OCR Text |
Show j HILLSTROM HIS j OWN LAWYER Salt Lake, Jan. 29. Joe Hillstrom,. i charged with the murder of J. G. Mor rison, the grocer slain in his store on South West Temple street the night I of January 10, was bound over to I the district oourt without bail by Harry S. Harper, justice of the peace, ( , late yesterday afternoon. j Circumstantial evidence tending to j show that Hillstrom was one of the two men who entered the little store j and without warning shot and killed I the grocer and his son, aged 17 years, Iwas introduced by the state. Hillstrom acted as his own attorney. attor-ney. He appeared without counsel and to repeated inquiries by the court as to whether he desired counsel, he replied that he had no lawyer and wanted none. Merlin Morrison, the younger boy who was in the store when his father fa-ther and brother were murdered, was i 1 the chief witness for the state. lie ' described the shooting in detail and said that one of the two men resem bled Hillstrom in general build and height He said ho heard the first 1 shot fired and turned in time to see I! the second shot, under which his fa- ther crumpled and fell over a sack i -of potatoes. : 1 The boy crouched down in the doorway leading to the back room r and watched the deadly fire. He told fj how his brother ran to the back of the storo and got his father's big I M army gun and began firing, and how I tt the assassins turned their weapons I , ,on the lad and silenced him with a I , volley that killed. Seven shots -in I' all were flred.he testified, adding I ' that the men, one nursing a wound In his chest, ran from the store less than a minute after they entered with weapons drawn. The Morrison boy was positive that the man, who he thought resembled r Hillstrom, carried a large black auto- Imatic revolver. The defendant, according ac-cording to the officers, has admitted '' having owned a black automatic re volver, but declared he threw it away on his way to Murray, ! Hillstrom cross-examined the boy ' and tried to make the witness admit I, that after looking at the defendant in the' county jail he had told the (officers Hillstrom was not one of the j assassins. Young Morrison insisted 'he had said no such thing, i j! Dr. Frank McHugh of Murray, L 1 ; whose information to the officers led to the arrest of Hillstrom, proved I an Important witness. The doctor B ' said that he had just retired about 11.30 o'clock the night of the murder when his door bell rang and Hillstrom Hill-strom came in seeking medical assistance. as-sistance. He bared his chest and revealed re-vealed an ugly wound In his left breast, ranging up and back. The doctor said he dressed the wound and that just as he finished the work Dr. Arthur Bird stopped in the office. of-fice. Bird offered to give Hillstrom a lift in his car and Hillstrom accepted, ac-cepted, being driven from the home of Dr. McHugh to the home of Esilus, where he was arrested the following day. Dr. Bird told the same story. Neither Nei-ther of the physicians would hazard an opinion as to the caliber of the bullet that wounded Hillstrom, but both said it Was from a large caliber gun. Dr. Bird said that while Hillstrom Hill-strom was putting on his clothes after af-ter having his wound dressed he noticed no-ticed a black automatic revolver in Hillstrom's pocket. When he was arrested Hillstrom had no gun. Detective Bert Seager testified that Hillstrom told him nt the county jail that he had thrown the gun out of the automobile while riding with Dr, Bird. Frank E. Seeley and Mrs. Seeley testified that just prior to the murder mur-der they mot two men near the Morrison Mor-rison store and the men crowded them Into the mud on the crossing. One of these men was of the same build as Hillstrom and both had red handkerchiefs around their necks, Seeley said. John E. Thompson, a boy living in on South West Temple street, said that he looked out of a street car window at the corner of Eighth South and West Temple street at 9:30 o'clock and saw two men running south. Each had a red handkerchief around his neck, the boy said. Mrs. Vera Hansen told of seeing a man run out of the' grocery storo at 9:30. This man, she said, was slightly doubled up and was holding his chest with his hands. The man -called out to someone whom she did not see. ;,Would you recognize that voice If you heard it again?" the witness waB asked. "I think T would. I heard a voice that sounded very much like it the next day," 3he replied. "Where was that?" "At the county Jail." "Whose voice did you hear at the county jail?" "This man's," the witness replied, pointing to Hillstrom. H. H. Hall, who lives at 2635 South State street, testified that he Baw a man closely resembling Hillstrom Hill-strom get on a State street car at the Denver & Rio Grande track crossing cross-ing below Twelfth South street at about 10:50 o'clock the night of the killing. The man boarded tho car at the front end and peered back through the car as though looking forj someone. Hall said that he noticed tho man's nose, which, he said, bears a marked resemblance to the nose of Hillstrom. Hall also thought the general gen-eral build of the man he saw corresponded corre-sponded to that of HIllBtrom. but he was not positive in his identification. |