Guides Walker Daugherty and Michael Bryant were leading a hunting party in southern Texas in early January, when they claimed people crossing the nearby Mexico border, converged on their camp in the middle of the night and tried to rob them.
Gunfire broke out. When the smoke cleared and the fight was over, Daugherty was bleeding from a shot in the abdomen. Another member of the party had been shot in the arm.
After being airlifted to the hospital, the men told authorities that people who crossed the border from Mexico wanted to steal an RV some of the hunters were using. In statements made through friends and family, they went further, suggesting that the assailants wanted to kill everyone in the party, as the Albuquerque Journal reported.
The story was rife with political implications. The Texas agriculture commissioner even put it on his Facebook page, saying it underscored the need for President Donald Trump's proposed border wall.
But authorities say it was all a lie.
Daugherty and Bryant were indicted last week on one count each of using deadly conduct by discharging firearms in the direction of others, according to CBS station KOSA. Presidio County Sheriff Danny Dominguez told the station that an investigation had found Daugherty and the other injured hunter were struck by friendly fire. There was no sign, he said, that anyone else was involved.
Authorities were suspicious from the beginning. Prompted by the group's claims that illegal aliens were responsible, U.S. Border Patrol dispatched 30 agents to sweep the area, aided by expert trackers and thermal imaging technology, Big Bend Now reported. Daugherty and his fiancee claimed previously to have seen people crossing the border and going through their property, according to KOSA.
Within days of the shooting, however, the sheriff's office said there was "no evidence that suggests cross-border violence" and "no sign of human pedestrian traffic leading to or from the ranch that night."
"There were no bullet casings or projectiles from weapons other than those belonging to the individuals hunting on the ranch nor in the RV belonging to the hunting party," the sheriff's office told Big Bend Now in mid-January.
What really happened, Dominguez said, was much simpler: Daugherty shot his client, and Bryant shot Daugherty.
But the rumors already had spread. A rancher and family friend in Arizona released a statement based on the Daugherty family's account, describing the shooting as a brutal, calculated attack by illegal aliens.
"The attack has the family concerned that the attack was not just an attempt to rob the property," the statement read, according to the Albuquerque Journal. "They believe the assailants intended to kill all the party. The attackers were strategically placed around the lodge, and the men were fired upon from different areas."
Sid Miller, the Texas agriculture commissioner, put the story on Facebook, where he has 400,000-plus followers.
"This is why we need the wall and to secure our borders," Miller wrote in a since-deleted post that was reposted more than 6,500 times. "There are violent criminals and members of drug cartels coming in and it must put a stop to it [sic] before we have many more Walker Daughertys."
A Section on 02/22/2017