The Christmas Presents Murder

Aged sixty-two, all Allen Presley wanted was to live out his life in peace at a small place about twenty miles east of Wenatchee, Washington. Selfish and cruel greed stole that from him shortly before Christmas of 1927. Some news reports would describe Presley, a lifetime bachelor, as a “recluse.” However, while he did avoid crowds and had only a small circle of close friends, he was widely known in the region. After he was murdered, an acquaintance in Clarkston, Washington took steps to insure that Presley was buried in Tennessee near where he grew up.

Presley was born in Loudon County, Tennessee, about thirty miles southwest of Knoxville. He moved to Douglas County, Washington in the early 1890s, about the time the Great Northern Railway laid tracks through the region. In 1899, he claimed a homestead on the high wheat-growing plains northeast of Wenatchee. Twelve years later, he claimed more land next to his first plot.

Coincidentally, just a few months earlier, Arthur “Art” Woodin, a man who would figure in Presley’s future, claimed wheat acreage only fourteen miles to the north. The Woodin family had moved to Douglas County in 1909, when the Great Northern ran a branch line through the heart of the wheat country. In September of that year, Arthur’s older brother Thomas, age 29, married Viola Thompson. A couple weeks later, Arthur, age 22, married Viola’s sister Lillian.

By 1920, Thomas and Viola had a brood of six children, including James Earl. Thomas had a farm, but that apparently did not work out. He drove a delivery truck for a time, but scrambled to find steady work. Arthur and Lillian had three children, and he was working for a wholesale grain company. He would eventually be promoted to a manager’s position with the firm.

Meanwhile, some time in the early Twenties, Allen Presley decided to take it easy. Reports do not say whether he sold his land or leased it. Either way, he had enough for his simple needs so he moved down off the high plains. His cabin was a few hundred yards from McCue station on the Great Northern branch rail line. From there, he could easily travel to nearby Palisades or into Wenatchee.

Steam Train at Palisades. Washington Heritage Register.

In December of 1927, Art Woodin was apparently at McCue station regularly. (News reports don’t say why, but he was probably traveling by rail from Waterville to Wenatchee and back.) During the week before Christmas, he realized he hadn’t seen Presley around for several days. Even with the freezing temperatures, normal for this time of year, it was unlike the old man to stay cooped up that long.

Thus, on Wednesday morning, Art stopped by Presley’s cabin. Inside under a cot, he found the Tennessean’s body. The corpse was stiff, not just from rigor mortis, but from the frigid cold. Robbery seemed to have been the motive, since the victim’s pockets were turned out and the cabin had been ransacked.

A medical examiner concluded that a small-caliber gunshot to the eye had killed him. However, he also observed severe trauma from a heavy blow to the same wound area. At the crime scene, investigators had found a stick of firewood with a splotch of blood and perhaps hair on its surface. Thus, the sheriff surmised that Presley might have been clubbed, and then shot to make sure he was dead.

McCue was only a tiny hamlet (it’s totally gone now). Interviews quickly established that the last person seen anywhere near the Presley place was Art’s seventeen-year-old nephew James. The previous Friday, he had been hunting rabbits in the hills during the day. He left after a while, but came back on a late-afternoon train. After walking toward the Presley place, he returned to the train shortly after 6:30.

When questioned, “Jim” made a token denial, but then admitted that he had, indeed, killed the old man. Earlier in the day, he had given Presley a couple of rabbits he had shot. He went back, he said, to leave his .22-caliber rifle at the cabin. Why was unclear, but he perhaps said he did not want to carry it back and forth. Jim claimed the rifle “went off” as he handed it over. In a panic after this “accident,” he had shoved the body under the cot and hurried back to the train.

Authorities then confronted him with the other damning evidence they had collected: The forceful blow to Presley’s head, obvious signs of robbery, and the fact that James had afterwards gone on a shopping spree in Wenatchee. The boy finally confessed that he had murdered the old man and used the money he stole to buy Christmas presents for his girlfriend.

James later repudiated the confession, but the evidence remained. About ten days before the boy’s trial was to begin, the Douglas County sheriff and prosecuting attorney traveled to Seattle to consult with criminologist Luke S. May. (It’s unclear if they had sent the physical evidence ahead or carried the items with them.) Some of May’s results were fairly routine. He verified that the death bullet and a shell casing found at the crime scene had come from the youth’s rifle. Embedded in the surface of the firewood, May detected human blood and distinctive eyebrow hairs that closely matched those of the victim.

However, one finding changed the crime reconstruction a bit. May also detected unburned grains of powder, similar to those found on the body, intermixed with the blood and hair on the wood surface. That is, Woodin had first shot the old man, at close range, and then fractured his skull to make sure. Knowledgeable observers suggested that such a brutal action might help Woodin’s court-appointed defense attorney with an insanity plea.

