The two survivors said they had been attacked by Mexicans. Historians generally believe that the smugglers were killed by Mexican military forces patrolling the border to try to reduce smuggling. Some sources repeat the assertion of attorney William McLaury, who was part of the prosecution related to the 1881 gunfight at the O.K. Corral, in which two of his brothers had been killed. He wrote that Wyatt Earp and his two brothers had killed Clanton and his associates, and this has been repeated in some sources.