In the spring and autumn of 1863, a series of killings frightened settlers across central and southern Colorado Territory. The people blamed for them were two brothers from northern New Mexico, Felipe Nerio Espinosa and José Vivián Espinosa, known as Vivián, and later their teenage nephew, José Vicente. Newspapers called them the "Bloody Espinosas." Felipe left papers that, according to several accounts, claimed 32 killings. The historian Charles F. Price, who studied the record more closely than most, concluded that the number could not have been higher than about ten or twelve.
No court ever heard the case. The brothers were never arrested or charged. Vivián was killed by a citizens' posse in May 1863, and Felipe and his nephew were killed in October by a party led by the tracker Tom Tobin. Every killing in the story is therefore attributed: to what the newspapers of 1863 reported, to what officials wrote, to Tobin's own statement of 1895, and to the historians who have worked on it since. Those sources disagree about dates, numbers and motives, and several of them rest on one another. The story has also been told mostly from the side of the Anglo settlers and officers, a point History Colorado's program on the case makes.
The Espinosas came from northern New Mexico. The Denver Gazette places Felipe's birth in 1828 about 35 miles west of Taos and Vivián's three years later, and notes that sources disagree on the birthplace, some saying El Rito. Miguel Torrez, writing on the New Mexico History site of the state historian's office, gives other years: about 1832 for Felipe and about 1846 for Vivián, with Felipe the eldest of five children. He traces the family to Nicolas de Espinosa, who he says entered New Mexico in 1695.
Felipe married in 1854, according to the Denver Gazette; Torrez names his wife as Secundina Hurtado. In 1858, both sources say, he moved his family to San Rafael, near Conejos, in what would become Colorado Territory. Vivián joined him, and the Denver Gazette says they farmed, herded sheep and took horses that were not theirs. The nephew, José Vicente, was the son of Felipe's unmarried sister, Maria Tomasa, according to Torrez. Sources give his age in 1863 as 14 (HistoryNet), 16 (the Denver Gazette) or simply "teenage." One History Colorado program describes him as a cousin in one passage and a nephew in another.
Their home district sat inside land that had changed hands. The Conejos and Sangre de Cristo land grants had been made under Spanish and Mexican rule. After the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, History Colorado's program says, those grants were eroded, although the treaty had promised to protect them, and much of the land was turned into property that could be taken or bought. Torrez writes that Hispano families lost about two-thirds of their common lands through what he calls "chicanery and manipulation," and he suggests that the brothers turned to horse theft and freight robbery out of desperation. Adam James Jones, a historian quoted in the same History Colorado program, says that the early thefts were a way to support the family, and that claims of land loss and violence against the family are not documented. A member of the family told the director of a county museum that the brothers came home to find their wives and children killed and their homes burned; the program presents this as the family's account and not as verified fact.
According to Price's two-part account in Colorado Central Magazine (October and November 2008), the first recorded crime came in mid-December 1862 near Galisteo, New Mexico. The victims were a freight wagon driver, who recognized the robbers from the Conejos country, and a Catholic priest whose shipment was taken. Both were Hispanic, Price notes.
On January 16, 1863, Price writes, a ten-man detail of Company D, First New Mexico Cavalry, from Fort Garland, went to the Espinosa home at San Rafael to recover the goods and arrest the robbers. A violent clash followed. A Hispanic trooper, Corporal Lopez, was killed, which Price calls the first death attributed to the Espinosas. Lieutenant Nicholas Hodt was injured and the deputy marshal, George Austin, broke a leg. Robert Sanchez, writing in 5280 magazine, adds that the home was set on fire. Torrez says that officials stripped the family home of its belongings, including the money recovered from the robbery. Price quotes a later list by Captain E. Wayne Eaton of confiscated items, including beds, bedding and cattle, which was used to cover burial and manhunt costs.
The History Colorado program offers a different version of the encounter. Jones says that the authorities planned to recruit the brothers by posing as Union Army recruiters, and that Felipe attacked an officer after Vivián refused. Price's version has no such ruse. It is one of several points on which the accounts diverge.
