The Hermit of La Cueva

Born to Italian nobles in 1800, Agostini-Justiniani may have studied for the priesthood but refused his vows and spent many years walking through Europe, South American, Mexico, Cuba, and the United States.

In 1867, he accompanied the wagon train of Don Ramon Gonzales to Mesilla to find Colonel Albert J. Fountain to discuss a legal matter. While visiting with the Barela family in Old Mesilla, he told of his plans to live at La Cueva. "I shall make a fire in front of my cave every Friday evening while I shall be alive. It the fire fails to appear, it will be because I have been killed."

One Friday night in the spring of 1869, the fire failed to appear at La Cueva. Antonio Garcia led a group up the mountain to find the Hermit lying face down on his crucifix with a knife in his back. The murder was one of many unsolved murders in the late 1800's in Dona Ana County.