Town file
Roswell, New Mexico
Roswell, New Mexico (Chavez County, New Mexico) is the town in one episode of Small Town Murder, the comedy true-crime podcast: episode 284, "Ice Picks & Impersonations" (19 May 2022). Robert Stephen Farley was a seventeen-year-old senior at Roswell High School in Roswell, New Mexico.
- Town
- Roswell
- County
- Chavez County
- State
- New Mexico
- Country
- USA
- Episodes
- 284
- Approximate location
- 33.373, -104.529
Episode 284 / 19 May 2022 / 169 min / full
Ice Picks & Impersonations
"We're going to Roswell, Roswell, New Mexico... This is in Chavez County, area code 575." about 0:06:08
The case: Murder of Robert Stephen Farley (September 1991). Read the case file.
The figures, as told in 2022
- Population
- 47,596
- Median age
- 34.3
- Median household income
- $39,000 a year
- Median home value
- $120,100
- Two-bedroom rent
- about $800 a month
- Cost of living
- about $78,000
- Religious
- 54.6%
- Property crime
- ▲ double
- Violent crime
- ▲ about a third above
History, in brief
- The first non-native settlers came in 1865 but abandoned the place quickly because there was no water. about 0:06:36
- A man named John Chisholm had a place called the Jingle Bob Ranch. about 0:07:10
- In 1869 a couple of men built adobe buildings in the centre of where Roswell now stands, and the settlement began to grow. about 0:07:35
- The town was named after Roswell Smith, whose son ended up there; it was named after his father. about 0:07:48
- It became inhabitable after an aquifer was found underground. about 0:08:08
- Roswell had a German prisoner-of-war camp during the Second World War. about 0:08:36
- The camp was near Orchard Park, and the German prisoners were used for infrastructure work in Roswell. about 0:09:09
- The prisoners paved the banks of the North Spring River. about 0:09:14
- Some prisoners used rocks of different sizes to create the outline of an iron cross among the stones covering the north bank. about 0:09:37
- The cross was paved over with a thin layer of concrete, then found again by a crew cleaning the riverbed in the 1980s. about 0:09:58
- The small park around the cross became Iron Cross Park and was later renamed POW/MIA Park; a piece of the Berlin Wall was presented to the city by the German Air Force. about 0:10:12
- Roswell benefited from the alleged alien incident of 1947, which became a worldwide attraction. about 0:10:51
- The government said the 1947 incident was a weather balloon, while others called it a cover-up. about 0:12:03
The reviews read out
5 stars
"An interesting little city and a must-see for anyone interested in extraterrestrials; the people are friendly and welcoming."about 0:12:48
4 stars
"A great place not just for its aliens but for authentic Mexican cuisine, mouth-watering enchiladas, red chilli burritos, hatch green chillies and the state fair."about 0:13:11
2 stars
"A smaller community with a large amount of poor and poverty-stricken areas; the north side is good and the south side is bad."about 0:14:39
1 star
"The reviewer grew up there, left five times, returned to help his mother, and says his mother died last Tuesday; he waits for God to raise the family from death."about 0:15:17
Nearest Small Town Murder towns
- Hondo, New Mexico42 miles
- Fort Sumner, New Mexico79 miles
- Eunice, New Mexico103 miles
- Bernardo, New Mexico151 miles
- Dimmitt, Texas151 miles
- Tijeras, New Mexico159 miles
Everything here is as told in the episode, on the date it went out; figures and places may have changed since. Endings are covered: open an episode and use the spoiler switch to read them.