Deputy Sheriff Otto Witbeck

Otto Witbeck

Deputy Witbeck, Deputy Nephi Jensen, Deputy Thomas Manderich, Deputy J. Douglas Hulsey, and Chief J.W. Grant, of the Bingham City Police Department, were shot and killed while attempting to apprehend a murder suspect.

Four Salt Lake County Sheriff's Deputies and the Bingham City police chief were killed while attempting to arrest a miner who had just murdered another man during a dispute over a woman in a dance hall. After shooting the man, the suspect fled to Saratoga Springs, where he set up an ambush in an irrigation ditch for the officers who were following him.

As Chief Grant and Deputy Jensen rode into the field the suspect opened fire, fatally wounding them both. Two other deputies heard the shots and immediately rode to the area. The suspect opened fire on them as well, fatally wounding Deputy Witbeck. As the fourth deputy assisted the wounded officers the suspect escaped into the nearby mountains.

Officers converged on the area and finally tracked the suspect back to Bingham where they located the man hiding in a mine. The deputies decided to smoke the suspect out and began positioning bails of hay in the mine to set them on fire. As they did so, the suspect opened fire on Deputy Manderich and Deputy Hulsey, killing them both. The suspect somehow escaped from the mine and fled the scene. He remained at large until 1921 when he was shot and killed near Del Rio, Texas, by a Texas Ranger conducting a smuggling investigation.