William Logan Rynerson
William Rynerson was born on February 22, 1828 in Mercer County, Kentucky. He went to the Franklin College in Indiana and then joined the gold rush to California in 1852. When the Civil War started, Rynerson enlisted in the army and arrived in New Mexico. In November 1866, he was mustered out of the army at La Mesilla and began living in Las Cruces. At this time, he was almost seven feet tall. On December 15, 1867, Rynerson shot and killed the chief justice of New Mexico, John P. Slough in Santa Fe. He was acquitted in court however on grounds of self-defense. On December 22, 1872, Rynerson married Luciana Lemon at La Mesilla. In January of 1876, Rynerson was appointed by Governor Sam Axtell as the district attorney for the Third Judicial District (Dona Ana, Lincoln, and Grant Counties). Being a member of the Santa Fe Ring and now also being a district attorney meant that he now controlled all of Dona Ana County. In June of 1877, Rynerson was the prosecuting attorney of Jessie Evans in Evans's murder trial. Evans was acquitted, and it's highly doubtful that Rynerson ever even attempted to get Evans convicted. In 1878, Rynerson was reappointed as district attorney. He was good friends with L. G. Murphy, J. J. Dolan, and J. H. Riley and helped them all he could in the war. Before the war, he lent Dolan the money he needed to buy a partnership in L. G. Murphy & Co. Rynerson also wrote a letter to Dolan and Riley advising them to simply kill John Tunstall. Towards the end of the war, Rynerson hired the John Kinney Gang (who roamed Dona Ana County) and sent them to Lincoln County to serve as more gunmen for Dolan. After the war, he was "prosecuting attorney" in Dolan's trial for murder, and the charges against Dolan were quickly dropped. It was also primarily because of Rynerson that Billy Bonney never received the pardon promised him by Gov. Lew Wallace. In order for Billy to have received the pardon, the prosecuting attorney (Rynerson) would have to agree to it, and Rynerson intended to prosecute Billy fully. Billy eventually escaped jail because of this and never was pardoned. Rynerson later partnered with Dolan and others to establish a ranch on Tunstall's old property, called the Feliz Land & Cattle Co. He died on September 26, 1893.
