My Search for Murrieta, the Rest of the Story

By Gary Gragnani. I don't have a link at the moment but I can find one... Google search might work.

Mostly it's a collection of previously unprinted documents he found. Part of the title is "You Decide" so Gary doesn't come right out and give his opinion but I can vouch for the fact that he does, indeed, have one. It all started with a hat.

He came across a hat purported to have belonged to Murietta and once displayed in a now defunct museum... took him years to find it. He eventually did and bought it. Gary's primary motive was to make some money off the hat. Gary tried his best to find evidence that it was Joaquin's hat.... that led to this, that, and the next thing you know he was consumed by the topic.

There is a group of people near here that, and as you probably know, consider him somewhat of a hero. Every year they have a horseback ride from Cantua Creek, (where he was supposedly killed), to a local gathering. Until a couple of year's ago they used my equipment yard as one of their camping sites along their ride. Some of them claiming to be descendants. Gary interviewed many of them and was able to access some documents that had always been in private possession.

Gary is not a great writer. You'll find many grammatical errors in the book. He had asked me to proofread it before his final submission to the publisher and I had worked on it for about 2 weeks when he got 'antsy' and submitted it before I had sent him my suggestions, and there were many. BUT.. it's the documents he publishes for the first time that are important.

- JamesJM