The Arizona State Prison in Florence where the Jesus Maria Barboa was held after two particularly brutal murders.

Before air conditioning, people who spent the summer in Phoenix either slept in their yards or on screened sleeping porches. Those who slept on beds in their yards put the bed legs in pails of water to try to keep scorpions from joining their slumber.
In the early summer heat of 1920, the city was sleeping on a Sunday evening. At 1922 W. Van Buren St., Mr. and Mrs. Jacob Erhardt were asleep on their porch on the northeast corner of their house. The porch was illuminated by a street light at 19th Avenue and Van Buren.
Sometime after midnight, someone broke through a screen on the west side of the house and viciously attacked the Erhardts with a four-pound mining hammer. Each of them suffered skull fractures in at least four places. The house was ransacked and, apparently, robbery was the motive.
The Erhardts had come to Phoenix in 1907 for the health of their daughter Louise. Unfortunately, she died shortly after their arrival in Phoenix. Mrs. Erhardt was 58, and Jacob Erhardt was 65 when they were brutally murdered. They were described as “…well known and regarded as among the best citizens of the community.”
On Monday morning, their son, Lt. Jacob Erhardt, Jr. of the Phoenix Fire Department, came by to have breakfast with his parents. He discovered the heinous crime scene and called the police. Mrs. Erhardt died shortly after arriving at the hospital. Jacob Erhardt lingered, but died the next day without regaining consciousness.
The police immediately collected evidence and fingerprints at the crime scene. Neighbors reported hearing moaning, but assumed it was from the Erhardts’ cattle.
Suspects were quickly captured by the police for questioning. However, after the officers investigated the 35 suspects, all were released.
Weeks went by without a break in the case. Phoenix residents felt vulnerable in their sleeping arrangements. Prominent citizen groups began to demand that experienced detectives should be brought in from a reputable detective agency or a metropolitan police force to investigate the horrid crime. Citizens were afraid that the “inhumane” murderers would strike again.
Suddenly, there was a break in the case. Jesus Maria Barboa was stopped by a sheriff’s deputy near Patagonia while he was walking from Tucson to Mexico. The officer thought he saw blood on Barboa’s clothes and contacted authorities in Maricopa County since Barboa had been working on a farm in Litchfield. Fingerprints were provided, and “…while many of the details were lacking, the prints resembled those of the man wanted.”
Barboa, who spoke only Spanish, was brought to Phoenix in secret and taken to the Erhardts’ house at 1 a.m. for interrogation. By 4 a.m. Barboa had made a full, signed confession of the murders. By 7 a.m. Barboa plead guilty before a judge to two counts of murder.
The sheriff feared that once word got out that Barboa had confessed, the citizens of Phoenix would organize a lynching mob. So, the sheriff took Barboa to the new state prison in Florence. The sheriff said, “…he heaved a sigh of relief when the party came in sight of the bridge at Florence and found that it was not lined with automobiles.” No mob violence would occur as Barboa “…was placed in the death cell in the state prison in solitary confinement.”
Six weeks later, police received an unsolicited confession from a convicted murderer in San Quentin Prison in California named Moses Gibson. Gibson confessed that he had murdered the Erhardts and “shook down” the house in search of money. All he found were a few dollars in Jacob Erhardt’s pants pocket.
Once Gibson was finished at the Erhardt house, he went to the depot in downtown Phoenix and took the train to Yuma and California. He did not buy a ticket, but paid cash on the train. Gibson stated in his confession “…I want to make peace with my maker and with the officers and everyone else.”
A hearing was held for Barboa, whose mother, brother, and ranch foreman testified about Barboa’s “…apparent insanity.”
The police testified Barboa’s fingerprints did not correspond to any prints found in the house. The police said they were unsure of prints found at the crime scene since “…so many officers and citizens had handled articles in the house.”
The sheriff testified he had concluded Barboa was not the killer of the Erhardts, and Barboa was found not guilty. He was released and immediately returned to his wife and children in Mexico.
Charges were not brought against Moses Gibson for the murders of the Erhardts. He was executed on Sept. 24, 1920, at San Quentin Prison for the murder of a farmer in Orange County, California.
— Mike Miller. Photo courtesy of Arizona State Library, Archives and Public Records, Archives Division, Phoenix, #97-484.