In February, 1879, Billy Campbell and Dolan shattered the fragile peace of New Mexico Gov. Lew Wallace's three-month-old amnesty when they shot and killed the widow McSween's hostile lawyer, Huston Chapman, in Lincoln. After the grand jury in Lincoln's District Court that April issued indictments against him for Tunstall's and Chapman's murders, Dolan was tracked down and arrested in June, and jailed at Ft. Stanton.
He pulled strings and soon got himself taken under guard to District Court in friendly La Mesilla. There Judge Warren A. Bristol not only granted him bail (Dolan posted $3,000), but okayed a change of venue as well as a continuance.
So instead of a July trial in unfriendly Lincoln, Dolan faced a trial in Socorro in August. During the interim, the smooth Dolan married Caroline Fritz (the late Emil Fritz's niece) in Hondo in July, 1879. After his honeymoon, he went to Socorro, stood trial, and was acquitted on both counts. The nimble Dolan had landed on his feet.
But his marriage turned tragic. Although the Dolans had four children, two of them died very young. Caroline died, too, shortly after giving birth to a third daughter in September, 1886.
Since Caroline had inherited the Spring Ranch from her father, Charlie (after his death in December, 1885) as well as the old Tunstall Store (which Fritz had acquired from the Tunstall estate in 1882), Dolan (who had reopened the store in 1883 and built a family home across the street in 1884) found himself owner of the valuable Fritz ranch as well as the old Tunstall mercantile.
He held onto the store until 1891, when he sold it to a Las Cruces businessman.