Death
The ranch was burned down by apparent arson some months earlier, and had been rebuilt, with over 100 bedrooms and fancy suites that included a "Blue Room". Joe Conforte was not present at the grand reopening in early May 1976, but Bonavena circulated among the 4000 guests, smoking big cigars and greeting some with "How you like my new joint?"
Conforte banished the pair from the ranch two days later. They were warned to stay away, and guards were ordered to stop them if they tried to re-enter. Conforte moved out of the family house in town he shared with Sally and into the Blue Room. Willard Ross Brymer, Conforte's ex-convict personal bodyguard and security guard at the ranch, was recalled from a trip. Brymer cleaned out Bonavena's trailer and burned his papers and clothes in the street. At the family house, Sally was plagued by utility shutoffs and other harassment.
On May 19, Sally and Bonavena complained to the county sheriff about the harassment and drove to San Francisco (about 230 miles) to replace Bonavena's burned passport. They stayed overnight, taking adjoining rooms, and returned to Reno the next day.
At 6:00 a.m. on Saturday May 22, Bonavena drove up to the locked gate at the Mustang Ranch and rang the bell. He exchanged words with an unarmed guard and demanded to see Conforte. Brymer stepped through the kitchen door with a high-powered rifle. The guard at the gate told Bonavena to leave. As Bonavena stepped behind his car, someone said "freeze" and Bonavena was shot through the heart, either by Brymer or from a rear guard tower. A snub-nosed .38 revolver was found in his boot. Four days later, Sally returned to the ranch and took over, firing the armed guards and the ex-convicts.
An investigation concluded that Bonavena was having an affair with Sally and had bragged about taking over the Mustang Ranch, and that guards had orders to shoot Bonavena if he showed up. Originally charged with murder, Brymer pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and served 15 months in prison.
Bonavena's body was returned to Argentina to lie in state at the Luna Park sports arena in Buenos Aires, where 150,000 people filed by. He is buried in the La Chacarita Cemetery in Buenos Aires.
Read more about this topic: Oscar Bonavena
Famous quotes containing the word death:
“But the life of Spirit is not the life that shrinks from death and keeps itself untouched by devastation, but rather the life that endures it and maintains itself in it. It wins its truth only when, in utter dismemberment, it finds itself.... Spirit is this power only by looking the negative in the face, and tarrying with it. This tarrying with the negative is the magical power that converts it into being. This power is identical with what we earlier called the Subject.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“So he with difficulty and labour hard
Moved on, with difficulty and labour he;
But he once passed, soon after when man fell,
Strange alteration! Sin and Death amain
Following his track, such was the will of Heaven,
Paved after him a broad and beaten way
Over the dark abyss, whose boiling gulf
Tamely endured a bridge of wondrous length
From hell continued reaching th’ utmost orb
Of this frail world;”
—John Milton (1608–1674)