Halo for a Badman

According to the Sacramento Daily Union, March 5, 1881, in an article called "The Reasons For Putting Eighteen Balls in a Man", Stockton, ex-Marshal of Animas City, was killed at his ranch thirty miles south on the Animas River by a party of eighteen men, who surrounded the house and shot both Stockton and his wife when they came to their front door, both armed with rifles. Stockton had eighteen bullets in him and his wife was shot once in the abdomen, a wound of which the article said was likely to soon be fatal. The shootings were a response to death threats made by Porter - who "never went back on his word in that respect" - on the lives of about six Animas City townsfolk. The article said that Stockton was only about thirty years old at his death and at twelve years old, had killed for the first time by shooting his first victim in the head after an insult. He had once killed a Mexican simply for snoring and had been arrested once in nearby Otero by the marshal there, after which he escaped and went looking for vengeance but instead shot and killed a man who simply resembled the marshal. Porter had also nearly beaten to death a black barber in Animas City for not giving him a clean shave, and then shot at the barber, grazing his head. He had generally "had been a terror to the community wherever he has lived" and left Animas City after the incident with the barber for the land he owned south on the Animas.

Manner of death. According to his obituary, which can be found on Find-A-Grave, he was killed on the front porch of his ranch house. He was hit by 18 bullets. His wife was beside him and was wounded. She, too, had a rifle and had fired at the men who came after her husband. This was supposedly because he'd made threats against people and he was known for being a man of his word. No mention is made of his being a marshal.