Tombstone Epitaph

POLICE WORKING ON MYSTERY SURROUNDING KILLING OF HOCTOR

PHOENIX, Feb. 1.—Late tonight, a man, a woman and a revolver were the three factors on which officers were centering their search in their effort to establish the facts in the fatal shooting affray ten miles southeast of Hot Springs Junction yesterday, in which Frank Hoctor, wealthy sheep man of Springerville, met his death.

J. D. Newman of Winslow and Flagstaff, also a prominent and wealthy sheepman, who brought Hoctor's body to Glendale and then gave himself up to the authorities, asserted that when they met in their automobiles on the desert road, Hoctor opened fire first with a heavy caliber revolver before he, Newman, pulled the trigger of his .30-30 rifle. The revolver, the officers are making every effort to find, though so far without result, while they also have been unable to trace the man and woman who, Newman says, helped him lift Hoctor into the automobile in which Hoctor is said to have died on the road to Glendale.

County Attorney L. M. Laney announced late today that he would take no action until tomorrow toward swearing to an information against Newman, who is being detained here.

Sheriff John Montgomery stated tonight that a post mortem examination of Hoctor's body would be held. Coroner's jury returned a verdict to the effect that Hoctor came to his death as the result of gunshot wounds inflicted by a weapon in the hands of Newman.

Newman is a brother of former Sheriff Newman of Navajo county.

Hoctor is survived by a wife and 2 daughter, Lucille, 11 years of age, residing for the winter in this city.