The many crimes of Tuco

Tuco Benedicto Pacifico Juan Maria Ramirez

Tuco “the Rat” Ramirez was a busy guy.

Property Crimes

  • armed robbery of citizens, state banks, and post offices
  • arson in a state prison
  • cattle rustling
  • counterfeiting and passing counterfeit money
  • crimes against places of high authority include burning down the courthouse and sheriff’s office in Sonora
  • extortion
  • highway robbery
  • horse thievery
  • illegal postal pick up
  • unlawfully drawing salary and living allowances from the Union Army
  • receiving stolen goods
  • robbery
  • robbing an unknown number of post offices
  • selling stolen goods
  • supplying Indians with firearms
  • theft of sacred objects
  • using marked cards and loaded dice
  • derailing a train in order to rob the passengers

Violent Crimes

  • murder
  • kidnapping
  • assaulting a Justice of the Peace
  • raping a virgin of the white race
  • statutory rape of a minor of the black race
  • intention of selling fugitive slaves

Crimes against civil order

  • bigamy
  • deserting his wife and children
  • hired himself out as guide on a wagon train, after receiving his payment in advance, he deserted the wagon train in the hunting grounds of the Sioux Indians
  • inciting prostitution
  • misrepresenting himself as a Mexican general
  • perjury
  • promoting prostitution

Sources follow.

Source 1:

Wanted in fourteen counties of this State, the condemned is found guilty of murder, armed robbery of citizens, state banks, and post offices; the theft of sacred objects, arson in a state prison, perjury, bigamy, deserting his wife and children, inciting prostitution, kidnapping, extortion, receiving stolen goods, selling stolen goods, passing counterfeit money, and contrary to the laws of this State the condemned is guilty of using marked cards and loaded dice…

and

Wanted in fifteen counties, standing before us, ah, sitting before us, Tuco Benedicto Pacifico Juan Maria Ramirez, has been found guilty by the District Circuit Court of the following crimes: murder, assaulting a Justice of the Peace, raping a virgin of the white race, statutory rape of a minor of the black race, derailing a train in order to rob the passengers, … robbery, highway robbery, robbing an unknown number of post offices, breaking out of a …, counterfeiting and passing counterfeit money, and the accused… promoting prostitution …high places of authority… illegal postal pick up… intention of selling black fugitive slaves… the sheriff in Sonora… hired himself out as guide on a wagon train, after receiving his payment in advance, he deserted the wagon train in the hunting grounds of the Sioux Indians… misrepresenting himself as a Mexican general in order to receive a salary and living allowance from the Union Army…

Also references:

….wanted in fourteen counties of this state, the condemned is found guilty of crimes of murder, armed robbery of citizens, state banks and post offices; the theft of sacred objects, arson in a state prison, perjury, bigamy, deserting his wife and children, inciting prostitution, kidnapping, extortion, receiving stolen goods, selling stolen goods, passing counterfeit money and contrary to the laws of this state the condemned is guilty of using marked cards and loaded dice. Therefore, according to the powers vested in us, we sentence the accused before us, Tuco Benedicto Pacifico Juan Maria Ramirez and any other aliases he might have, to hang by the neck until dead….may god have mercy on his soul….proceed.

and

….wanted in fifteen counties of this state, the condemned standing before us…sitting before us…Tuco Benedicto Pacifico Juan Maria Ramirez has been found guilty by the third district circuit court of the following crimes: Murder, assaulting a justice of the peace, raping a virgin of the white race, statuatory rape of a minor of the black race…derailing a train in order to rob the passengers, bank robbery, highway robbery, robbing an unknown number of Post Offices, breaking out of the state prison, using marked cards and loaded dice, promoting prostitution, blackmail, intention of selling fugitive slaves, and counterfeiting. Crimes against places of high authority include burning down the courthouse and sheriff’s office in Sonora. The accused is also guilty of cattle rustling, horse thievery, supplying Indians with firearms…misrepresenting himself as a Mexican General, unlawfully drawing salarly and living allowances from the Union Army. For all these crimes the accused has made a full and spontaneous confession. Therefore we condemn him to be hung by the neck until dead….may the lord have mercy on his soul….proceed.

