Twin Falls County ID Archives News.....VAN VLACK FACES NEW MURDER TRIAL January 2, 1936
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Christine Storey chrissy_7@q.com June 29, 2010, 8:54 pm

Twin Falls Daily News  Jan 2 1936 January 2, 1936
 Douglas Van Vlack of Tacoma, alleged slayer of his former wife and two police 
officers, today faces trial on two murder charges.
 He was held yesterday to answer in the district court on a charge of 
murdering his ex-wife, Mrs. Mildred Hook of Tacoma Washington. He is scheduled 
to go to trial in district court here January 20 on charge of murdering 
Fontaine Cooper, state traffic officer.
 Probate Judge Guy L. Kinney held Van Vlack on the second murder charge at the 
conclusion of a preliminary hearing here yesterday that lasted only a hour. 
During that time four witnesses testified of the discovery of the 22 year old 
woman's body in a railroad culvert south of here nearly a week after Van Vlack 
is alleged to have abducted her from Tacoma.
 Cooper was shot and killed when he stopped the pair near Buhl, Idaho, Henry 
C. Givens deputy sheriff, was shot at the same time and died several days 
later. Van Vlack was captured early next morning, November 26, as he lay 
exhausted in a roadside ditch.
 Cold and expressionless, without shifting his position throughout the 
preceedings while he watched the witnesses and listened intently to the 
testimony. Van Vlack heard without evidence of any trace of emotion the story 
of the discovery of his former wife's crushed and bullet torn body, frozen in 
the rail road culvert where he alledgedly had taken her after shooting the 
officers at Buhl.
 S. B. Elrod, chief of police of Twin Falls, told of his discovery of the 
young woman's body after following the footprints of a man and a woman for six 
miles through fields and sagebrush desert. The prints "side by side", were 
traced to the culvert, from where the man's continued south and where the 
woman's disappeared. The Man's footprints Elrod testified, were found at both 
ends of the culvert from which Miss Hook's body protruded.
 Sheriff E. F. Prater of Twin Falls county testified Van Vlack confessed he 
had killed his former wife after he was told of the discovery of her body.
 "He told me", the sheriff said, that they went into the culvert to get away 
from the cold; that he got out of the culvert first and that he shot her in 
the head as she was crawling out."
 Before then, the sheriff said he had maintained they had parted as good 
friends, to better his chances of his escape. The clothing on the dead woman's 
body, the sheriff said corresponded almost exactly to a discription given him 
by Van Vlack, before the body was found.
 Death was attributed by coroner Harwood L. Stowe to a blow on the head and a 
bullet wound through the head, either of which he testified would have been 
fatal, although not imediately.
 The fourth witness, Carl H. Groth, linotype operator for the Twin Falls News, 
testified concerning Van Vlack's surrender of a pistol when he was captured.
 E. V. Larson of Twin Falls, Van Vlack's attorney , made no request for a 
dismissal of the charges but questioned the police chief and the the sheriff 
on cross examination.
 The gun with which Van Vlack is alleged to have shot Miss Hook and the two 
officers figured in the testimony but was not shown in the court room 
yesterday.
 State's attorneys, Edward Babcock, prosecuting attorney, and J. W. Taylor, 
assistant attorney general, had only to show by evidence at the preliminary 
hearing yesterday that the crime alledged had been committed and that there 
was reason to believe the accused man had committed it.
 Approximately 100 persons occupied about one-half the available seats in the 
court room during the hour's proceedings.

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