Big Trouble in Little Loving County, Texas

MENTONE, Texas — In America’s least populated county, the rusting ruins of houses, oil drilling operations and an old gas station interrupt the sun-blanched landscape. A hand-painted wood sign still promises good food at “Chuck’s Wagon” to drivers along State Road 302, though the proprietor died months ago and the wagon is gone.

Apart from the brick courthouse, the convenience store packed with off-shift oil-field workers and the lone sit-down restaurant where you’re liable to see the sheriff at lunch, everything else that the county’s 57 recorded residents might need is a ways away. No school. No church. No grocery store.

Loving County is not at peace, even though it may seem calm. The first sign that there was a conflict was last spring when five cows were shot to death and dumped in the dirt.

That brought a special ranger — a so-called cow cop — to town. He soon began to notice other things going wrong.

He opened an inquiry into possible thefts of stray cows by the top county leader, the judge. It was discovered that the complaints about cattle theft could have been a result of a deeper problem: a struggle to control politics. People told the cow cop that some “residents” who called the county home and voted there actually lived somewhere else most of the time. Another example of election fraud.

Soon, it would appear that everyone in the county was being detained.

Sket Jones, the judge was first, and three of his ranch workers were charged with taking part in an organized criminal ring that aimed at stealing cattle.

Four other people close to the judge, one of his sons included, were arrested days later when they turned up for jury duty. The justice of the Peace said that they had falsely claimed they were eligible jurors even though they did not live in Loving County.

“It sounds very far-fetched,” said Brian Carney, a lawyer from Midland representing one of the ranch hands who has been charged. “If someone were to tell you this story, you’d be like, come on, is that some kind of novel? Is that something that really happens?”

Now, as the temperature rises to 100 degrees, the tiny county is engulfed in a personal political struggle. It raises questions not only about the best way to manage wayward cattle but also the more pressing issues of who has the right and where they can vote in Texas.

The Loving County serial arrests were a warning sign that law enforcement can be used in remote parts of rural America to achieve political ends. Others saw the arrests as a necessary step in reining in county leaders who, many believed, were skirting the rules.

The depth of animosity as well as the interconnectedness of almost everyone involved became apparent when the sheriff temporarily barred one of the arrested ranch hands — a former deputy who has talked of running against the sheriff — from entering the county building that houses the sheriff’s office, saying he would charge him with trespassing if he set foot inside.

The only problem: That particular ranch hand is also the county’s part-time custodian. Two days later, the sheriff sent an email complaining to county officials that no one was picking up his trash.

The county courthouse in Mentone is home to prominent figures representing two political factions. They are located at the ends of a short hallway. Brandon Jones, his nephew, is the county constable, while Mr. Jones is the county judge.

At issue is control over what might seem like mundane local government matters — how many deputies the constable gets, who serves on the appraisal board — but they have become more contentious in recent years as the rise of fracking has elevated land values and created a property tax windfall. The budget for the county is now overseen by the county judge as well as the county commissioners.

But the fight to power has been fuelled more by personal rivalries, a desire for control among younger generations than any specific political goal. Steve Simonsen is the county attorney, whose wife is a Jones cousin.

“There’s no contracts or patronage, but you’re in control,” he said. “That’s why I find this to be so stupid, because the only thing that anybody is going to get out of this is, ‘I won.’”

Tensions are so high that at a recent county meeting, the sheriff’s office conducted security screenings and checked for bombs. None were found.

“Right now, the climate is the worst I’ve ever seen,” said Jacob Jones, 31, one of the county judge’s sons. “It breaks my heart. Family turning against family.”

“Voter turnout is always a hundred percent, sometimes more,” a former county justice of the peace told Texas Monthly in the 1990s.

The U.S. Census 2020 counted 64 counties residents of all ages. In the same year, 66 people voted in the general election. The census estimate has fallen to 57 people since then, but that does not include oil workers who are housed in temporary camps scattered throughout the landscape.

Among the contested local races in November, Brandon Jones’s wife is running against the county clerk, who is Skeet Jones’s sister. A county commissioner, who was also arrested for showing up for jury duty is also up for challenge.

“Before all this, I really thought I liked politics,” said the constable, Brandon Jones. “But now, not so much.”

