Two of the bandits were arrested for the crime, but they briefly escaped custody in July 1922 after killing another two men, which led to the largest manhunt in the history of the Southwest.

[1][2] The mining town of Ruby was established in Bear Valley during the 1870s and was a haven for cattle rustlers and other criminals for most of its Old West history.

[2] In February 1920, Clarke sold the mercantile to John and Alexander Frazer before moving his family to the nearby settlement of Oro Blanco.

An investigation by police found that the bandits, later identified as Ezequiel Lara and Manuel Garcia, had robbed the place and cut the wires for the town's only telephone, which was located in the store.

A local rancher reported that two of his best horses and eight of his cattle had been stolen at or near the same date, making the police assume the incidents were related.

Lara was eventually arrested in Mexico and jailed for crimes south of the border, but was never called to answer for his role in the Fraser killings.

A United States Army biplane from the garrison at Nogales was also dispatched to participate in the search and it became the first aircraft to be used for a manhunt in the history of Arizona.

A $5,000 bounty, dead or alive, was also authorized for each of the seven Mexicans, partly due to the fact that the gang was suspected of being responsible for the first robbery.

A few months later, after the manhunt had ended unsuccessfully, the authorities received news that two men in a Sonora cantina had bragged about being responsible for robbing the Ruby Mercantile.

Martinez was known for associating with a Mexican named Placidio Silvas, who lived near Oro Blanco, so the two were arrested and put on trial for murder in May 1922.

[3][8] The men who found White and Smith trailed the outlaws across the Santa Rita Mountains, but they lost track of them near Ruby due to a monsoon.

The Arizona public was shocked about this latest double homicide so over 700 volunteers from Pima, Pinal, Cochise and Santa Cruz counties formed posses for the largest manhunt in the history of the Southwest.

That same day, Martinez and Silvas were found hiding under some brush in the Tumacacori Mountains, about seventy miles from the site where the two had escaped custody.