But about the best hope for the defense was the fact that “Jimmy” had never been in trouble before and was “generally regarded as a good boy in the community.” They did manage to avoid a death penalty, but James Earl Woodin received a life prison sentence. He was, however, released after a little over twelve years in prison, which seems odd, given the brutal and senseless nature of the crime. Woodin registered for the draft in Portland, Oregon, on December 26, 1940, but never entered any branch of the service.
                                                                                

References: Paula Becker, “Douglas County – Thumbnail History,” Online Encyclopedia of Washington State History, HistoryLink.org, Seattle, Washington  (October 15, 2006).

Luke S. May, Crime’s Nemesis, The Macmillan Company, New York (1936).

Luke S. May, Luke S. May Papers, Special Collections, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington (1969).

Gary Neumann, ed., Washington Heritage Register: Palisades Store, Department of Archæology and Historic Preservation, Olympia, Washington (2017).

“[Presley Murder News],” Spokesman-Review, Spokane, Olympian, Olympia, Washington; The Oregonian, Portland; Sweetwater News, Tennessee  (December 22, 1927).

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Murder of Grocer Edmund Hines

October 2, 1931 was a routine Friday for Salt Lake City grocer Edmund Hines and his wife Lottie. As usual, Edmund had begun the morning by withdrawing $500 to cash paychecks for the women who worked at a big laundry around the corner. After the lunchtime rush, his daughter-in-law drove him downtown to deposit the checks while Lottie minded the store. Tomorrow would be Edmund’s seventy-third birthday; the family would need to do something nice for him.

Edmund returned not long after 2 o’clock. Since he’d skipped lunch, Lottie said she’d get something from their home next door and they could have a late snack together. As she headed home, she saw two young men, both dressed in “light corduroy trousers,” coming up the street. She hadn’t been inside very long when she heard a bang. Thinking it was just an engine backfire, she continued putting their snack together.

Within a minute or two, Edmund stumbled through the front door, his chest and neck covered with blood. He gasped out, “Mama, I’m done for,” and then “Mama, I’m dying.” He was unable to say anything else before he collapsed at her feet and died. After some frantic moments, the police were called and she calmed down enough to tell what little she knew.

News reports do not mention any blood evidence inside the store, but police did find a glass soda bottle with blood and/or hair on it. They took that back to headquarters to be examined for fingerprints. A neighbor lady had seen two men jump her fence and run west from the store right after the shot. They fit the description Lottie gave, but the neighbor didn’t really get a good look at them.

An autopsy revealed that Edmund had suffered a severe head injury, which police assumed was inflicted by the soda bottle. But he had died from a bullet that hit him near the right shoulder blade and exited the left side of his neck. Police learned that Hines kept a gun in a drawer near the back of the store. They figured he had turned to get the weapon when he was shot. They supposedly searched for the fatal bullet but found nothing.

Feelings ran high about the murder, for the Hines Cash Store had been a fixture in the neighborhood for a decade. Born in Vermont, Edmund moved to Salt Lake around 1888, when he was thirty years old. He opened a wholesale grocery business and, in 1896, married a local girl, Charlotte “Lottie” Lewis. Around 1917, he sold the firm and the family spent perhaps a year in California.

But then they returned and Edmund worked for a meat packing company for several years. Around 1921 or 1922, he opened his grocery store a mile or so east of downtown. He was well-liked for his genial nature and public-spirited actions. Pupils from the elementary school across the street often came in to buy candy or fruit, or to have lunch at the small counter Mama Hines  served in the back. Thus, news reports noted that 700 children paraded over to pay their last respects before the grocer’s body went to the Roman Catholic church for his funeral.

Spurred by local outrage, police assigned extra officers to the case and “fifty suspects were apprehended and questioned.” Authorities held several for further investigation, but most were soon released.

Oddly enough, Edmund’s oldest son, Gerald, made what turned out to be a crucial break in the case. He was in the store on Sunday, probably cleaning up. Aged about 32, he then had a job with the state of Utah and was perhaps assessing how to sell the store. In any case, he found an empty shell casing. (How police investigators missed this vital piece of evidence is a mystery.)

The standard markings on the shell provided some information, but police turned to criminologist Luke S. May for more. A spokesman told reporters what they had learned in time for their Monday editions. The murder weapon was a .32-caliber Remington automatic pistol, a somewhat unusual model of pocket weapon. He also parroted what May always said and taught: A firearms expert could examine the shell and testify that it had been fired by a specific weapon.

In a city the size of Salt Lake, police regularly made arrests of young men for various suspected crimes. Over the next two months, those who even vaguely fit the description of the Hines attackers were also grilled about that. Unfortunately, no new leads appeared.

Officials thought they had something in mid-November when they arrested a small gang of burglars, aged 19 and 20. Among their loot, police found two .32-caliber automatic pistols. Test shells were collected from each and referred to May, but neither were the right gun. In mid-December, officials extradited a youthful burglary suspect from California. They had some hope that he might have been involved in the Hines case, but that too failed to pan out.

