File No. 312.11/8217
Vice Consul Coen to the Secretary of State
A Mexican courier sent to Parral by a mining man has just returned and the American says the report be relied upon. The courier came out afoot from Parral to Chihuahua and from there worked his way passing coal on a train to the border. General Herrera evacuated Parral on the 4th and Villa entered on the 5th and was still there in undisputed possession when the courier left on the 8th. The 5 employees of the Alvarado Company left on the 2d and the other 4 Americans, Jake Myer, Doctor Flannigan, W. E. Palmer and Scott, the messenger thinks, were hiding but says they may have been arrested as this was done by wholesale, the people being held for ransom. No executions had taken place when courier [Page 679] left and no public looting, but Villa was having good success in getting money by forced loans and from the owners of the stores taken over from the Chinamen and Syrians. Villa was personally in charge with Salazar a good second. They had over a thousand well-armed troops brought in on three trains captured at Santa Rosalia. He could not confirm the report that Edgar Koch, the German Consular Agent who was captured at Santa Rosalia with the Alvarado bullion, had been killed but thought that he had been killed by Julio Acosta.