Chris Neisen

Chris Neisen  known as “The Russian Joe” was Elizabeth Crawford’s father and Juanita Perez’s former husband. He was the leader of The Pelegroso gang that were responsible for killing John Tunstall and starting the Lincoln County War. He was murdered by Billy the Kid on February of 1879. The last Pelegroso member to get killed.

Background
Known for his tall and intimidating stature. Christopher (Chris) Neisen was the leader of The Pelegroso gang known for starting the Lincoln County war. He and his gang were responsible for killing John Tunstall, A British Rancher that lived in Fort Sumner. (Which caused the start of The Lincoln County War)

He called himself “The Russian Joe” and pretended to be a Russian native just to clear his identity as being the one who killed Tunstall.

He was born on June 15th, 1844, in Harlingen Northern Netherlands. He was a Dutchman that came from a wealthy high-class family. His father was Dutch while his mother was Russian, Romanian and Japanese descent. He was a troubled child that always caused trouble, even at a young age. when the other kids didn’t play like he wanted to, he would hit and yell at them, and whenever he received punishment for bad behavior he talked back at them like he didn’t care. Years later, He and his parents settled to a property in when Chris was 15, and when he moved to America, he had limited English at that time and only knew very few English words. He was a racist and referred to black people as “n” words, although his other family members who immigrated to the states before them already had slaves. He was even an advocate for black slavery and white supremacy.

At the age of 15, When one of Chris’s Aunt (who immigrated to Ohio) became very ill and his parents went to Ohio to visit her, She died a couple of weeks supposedly of pancreatic cancer and they all stayed in Ohio for two months. Chris was actually lied about her death and he actually killed his aunt by putting Arsenic Poison in her drink, all because he hated his aunt. Two months after her death his parents bought a property somewhere in the Colorado Territory.

Chris came to New Mexico at 19-years old and settled in Las Vegas where he met 17-year old Maria Juanita de la Trinidad Perez, the younger sister of Juan Juanito De la Trinidad Perez who were owners of a Bar. Chris became heavily drunk that he was unaware of what he was doing, When he starred at Juanito, He felt an immense relationship with him (almost like a crush) He began to flirt with him but he became uncomfortable and Juanito told him to get away from him, Chris became angry and got out his pistol and shot Juanito right in the chest, with Juanita witnessing, She cried deeply for help, but Juanito was already dead by that point, Chris drugged and kidnapped Juanita and raped her in his shack and also impregnated her. Juanita had no choice but to marry him and in that same year they did and gave birth to two children a year afterwards, When Juanita turned 20, she already gave birth to Eliza and Arminta. Eventually, Juanita died that same year in 1865 of complications of childbirth.

After the death of Juanita, He established his own gang and recruited Chuck Kuznetsov, and Henry O’Donnell who were both convicted of robbery. Once they both were executed for their crimes, Chris started recruiting more people until his gang was completed.

Death
They never found Chris’s body until 1910 after they discovered Ashes (belonging to a deceased individual belonging to Chris’s DNA) this is where they discovered that Chris had actually been long dead. Four years after Billy’s murder, he garnered disrespect for the countless murders he had done on countless innocent people after Eliza’s statement about him came out.

Other Words
Chris (at least shown in My Sweet Paulita) that he was shown as a malice and sick individual that killed innocent people to satisfy his masochism while others (at least in other movies that he as a person is portrayed in) can be seen as a normal wealthy person, but was accidentally shot because of his power.

Most people who live in the areas of Fort Sumner and Lincoln in New Mexico garner disrespect for him because of what he had done to countless innocent people. A Rumor said by a distinctive relative of Eliza’s closest friends Edith Schmidt claimed that Chris wasn’t necessarily evil as most people might expect, he was just a messed up man with people giving him too much power that he would abuse it to satisfy his “mental illness”.