Lawton News
Lawton, OK
3 Oct 1922, Tuesday, page 1

---

SLAYER OF FAXON
FARMER GIVES UP
TO LOCAL POLICE

———

Spent Night With a Friend
In Lawton View
Addition

———    Bill Muse, negro, who is alleged to have shot and killed Benton Hill, a farmer near Faxon Sunday afternoon gave himself up to Comanche county authorities yesterday morning and was held in jail in this city for several hours. After the fatal shooting, which is alleged to have occurred over Hill's refusal to pay for corn liquor that the negro had served at a poker game, Muse made his way to Lawton and to the home of a friend in the Lawton View addition, where he spent Sunday night.
   From the home of his friend Muse telephoned the sheriff's office and deputies immediately went to the address given and took him into custody. Great precaution was used in transporting the negro to the jail, as it was feared that he might become a victim of mob violence. Officers were very cautious in giving any information concerning the whereabouts of the negro but it is believed that he has been moved away from the Comanche county jail. According to information received today the officers conveyed the negro to the jail in the back of a car and had him hidden beneath a blanket.
   Hill, the victim of the attack, is said to have been participating in a poker game with several others, three and one half miles south of Faxon on a creek just across the line in Cotton county. Reports have it that Muse was sent out for some liquor and after making delivery the men refused to pay for the drinks. Muse is alleged to have got his gun and returned. Only one shot was fired, which passed through Hill's body, after which the negro fled and gradually worked his way into the city.
   Abner Benton Hill was thirty-nine years of age and is survived by his wife and six children. He died at the Southwestern Hospital in this city at eleven o'clock Sunday night. St. Clair's is in charge of the funeral arrangements. Burial will be made this afternoon in the Pecan cemetery.