A federal marshal, A. C. Hunt, called the clash a skirmish with "Mexican bandits" and offered a $50 reward, dead or alive, for three men, Price writes. He identifies two of the three names, spelled phonetically in the notice, as Vivián and Felipe. The brothers went into hiding. Price says that Vivián's later diary records an oath to "exterminate the Americans," and the Denver Gazette says Felipe vowed revenge on the Anglos.
The killings attributed to the brothers began about two months later and ran across a wide area of central Colorado Territory. Different writers date them differently. Price's table in his 2008 article gives the sequence; other writers differ on some dates.
Franklin William Bruce was killed on March 16, 1863, near Cañon City, according to Price and Robert Sanchez. Henry Harkens (also written Harkins) was killed two days later in the country south of Colorado City, according to Price. J. D. Addleman was killed on April 10 near his cabin at the edge of South Park, southeast of Wilkerson Pass, according to Price; Sanchez places him after Harkens. Price adds that Addleman's house was ransacked.
On April 8, Price writes, Jacob Binkley and Abram Shoup were killed at a campsite near the Kenosha House, a way station on the northeastern edge of South Park. Abram Shoup was the brother of Lieutenant George L. Shoup, and his death was one of the reasons the territory sent militia into the field, Price says.
On April 25, Bill Carter was killed near the road between Montgomery and Fairplay. Price calls it the first killing in a populated area with eyewitnesses. A traveler on the road was also attacked and survived. Several writers repeat the story that a copy of the Emancipation Proclamation in the traveler's coat pocket stopped the attack. The Greenhorn Valley View, a local history column, writes more cautiously that a small book and papers in the coat deflected it and that "some reports say" the papers included the Proclamation. On April 27 (Sanchez: April 26), Fred Lehman and Sol Seyga, who had lived in California Gulch, were killed east or northeast of Fairplay. Price says that a note on Lehman's paper collar, written in Spanish, spoke of vengeance as a "sacrifice to the Virgin," which he cites as early evidence of a religious motive.
Price counts ten Anglo victims in his documented total, plus attempts on two other men, one of which was near Fort Garland, and a possible eleventh death near Huerfano Butte. Reports in the territory at the time put the number higher. The Weekly Commonwealth, a newspaper, concluded that at least twelve men had been murdered, Sanchez writes. Rumor claimed more than twice Price's figure, he says.
The hunt for the killers started badly. The Fremont County sheriff followed the trail until he lost it at Ute Pass, and a posse from Colorado City briefly searched around Wilkerson Pass, Price writes. Civilian lawmen were largely absent that spring, he says, probably because the federal court was in session in Central City. Twenty men of Companies E and F, First Colorado Cavalry, left Denver on April 15 under Lieutenants Luther Wilson and John Oster. Price says the troops were volatile and mistakenly chased a man named John Foster, a parishioner of Father J. L. Dyer, whom they took for a killer; Dyer intervened and Foster survived.
The search also produced killings of men who, as far as the record shows, had nothing to do with the crimes. Price says that a posse seized two men, Baxter and Snyder. Snyder was released on condition that he leave the district, and Baxter was handed over to the militia and then killed by a mob on May 4, 1863. The Greenhorn Valley View says that recruits of the Second Colorado Regiment were responsible. In a review of Price's book, David Lauterborn writes that posse members killed one or two innocent men and mistreated another.
After Lehman and Seyga were killed, their friends in California Gulch called a meeting and raised money for a manhunt. Seventeen volunteers set out under John McCannon, according to the Greenhorn Valley View. Price says the party left on May 3 with sixteen men from California Gulch and five men from South Park, including Charles Carter, the brother of the man killed on April 25. More men joined in South Park.
The posse found the brothers' trail near Four Mile Creek, near what is now Hartsel, on or about May 8, 1863. Price gives May 8, Torrez and Sanchez give May 9, and a 2008 article in HistoryNet says both "late April 1863" and "dawn on May 8." The posse came on two horses grazing. According to the Greenhorn Valley View, Joseph M. Lamb struck Vivián and Charles Carter then killed him. Felipe escaped into the brush after Julius Sanger called out "For God's sake don't kill Billy Young."
