 Scurlock served as a deputy sheriff under Sheriff John Copeland, who was a McSween partisan and replaced Sheriff Brady.On May 14, 1878, he led a posse of 18 to 20 men, which included Billy the Kid, Bowdre, George Coe, Brown, and Scroggins, to the Dolan-Riley cattle ranch, ostensibly in search of those implicated in the killing of MacNab and the wounding of Saunders.According to Riley, they drove off 26 horses and two mules, killed a herder named Wair; a Navajo Indian employed at the ranch as a cook; and a 15-year-old boy called Johnny.