Finally, the Salt Lake Tribune for December 28 ran the headline, “Youth Tells of Hines Murder.” The suspect was 20-year-old Conrad Hansen. Police asserted that he had been arrested for “a series of street car holdups.” During interrogation, officials said, Hansen admitted that he was one of two men involved in the attempted robbery and subsequent murder.

Conrad Hansen.
Salt Lake Tribune photo.

Officials were more forthcoming for the next day’s editions. Actually, “another youth” had fingered the two men. The ring-leader had been 19-year-old Grant Tice, and Hansen claimed that Tice had fired the fatal shot.

Reporters learned who the informant was some time in the following week or two. His name was David F. Silver and he was about 18 years old. The tragedy actually began in late September. Tice tried to get Silver to join him and Hansen to rob the Hines grocery. Tice even went so far as to case the store and preferred escape route from a stolen car … so his own wouldn’t be seen in the area. Even so, Silver refused because Hines knew him personally. He did, however, loan Tice his .32-caliber Remington automatic pistol for Hansen to use. When Tice returned the weapon, he told Silver how the robbery had gone wrong.

Rather than being intimidated by their guns, Edmund had cracked Hansen on the head with the soda bottle. Hansen had then slugged the grocer with his gun. Edmund turned to run and Hansen shot him. Tice also tried to get off a shot, but Hansen was in the line of fire.

At first, Silver simply cleaned the Remington and stored it away. He and Tice began to worry when police named the model and said they would be able to identify the specific pistol. The continuing arrests and interrogations finally led them to toss the weapon and extra ammunition into the Jordan River, on the west side of the city. (Authorities would search the stretch where Silver said they had thrown it, but never found the gun.)

Then the on-going pressure led Hansen and Tice to leave Salt Lake at the end of October. They traveled south together, but split up in Texas. Hansen claimed they rejoined briefly in Pueblo, Colorado, around Thanksgiving. From there, Tice supposedly went “East” in search of his family, while Hansen returned to Salt Lake.

Very little is known about Grant Tice, alias Grant Hamilton, alias Grant Clark. He claimed to have been born in Michigan around 1914, but neither assertion can be verified. News reports said his mother lived for some time in Salt Lake, but do not say when. We have no idea where he was for about seven weeks after Hansen saw him in Pueblo.

Grant Tice.
Salt Lake Tribune photo.

Conrad Hansen was born around 1912 in Salt Lake City, where his father was a tailor. His name does not appear in the news prior to the Hines shooting. In any case, Conrad was most likely back in Salt Lake in early December.

At that time, David Silver was in jail, serving a six-month term for petty larceny (reduced from an armed robbery charge). At some point, the grapevine surely told him that Hansen was back in town. When officials extradited the possible Hines murder suspect back to Utah, he also knew that they still hadn’t given up on the case. Facing another five months behind bars, Silver apparently “cut a deal” for an early release. Police investigated the story he told and then arrested Hansen.

Authorities soon indicted Hansen for first degree murder, and issued a warrant for the arrest of Grant Tice on the same charge. His mother, previously known in Salt Lake as Nellie Hamilton, was traced to Long Beach, California. (Probably by Luke May’s agents or affiliates, but we can’t tell from news reports.) Tice was arrested at her home on January 18, 1932 and he was back in Salt Lake within a week.

Trials for the two young men were scheduled for late April. By this time, officials had confirmed that Hansen fired the fatal shot. Defense attorneys surely explained to him that a conviction for first degree murder could end in a death sentence. Thus, on Monday April 25, Hansen pled guilty to second degree murder, knowing that he would most likely receive a life sentence. Tice had refused a plea deal similar to Hansen’s, so opening statements for his trial began two days later.

Tice perhaps figured there was no danger of a death penalty, since he had not even fired a shot. News reports did not provide details of the prosecutor’s opening arguments. Still, we can easily imagine the tone: Hansen had fired the fatal bullet, but Tice was clearly the instigator of their foul plot. He planned the deed and even provided the weapon Hansen used for the “callous” murder of a beloved old man. Faced with this portrait of himself as the “evil mastermind” behind the killing, Tice abruptly “sought and obtained permission to plead guilty to a charge of second degree murder.”

Hansen and Tice both received life sentences. However, despite protests from members of the Hines family, those were later commuted to 25-year terms. The parole board freed Tice as of May 2, 1941 and Hansen about a year later. Hansen signed up for the draft after his release, but Tice (under whatever name he chose to use) disappeared from available public records.
                                                                                

References: “[Edmund G. Hines Murder Investigations],” Salt Lake Telegram, Salt Lake Tribune, Deseret News, Salt Lake City, Utah; Riverside Daily Press, California (October 3 – December 30, 1931).

Luke S. May, Luke S. May Papers, Special Collections, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington (1969).

“[Trial and Afterwards for Hines Murder],” Standard-Examiner, Ogden, Salt Lake Telegram, Salt Lake Tribune, Utah; Evening Tribune, San Diego, California (January 1932 – May 1941).

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