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Show A8& TheSalt Lake Tribune THE WEST Sunday, November 1999 Nervous Townsfolk Packing Guns After Killings BY PAUL DUGGAN like a foul wind. Whomurdered Gary and Judy Wilson? It's a mystery. Theydisappeared in November 1995 and turned up eight months later, so many bones in the woods. Who QUEMADO, N.M There's not much to the town. You come upon it in the vast, yellow-brown emptiness of southern New Mexi. co’s high desert grasslands. It's mainly just a strip of old storefronts on Highway dusty sidestres Ina 40-inile shovedGilbert Stark intoa 20-foot well and closed the cover in ‘96? Whoshottheelderly Clark couple andtheir daughterin ’97? Whoput a bullet in the heart of JamesCar- 60, with some radius of Quemado roll, 59, as he stood in his corral just north of townone autumn day last year? The sheriff doesn’t you might find 500 people, about haif of them ranch living like pioneers on the andin the foothills, miles from any neighbor. The rest live in town, in trailer homes and faded stucco bungalows amid the tumbleweeds and pinon trees. The sheriff, know. He and the state police said they are convinced the cases aren't related. They were random eruptions of mur where mur- der used to be rare, Snydersaid. iff Snyder, said it used to be a peaceful placein its tonesome way, beforeall the killings. Now there's fear in the air, about 125 miles southwest of Albuquerque. Before the Wilsons other’s hand in this part sprawling Catron County 43, keeps a .22-caliber semiautomatic on a shelf near the griddle. One morning last week, Paul nearlya decade. Andnoone wantsto be next. In a swath of America where gun control meanshitting what you're aimingat, alot of folks are packing iron. They're propping shotguns and rifles beside their beds; they're driving with pistols on the front seats of their pickups. The sheriff said he doesn’t mind. This is the rural West, he pointed out, andgunsare a heritage. “We're raised with them,” said Snyder, 42. He shrugged. “If 1 pull over a vehicle, | figure they're countryside around occurred, was elected sheriff last Strand, 67, who owns a horse ranch south of town, was sipping coffee in the cafe with his wife and holding forth on the subject of their firearms. ‘I sleep with a Coit .45 under mypillow,” he said. “I have a loaded assaultrifle beside the bed, a Russian-type, ready to roll. And a sawed-off shotgun next to that, loaded, legal, but just barely, in termsofthe barrel length.” Across the street, Carl Geng, who is in his sixties, runs the It's a crime in New Mexico to carry a concealed loaded weapon in a public place, but legal for anyone 21 or older to carry one residents, covers almost 7,000 square miles. Snyder, who was a deputy whenthe seven homicides year. He has an undersheriff and four deputies, including Jaramil 1o, whopatrols the northernhalf of necessary. the county around Quemado. A half-dozen state troopers also started packing two handgunsafter his parents, William Clark, 84, workin the county. But with such a vast area to cover, it sometimes takes an houror moreto reach the openly, no permit James Clark, a Vietnamveteran, and Pearl Clark, 74, wereslain in 1997alongwithhissister, Sharron Hutson,44. Folks in Quemadoare used to seeing him in town with a 45-caliber Colt Peacemakeron his right hip and a .40-caliber semiautomatic in a shoulderholster. “Which is fine,” said Jara- T sceneof an emergency. “Someof these people wouldn't call us, anyway,” Snyder said. “If someone breaks in their house, See Next Page Mz COMFORT; YOuR peueO Con Quemado. : appointment. ¢ Vinyl Siding e Eaves & Overhangs « Seamless Raingutter ALUMINUM Re Norton's LSS (al ~ 2 ct. 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