On July 31, 1892, ranch hand Francisco Torres admitted he killed his foreman, Capt. W. McKelvey of the Modjeska Ranch who was well-liked around the county, over a $2.50 squabble. “Feelings around the countryside were running high” by the time Torres was taken after a brutal fight at Burruel Point.
Torres’ court-appointed attorney sought a change of venue to ensure an impartial jury.
County Sheriff Theo Lacy wanted to promptly transfer Torres to the Los Angeles jail for safekeeping, but the county administrators disapproved.
On the night of August 21, Torres was forcibly removed from the new three-cell wood-and-
brick Santa Ana courthouse jail by an orderly group of thirty masked men and hanged from a telegraph pole at Fourth and Sycamore Streets in the city. Pinned to his clothes was a note reading: “Change of Venue.” The coroner ruled “Strangulation at the hands of parties unknown,” and the grand jury closed the case as rapidly and quietly as possible. Most California newspapers condemned the lynch mob—which Orange County newspapers chose to call a “home guard”—with the geographically most-distant papers being the most condemning. It became Orange County’s first—and California’s last—vigilante lynching.
Within a year, supported by Torres' widow, mother, and children, a cousin of Torres' claimed to have evidence Torres was innocent and that a bellicose enemy of McKelvey's was the true killer. It appears the counter suit for reparation never materialized in court.
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