Click photo to enlarge Milan Simonich SANTA FE — Jack Volpato
says the worst kind of politics led to his father being
convicted of murder in one of New Mexico's most famous cases.
But instead of treating politicians with scorn, Volpato became
one.  "It was something I felt compelled to do," said Volpato,
51, an Eddy County commissioner for the last six years.  He
lives in Carlsbad, where his father, Johnny Volpato, was a
three-term city council member and a mayor pro tem.  "I grew up
with politics," Jack Volpato said. "It was common for people
like (former U.S. senator) Pete Domenici to be in our home."
Jack Volpato says his father was a pioneering Republican in a
town run by Democrats. Few others may have cared about the
political divide until the night of Feb. 5, 1980, when the
Volpato family was at the epicenter of Carlsbad's crime of the
century.  A pharmacist, Johnny Volpato said he took a call at
home late that night from a man saying he needed medicine for a
kidney infection. Volpato agreed to meet t