“The Silence of Cricket Coogler” and Corruption at the Highest Levels
The murder of Ovida “Cricket” Coogler in Las Cruces in 1949 rocked New Mexico’s political machine and sent reverberations throughout the country. Coogler was an 18-year-old waitress whose body was found in a field south of Las Cruces by some rabbit hunters. She had been raped and run over repeatedly by a car. As the press, particularly Walt Finley, working for the El Paso Herald Post, started digging into the murder, corruption from the local sheriff “Happy” Apodaca all the…