquiries and trials that would reshape the direction of New Mexico politics, expose political corruption, and spawn generations of rumors that h...