The five stray cattle were discovered dead in March last year. After being reported that cattle had crossed 302, which is dangerously populated with trucks from the oil fields, they were shot.

“There were no shell casings in the area,” a sheriff’s deputy noted in his incident report, “and no footprints or vehicle tracks.”

That brought the cow cop — a special ranger for the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association named Marty Baker — to Loving County.

When he arrived in town, he met with the judge, Skeet Jones, who had reported the killings, and watched as Mr. Jones and the ranch hands — who had been trying to corral the stray cattle the day before they were shot — loaded the carcasses onto a trailer.

Mr. Jones’ father was the sheriff many decades before. He said that he used to catch such cattle and sell them. The proceeds were then donated to nonprofit schools for at risk children.

The Texas Agriculture Code was clearly in violation, according to Mr. Baker, the cow cop. The law requires that stray cattle be reported to the sheriff. If no owner is found, the sheriff can sell the cattle.

According to the complaint, Mr. Jones claimed that he had made an arrangement with Chris Busse to handle the sales, but the sheriff denied this.

In trying to sort it out, Mr. Baker wrote, he had help from a source close to Mr. Jones: a “confidential informant” from the “inner circle of the Jones family.”

Mr. Carney, the lawyer, said he believed the informant was Skeet Jones’s own nephew, Brandon Jones, who had been privy to text messages on a family thread. Skeet and Brandon Jones declined to comment, as did Mr. Busse, Sheriff.

The cow cop was left wondering what happened to the carcasses of the cattle, so he devised a plan for catching any rustlers.

Three head of unmarked cattle were released by Mr. Baker, who used microchips as bait. Sket Jones and his ranch workers eventually caught them and brought them to market, Mr. Baker wrote.

Late May saw a dusty column made up of law enforcement vehicles tear down the dirt road that leads to the Jones family ranch.

“It was just crazy,” said Jacob Jones, the county judge’s son, who was working at the ranch as a scrum of officers arrived.

The arrest of a county court judge for cow theft attracted a lot of attention. Brandon Jones, the constable, attacked his uncle in an interview with NBC News, saying he had “free rein” as judge that gave him “a sense of power and impunity that he can do whatever he wants.”

A lawyer for Mr. Jones, Steve Hunnicutt, denied any crime had been committed, adding that the political motives for the arrests were “pretty clear.”

Skeet James posted bond and was back at work. Tensions grew when Sket Jones was called for jury duty.

For a traffic offense misdemeanor, eleven prospective jurors were called.

They were shocked when Amber King, the justice-of-the-peace, ordered four of them to be detained for contempt. One of them was Sket Jones’ son. Another was the county clerk’s son. Another was a county commissioner. He was accused of claiming his Loving County property as his home while living on a ranch located in Reeves County.

The question of residency has been controversial for a long time. It is disputed whether Loving County residents who have homes elsewhere can vote because they want to tilt elections, or because it is the home they plan to return to one of these days. Many of the people arrested recently support the current county leadership.

Ms. King stated that Senate Bill 1111, a new election law passed last year, had made things easier. The law was designed to stop people from registering to vote in places where they don’t live in order to sway elections, which has occasionally occurred in Texas.

She was furious at those who claimed residency, but were not able to deal with the reality of living in a rural county with few amenities and dangerous truck traffic.

“We choose to live here,” she said. “We choose to put our kids on the bus. If we want decent grocery items, we’ll drive an hour and half one-way to H-E.B. They could live here if that was their desire. But they don’t.”

The county attorney, Mr. Simonsen, acknowledged that some people may be able to live elsewhere but that does not automatically disqualify them for voting.

So long as you are not voting in two places, he said, “Essentially, your residence is where you say it is.”

The most immediate result of Ms. King’s bid to clean up elections is that it’s now even harder to assemble a jury.

Mr. Simonsen stated that at most two people who were summoned recently to a grand jury wrote to say they did not want to appear due to fear of arrest and that the county was unable seat a grand jury.

It can seem like everyone in the county will soon require a lawyer due to the recent flurry in law enforcement activity. Simonsen stated that he was trying find humor in the situation.

“Every morning, I walk over here,” he said, “and when they ask, ‘How’s it going?’ I say, ‘I haven’t been arrested yet!”