Source 2:

…wanted in counties of this state…
…the condemned is found guilty of the crimes of murder, armed robbery…
…of citizens, state banks, and post offices…
…the theft of sacred objects, arson in a state prison…
…perjury, bigamy, deserting his wife and children…
…inciting prostitution, kidnapping, extortion…
…receiving stolen goods, selling stolen goods…
…passing counterfeit money, and contrary to the laws of this state…
…the condemned is guilty of using…
Therefore, according to the powers vested in us…
…we sentence the accused here before us…
…Tuco Benedicto Pacifico Juan Maria Ramirez…
…known as the “Rat”…
…and any other aliases he might have…
…to hang by the neck until dead.

and

Wanted in counties of this state…
…the condemned, standing before us… sitting before us…
…Tuco Benedicto Pacifico Juan Maria Ramirez…
…has been found guilty by the Third District Circuit Court…
…of the following crimes: Murder, assaulting a justice of the peace…
…raping a virgin of the white race…
…and statutory rape of a minor of the black race…
…of derailing a train in order to rob the passengers…

14 thoughts on “The many crimes of Tuco

  1. meesha.v

    I just watched the movie, I’ve heard about it for years and finally got time to watch all 3 hours. I liked it but didn’t think it lived up to my elevated expectations.

  2. Burrowowl Post author

    Something you have to keep in mind with this movie, as with many films from, say, before THX sound systems were common in movie theaters, is how good of a movie is was for its time. There are a lot of sound and lighting and post-production tricks available to directors these days that just didn’t exist back then, tricks that you mostly don’t notice but make a movie much more watchable. Other good examples are The Conversation and Three Days of the Condor.

    One of the great virtues of the The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly is rewatchability. Pick it up again in a year or two and it’ll still be good even though you’ve seen it before.

  3. Doc

    don’t foget “A Fistful of Dollars”. and“For a Few Dollars More”. Bits and pieces of those movies have passed into lore…

    i think my favorite tribute is in the last Pirates of the Caribbean flic.

    Davy Jones and his former goddess lover have these matching lockets. and in one scene, the goddesses locket stops playing and Davey Jones’ continues: dood, that is sooo ripped from the final duel in For a Few Dollars More. hell, Willis’ Last Man Standing is pretty much a direct rip of Fistful of Dollars and the earlier Kurasawa film….

    In fact, all of three films owe a great deal to Kurasawa.

  4. Burrowowl Post author

    @Doc – There were two “Trilogies” of sorts that started as Akira Kurosawa films set in feudal Japan, followed by an American Western set in the late 1800’s, followed by a film set in the Southwest/Mexico in the 1920’s. Yojimbo, A Fistful of Dollars, and Last Man Standing is the most obvious, but my favorite set is The Seven Samurai, The Magnificent Seven, and The Three Amigos. For reasons that should be obvious.

    I must admit that I never got past the first twenty minutes or so of the last Pirates of the Caribbean film. That series jumped the shark somewhere around the end of the first installment and should have ended there.

  5. chunkbot

    Pirates of the Caribbean has a tribute to The Good The Bad and the Ugly?

    You want a good pirate movie, Captain Blood is a good pirate movie.

  6. Tuco Benedicto Pacifico Juan Maria Ramirez

    i’m impressed. i hope he made it out alive with all that gold!

  7. Lee

    Last Pirates of the Caribbean? You are comparing the GBU to the last Pirates of the Caribbean. You are all girlly men.

  8. Blondie

    I really didn’t like it when he called me a dirty son of a ——. Especially after all the times I saved his life.

  9. Burrowowl Post author

    I think Tuco just had difficulty opening himself up emotionally after such a troubled life. I just don’t know if he’ll ever trust again.

  10. Burrowowl Post author

    I’m not clear on how one “incites” prostitution, but apparently that’s how they word it in some jurisdictions.

  11. Shorty

    “You never had a rope around your neck. Well, I’m going to tell you something. When that rope starts to pull tight, you can feel the Devil bite your ass. “

Comments are closed.