Murders in the Tomboy Mine

While mining is certainly a dangerous profession today, it was even more so in early Colorado. The mines around Telluride at that time were rife with accidents, racial strife, violent labor disputes, and other miseries and hardships. This was certainly true of the Tomboy Mine where, on the night of September 10, 1919, four men were murdered and a yearslong legal fight began. 

At 6pm in the evening, a group of three Swedes and one Slovenian miner entered the Montana tunnel to work the night shift. The members of this crew were Gus Danielson, Eric Smith, Al Sund, and John Kochevar. A bit later, a group of three Italian miners, John Giacomozzi, Celeste Mottivi, and August Morletti entered the same tunnel. By the next morning, Danielson, Smith, Sund, and Mottivi would be dead. A week later, Giacomozzi, Morletti, and Kochevar would be the primary suspects in their murders.

According to the October 27, 1919, Montrose Daily Press, after the murders, Black Hand letters were sent to Tomboy employees Scotty Fyfe and A. P. Moore. The paper suggested the letters may have been intended to distract from the murder case. On the contrary, it seems that invoking Black Hand letters, known as an explicitly Italian extortion method, would only add fuel to any anti-Italian sentiment among potential jury members in the case. District Attorney Lee W. Burgess began his prosecution of August Morletti on Friday, November 14. Ten days later, a jury deliberated and convicted Morletti on four counts of murder. Judge T. J. Black sentenced him to life imprisonment in the state penitentiary in Cañon City. When asked by the judge if he had any comment, Morletti said simply,

“If they say I’m guilty, I can’t do anything.” Montrose Daily Press November 24, 1919

In May 1920, John Giacomozzi received the same conviction and sentence in the same San Miguel County courthouse. 

Lucky for John Kochevar, Judge Black approved a change of venue for his trial, not because he believed a fair trial was not possible in San Miguel County, but because the judge claimed he had run out of potential jurors after the previous two trials in the Tomboy murder case. Kochevar was sent to Gunnison County for trial. Another advantage for Kochevar was the fact that Coloradans had all been reading about the case by that point and several papers, such as the Gunnison News Champion and Telluride Journal were pointing out that the life sentences handed out for the murders were based on purely circumstantial evidence. Giacomozzi and Morletti were also brought to the courthouse for their testimony, as witnesses in Kochevar's case.