Papers were recovered after Vivián's death. The Greenhorn Valley View describes an "article of agreement" that stated the brothers' plan to kill 600 whites to avenge the loss of the family's property in San Rafael. It also describes a note in a leather pouch that said Vivián had to commit fifty more murders to atone for his father's crimes. These are among the political and religious motives the papers are said to claim; the notes were read and reported by the posse and by the writers who followed. Wilbur Fiske Stone, who wrote for the Weekly Commonwealth under the pen name "Dornick," published the account of Vivián's death. The History Colorado program says that he later sat on the Court of Private Land Claims, which returned only a fraction of the disputed land to families who held it before 1848, and the scholar Virginia Sanchez argues that this gave him a conflict of interest. The posse, the program adds, had no Spanish speaker.
Felipe was not caught. According to the Denver Gazette, he went south toward Cañon City and killed two men on the way. A fisherman, William Smith, was killed near Conejos on May 30 according to Price; the Denver Gazette places a fisherman's death near Conejos in late June. Price also names Leon Constantine as a possible victim near Huerfano Butte.
Felipe recruited his nephew, José Vicente, as a companion. In a letter reported in the Santa Fe Gazette of September 19, 1863, Felipe asked the governor for amnesty and the return of the family's property, and warned that otherwise there would be a "war of extermination against Mexican and American citizens in that territory," according to the History Colorado program. An 1884 book of pioneer recollections, Tales of the Colorado Pioneers, quotes a version in which Espinosa wrote in Spanish that he had "killed no less than fifteen Americans" and promised to be a good citizen if given a full pardon; the book says the killing would resume if the demand was not met by a date in September. According to the 1884 book, the proposal drew no answer, and the attacks resumed.
The last attack attributed to the Espinosas came in the autumn, near the Sangre de Cristo range northeast of Fort Garland. Price dates it to October 10 and HistoryNet follows him; Tobin's statement of 1895 gives September 5. Leander Philbrook was traveling in a buggy with a woman and a driver, according to the HistoryNet account. The travelers were attacked. Philbrook escaped on foot and reached Fort Garland. The woman was taken captive, and she was later freed and reached the fort, where Lieutenant Colonel Samuel F. Tappan took her account.
Tappan, the commander at Fort Garland, had already tried regular troops and posses. He now sent for Tom Tobin.
Thomas Tate Tobin was born in St. Louis on May 1, 1823, according to Wild West's HistoryNet article, and went west as a young man with his half-brother Charles Autobee. By the late 1830s they had settled in Taos, then in Mexican territory. He survived the attack on Turley's mill during the Taos revolt of January 1847 and later served the army as a scout and courier. In 1858 he helped complete Fort Garland. His grandson, Christopher Kit Carson III, said in a 1968 interview that Tobin could read and write nothing beyond his own name; that account, published in Wild West, says Tobin stopped giving interviews after writers printed claims he said he had not made.
Tobin's own account is a statement he dictated at Fort Garland on March 23, 1895, which the State Historical Society of Colorado received in 1901 and The Colorado Magazine printed in March 1932. It is the best-known first-hand account of the pursuit. History Colorado's program says it was also printed in the Santa Fe Democrat New Mexican on April 11, 1895, thirty-two years after the events, when Tobin was elderly, poor and seeking an unpaid reward.
In that statement, Tobin left Fort Garland on September 7 with Lieutenant H. W. Baldwin, about fifteen soldiers, Loring Jinks and a boy, Juan Montolly (Juan Montoya in other accounts). Most other accounts place the pursuit in October, and HistoryNet cites October 12 for the departure. Tobin wrote that on the first day he found the two men, who got away through pine and aspen. On the second day he followed the tracks of their ponies and found ox tracks on La Veta Creek. He followed signs, including birds circling over the camp, and sent word to Baldwin to wait.
What happened next is told in Tobin's words and by those who repeated them. HistoryNet says Tobin wounded Felipe in the side and that José was fatally wounded in the back; Tobin wrote that he acted when the first man turned toward him, and again when the second ran for cover. Felipe tried to fight from behind a fallen tree. Both men died. Tobin said the diary and letters recovered at the camp listed twenty-two killings before the first Espinosa died, plus later ones. He and Montoya took proof of the deaths with them. The Colorado Central Magazine places the camp near Pass Creek, and History Colorado and 5280 near La Veta Pass.
