Clovis woman sentenced to hang in 1928

In May 1977 I received a letter from a man engaged in research on capital punishment in our country. He said he was developing a biographical sketch of each person to have been legally executed in the United States as well as a brief account of the crimes for which each died.

“According to records that I have,” he said, “no person sentenced from Curry County has been put to death since the state of New Mexico began executing its condemned felons at the State Prison in 1933. However, prior to then, those sentenced to die were hanged locally by the sheriffs in the counties. Do you have any record of any legal hangings that might have occurred in Clovis or in Curry County prior to 1933? Enclosed is 13 cents postage for your reply.” I wrote and said I didn’t know of any hangings, but told him there where some people in and around Clovis who should have been hung.

But in October 1978 I learned about a woman from southwest of Artesia, Nannie Catherine Halsey, who was accused of killing her rancher husband, Fred Halsey. Three people were involved in the killing and all three were found quilty and sentenced to hang on Aug. 1, 1924.

They appealed it to the New Mexico Supreme Court in 1925 and Nannie Halsey was granted a new trial. The second trial was held in Clovis, beginning Sept. 24, 1928. O.O. Askren was her attorney.

Probably the most outstanding point in the trial was the admission of former testimony of Zack Teal, the missing witness, who furnished the damaging evidence in the first trial.

However, by this time many of the state’s witnesses had moved and could not be located.

Nannie Halsey had been in jail for five years. The state declined to further prosecute. She was released, disappeared, and as far as I know has not been heard of since.

On Jan. 1, 1933, Gov. Arthur Seligman granted a pardon to the boyfriend. Later he also pardoned the one accused of the killing. So none of the three involved in the conspiracy to murder Fred Halsey neither suffered the death penalty originally imposed or served their sentences to completion.

Lot of people thought Gov. Arthur Seligman was negligent in handling the case by pardoning the boyfriend and later Nannie Halsey, because everyone, according to him, was innocent. One cannot be innocent when one kills someone in cold blood.

Don McAlavy is Curry County’s historian. He can be contacted at:

[email protected]