Officer killed in 1913 to get a headstone

BINGHAM — Local historians call it the bloodiest episode in Utah law enforcement history.

In November 1913, Rafael Lopez, a traveling miner who was working in one of the Bingham Canyon mines at the time, killed five law enforcement officers and a civilian in one week before fleeing the state.

On Nov. 2, nearly 96 years after the slayings, one of those killed in the line of duty will have a permanent headstone placed in his honor in the Bingham Cemetery.

The string of officer killings started Nov. 21, 1913, when Bingham Marshal William J. Grant, along with Salt Lake County deputies George O. Witbeck and Nephi S. Jensen, went to Saratoga Springs to arrest Lopez, who was wanted for murder in Bingham Canyon. He had killed a man he thought was trying to steal his girlfriend.

The posse, however, was ambushed, and all three law enforcement officers were shot and killed. Eight days later, newly appointed sheriff's deputy James Hulsey, 39, and posse member Vaso Mandarich, 35, went to Bingham Canyon to arrest the shooter, who was believed to have holed up in the mine after returning to the mining community. While they were inside the mine attempting to light a fire to smoke the suspect out, they too were ambushed and shot to death.

Historians believe Lopez fled the state shortly after. He was killed in a shootout with Texas Rangers in 1921.

It is believed that all of the Utah law enforcement officers he killed were buried. But over the years, the grave site of Hulsey, who was not married and did not have any family in Utah, was forgotten and eventually vanished from the public record.

"He probably had a headstone at one time; it was probably wooden," said Robert Kirby, vice president and historian of the Utah Law Enforcement Memorial. "Over the years, he kind of fell into a black hole. No one really knows where he is buried. This particular guy was never lost to us, we just never knew where he was buried.

"A lot of these guys came into these mining camps, became police officers, got killed, had no family, so they put them in a hole with a wooden cross," Kirby said.

After researching the case and going through old records, Kirby and sheriff's deputy Randy Lish narrowed down Hulsey's final resting place to the Bingham City Cemetery. Mandarich also is buried there. Although they have a general idea where Hulsey's remains might be buried, based on the dates on other tombstones, his exact burial spot in the cemetery remains unknown.

Now, the sheriff's office will honor Hulsey on Nov. 2 with an honor guard, a 21-gun salute, a motor squad escort, a mounted posse escort and the placement of a permanent headstone.