Accounts of the fight differ. Folklore collected by a museum curator, reported in a 2019 article from the Buffalo Bill Center of the West, has Tobin slipping out of camp in the night. The 2026 Denver Gazette article notes that accounts of the method differ, from a fight to a surprise killing after gaining the brothers' trust. Tobin's own account describes no such ruse.
Tobin brought proof of the deaths to Fort Garland and handed it to Tappan. The date is disputed. Most accounts say Friday, October 16, 1863, about nine o'clock; Tobin gave September 11.
Baldwin confirmed the identification from the diary and letters, Tobin said. He put the total at about thirty.
Governor John Evans, the territorial legislature and relatives of victims all offered rewards, according to Lauterborn's review of Price's book. In his 1895 statement Tobin said he read in the Rocky Mountain News that Governor Evans had offered $2,500, and that no copy of the paper could be found because the printing office was swept away in a flood. Other accounts say he did not know of any reward when he set out. A 2015 column in True West by the Arizona historian Marshall Trimble gives the bounty as $2,500 and says Colorado never paid it. HistoryNet reports that it is "up to $2,500" and that Evans never paid Tobin, and Kit Carson III's interview says accounts vary between $1,500 and $2,500.
Tobin received smaller sums later. The 1884 collection of pioneer recollections says the Colorado legislature ordered $500 to be paid to him "ten years later." A note added in another hand to the printed statement says Tobin received $500 under Territorial Governor Edward M. McCook and $1,000 under Governor Davis H. Waite; HistoryNet dates the second payment to 1893. The Wild West interview says Tobin told people that his motive was "humanity sake" and the protection of people in the valley; the HistoryNet article attributes that to his 1900 account.
In 1897, History Colorado says, a man named W. Boots wrote to the United States marshal, J. A. Israel, claiming to have proof that Tobin had not killed the brothers. Tobin then gathered statements from men who had been at Fort Garland. The program notes that many of the statements admitted that memories had faded.
The figure of 32 comes from Felipe's papers, as reported. 5280 and the Denver Gazette repeat it. Tobin's statement gives about thirty. The Wild West interview says accounts put the number near 23. The Weekly Commonwealth said at least twelve. Price puts the count at no more than ten or twelve, and a review of his book in Colorado Central Magazine by Forrest Whitman says Price sees the brothers as small-time robbers whom the army burned out in the January snow. The History Colorado program states that there is no firsthand evidence and that few accounts agree on the facts.
Several explanations have been offered. None can be tested against the brothers' own testimony, because the documents attributed to them were read and reported by others.
Personal and economic. Price's 2008 article says the evidence supports a personal grievance more than any wider cause, at least for the first clash. Felipe, he writes, said the Anglos "ruined our family" by seizing beds, blankets and provisions. Torrez quotes Felipe's journal: "We would rather be dead than see such infamies committed on our families!" and the journal's claim that the killings were "revenge for the infamies committed on our families." Torrez adds that the journal says "we have repented our killing" and asks for pardon and liberty.
Political. Price writes that some people claimed the brothers were dispossessed landholders after 1846, or that they were enraged by Anglo suppression of the 1847 revolt in New Mexico and the execution of its suspected leaders. Torrez compares them to other Hispano figures who resisted land loss, and an official at the Fort Garland museum, quoted by History Colorado, says many local people see them as resistance fighters. The scholar Virginia Sanchez argues that the land-grant conflicts are still unresolved.
Religious. Price notes the claim that the brothers were devout members of the Penitentes, a lay brotherhood, avenging perceived Anglo disrespect for Catholicism, and cites the note on the paper collar as an early sign. In the 1884 collection, the author says that the diary, written in poor Spanish, was mostly prayers, which suggested to him that the writers were likely Penitentes. HistoryNet says Felipe's journal recounted a dream in which the Virgin Mary ordered him to kill 600 gringos, a figure that matches the "600 whites" in the note recovered after Vivián's death. Lauterborn adds that the first and last victims were Hispanos, which weakens the idea that the brothers targeted Anglos only. Price concludes that the violence was unjustifiable and may have come from criminal insanity.
