Three people had been murdered in the Brite Ranch Raid on Christmas Day in 1917 and Villistas from the small border town of Porvenir were thought to be responsible.

Some of the women of the village alleged in later accounts that, while the soldiers were checking the houses, the Texas Rangers under Captain Monroe Fox gathered up fifteen Mexican men, took them to a nearby hill and executed them without evidence of their involvement in banditry.

On March 25, 1918, while on garrison duty at Candelaria, Captain Leonard Matlock, 8th Cavalry, received information regarding an imminent attack on Neville Ranch.

At some point Glenn went to check on sounds from outside the house and, peering out a window, saw in the dim light some "fifty approaching horsemen" who then opened fire with small arms.

Colonel Langhorne dispatched Captain Henry H. Anderson and Troop G, 8th Cavalry, from Everett Ranch, an army camp about thirty-four miles north of Candelaria.

By 4:00 pm, on March 26, Captain Anderson had assembled both troops and a mule train for supplies at the ranch and was ready to begin pursuing the raiders.

According to Colonel Langhorne, Anderson and his men followed the them over rough mountainous country for about seventy miles before the latter doubled back and began heading towards Pilares.

The cache of weapons his command found included German-made Mauser rifles, which hinted at German involvement with the village, and evidence linking the inhabitants to the raids on Brite and Neville Ranch.

Colonel Langhorne said that the soldiers found horses and equipment belonging to Neville's ranch, Glenn's body, about 10 dead, and speculated that the raiders had killed a great many more than that.