ALBUQUERQUE’S ‘INNOCENT’ MARSHAL

“Gentlemen, you’re hanging an innocent man.” With those words, Milton Yarberry left the gallows platform—headed upward on a new contraption. Whether his soul went the same direction is debatable. Yarberry was many things, but innocent was not one of them.

Yarberry, Albuquerque’s first town marshal, was an Old West character straight from Hollywood central casting. It is believed he started life in 1849 as John Armstrong in Walnut Ridge, Ark. Though born into a respectable family, he soon turned bad. As a teenager he killed a man over a land dispute. On the run, he changed his name for the first time—so as not to bring shame on his family, he later claimed. By