Accounts disagree, or are silent, on several matters.
The number of victims. Documented deaths, as Price counts them, are about ten. The figures of 22, 23, 30 and 32 rest on Felipe's papers as reported, and on Tobin. History Colorado holds objects attributed to the brothers, donated in 1943 by descendants of the settler Leopold Mayer, but none of the published accounts reproduces Felipe's diary.
The dates. Bruce's death is March 16 or 18, Vivián's April, May 8 or May 9, William Smith's May 30 or June 30, and Tobin's pursuit September or October.
The background. Reports of a family killed and homes burned before 1863 come from descendants and are, in the History Colorado program's words, an account and not a verified fact. Jones adds that the land loss and the attacks on the family are "not documented." The program says there are no primary sources, only what he calls "decades of playing telephone."
The role of the press. Sanchez argues that newspaper accounts were edited for sales and for political interest, and the program notes that most of them depict the brothers as cold-blooded murderers.
The Espinosa story has been retold for a century and a half. A 1899 Denver Times item, "Trail of the bloody Espinosas," appears in the Denver Public Library's Western History subject index, which lists Tobin under the heading "Trapped by Tom Tobin." The 1884 pioneer book called them "Colorado's greatest assassins." Lauterborn's review reports Price's view that they were what "we would call serial killers," while Price's own book title, Season of Terror, was published by the University Press of Colorado in 2013. History Colorado's program says that the label "America's first serial killers" was shaped by pulp fiction. The Denver Gazette's 2026 piece sets the brothers against H. H. Holmes, whom many historians call America's first serial killer.
A reenactment was held at Fort Garland in 1963, near the centennial of the delivery. The program notes that it used paper-mâché props and that a man who says he is a descendant remembered it as traumatic. Tobin died on May 15, 1904, almost penniless, according to the HistoryNet article. The same article says his tombstone misspells his name as "TOBEN."
About 1828 or 1832: Felipe Nerio Espinosa is born in northern New Mexico (sources differ).
1848: The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ends the Mexican-American War.
1858: Felipe moves his family to San Rafael, near Conejos.
Mid-December 1862: a robbery of a priest's shipment near Galisteo, New Mexico, is attributed to the brothers (Price).
January 16, 1863: a detail of New Mexico cavalry goes to the Espinosa home at San Rafael; Corporal Lopez is killed.
March 16 to 19, 1863: Franklin William Bruce and Henry Harkens are killed near Cañon City and Colorado City.
April 8, 1863: Jacob Binkley and Abram Shoup are killed near the Kenosha House, South Park.
April 10, 1863: J. D. Addleman is killed near South Park.
April 15, 1863: Colorado cavalry leave Denver for the search.
April 25, 1863: Bill Carter is killed; a traveler on the road survives an attack.
April 26 or 27, 1863: Fred Lehman and Sol Seyga are killed near Fairplay.
May 3, 1863: John McCannon's posse leaves California Gulch.
May 4, 1863: a man named Baxter, held on suspicion, is killed by a mob.
May 8 or 9, 1863: the posse kills Vivián near Four Mile Creek; Felipe escapes.
May 30 or June 30, 1863: William Smith is killed near Conejos.
September 1863: letters to Governor Evans seek a pardon (reported September 19 in the Santa Fe Gazette).
October 10, 1863: a buggy party is attacked near Fort Garland (Tobin dates it September 5).
October 12, 1863: Tobin leaves Fort Garland with Baldwin's detachment.
October 15, 1863: Felipe and José Vicente are killed on La Veta Creek.
October 16, 1863: Tobin brings proof of the deaths to Tappan at Fort Garland.
1895: Tobin dictates his statement at Fort Garland.
1897: a challenge to Tobin's account is made by letter to the U.S. marshal.
1904: Tobin dies.
1963: A reenactment is held at Fort Garland.
2013: Price's Season of Terror is published.