VIOLENT END

Wairarapa Times-Age, 25 October 1939, Page 2

VIOLENT END

MEXICAN GENERAL’S DEATH. SHOTS FROM AMBUSH. Death as violent as his early life has come to Albino Aranda, who filled the role of Little John to the Robin Hood of Mexico, Pancho Villa. He was shot by a witch doctor in the mountain of Chihuahua, states the “News of the World.” After the banditry and revolt of his young manhood, Aranda became one of Mexico’s most famous generals. He was leading an expedition into the mountains to investigate a series of poisoning cases, for which the witch I doctor was believed to have been responsible, when, in a lonely pass, several shots were fired on him by the man he was seeking. A crowd of angry men and women went out to seek for the witch doctor and lynched him before police could intervene.

Pancho Villa began life as a butcher and returned to banditry, harassing the rich landowners of Northern Chihuahua.

Then, in 1910, he became a revolutionary, and Aranda's association with him began. Together they fought in several campaigns. One of Villa’s most notorious exploits was in 1916, when he raided the American town of Columbus, and 16 people were killed.

President Wilson sent a punitive expedition to Mexico with orders to capture Villa and his band, but the American troops were forced to withdraw. In 1920 Villa retired from the business of banditry, and was presented with a large estate. It was then that Aranda began to build up his fame as a soldier.

Villa's car was ambushed in 1923. He and three companions wore riddled with bullets.