From The Colville Examiner
Stevens County, Washington
29 March, 1919

SUNDAY FIGHT ENDS IN DEATH
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STRUGGLE NEAR GIFFORD HAS
TRAGIC ENDING -- BODY OF
GILLILAND HERE
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C. M. Hatch Faces Charge of first
Degree Murder -- To Be Tried
During May Jury Term
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   C. M. Hatch, the alleged slayer of John M. Gilliland in a fight near Gifford Sunday afternoon, will face trial for first degree murder during the jury term in May. Information charging him with the crime was filed by Prosecuting Attorney O. W. Noble Wednesday. The prisoner, who is 38 years of age and has a wife and four children at Bissell, seemed calm and undisturbed on the night of the arrest. He remarked several times that if he had wanted to kill Gilliland, he could have done so with a shot from the loaded revolver and that he only wanted to fix him “so he couldn’t go home and get a rifle to get my wife and me too.”
   The fight, which ended so tragically, took place in the road north of Bissell, not far from the home of H. T. Reynolds, former county commissioner. About three o’clock in the afternoon, accoding to witnesses, Hatch, who was accompnied by his dog, a great Dane, which he had recently purchased, met Gilliland in the road where he was in conversation with Reynolds. Cecil and Herman, neighbors, were sitting in their buggy and Hatch came up to talk to them. The dog walked over toward Gilliland and looked at him and Gilliland told Hatch that he knew the dog was purchased to eat him, and said he had been told so by honest men.
   Hatch denied this, and with some remark about knowing what to do with “man-eating dogs,” witnesses state that Gilliland fired three shots at the animal with a long-barreled Smith and Wesson revolver, the third shot killing him.
   “I will make you pay for this if you are worth it,” said Hatch, according to those standing nearby. Gilliland replied that he was worth it and Hatch demanded that he put his gun aside. Gilliland dropped his gun and the fight began. Bystanders did not interfere because they thought their lives in danger if shooting should commence. Mr. Reynolds had gone into the house when the battle began; the Huffman boys had driven towards home, and Michael Moore, who was milking cows across the road about twenty rods away, was the only witness to the close of the struggle.
   It is said the fight lasted ten or fifteen minutes and Moore saw Hatch standing over the prostrate body of Gilliland, striking him with a dark object held in his hand. Hatch left Gilliland groaning in the middle of the road and went to the home of H. T. Reynolds, where he washed the blood from his face and from the revolver. He returned and looked at Gilliland before going to his home, where he reamined until J. E. Walkers, deputy sheriff from [Hunters], placed him under arrest and took him to Gifford to meet Sheriff W. H. Graham of Colville on Monday. Hatch said he did not know until the next morning that Gilliland had died.
   Al Fobes, Moore, Reynolds and William Cameron found Gilliland dead in the middle of the road at about 4:30 that afternoon. He had received a number of hard blows on the head, one of which had resulted in an ugly, deep scalp wound. Prosecuting Attorney Noble, Sheriff W. H. Graham, Coroner J. C. Rigg and Miss Ethel Foley, county stenographer arrived Monday afternoon and an inquest was held. A post mortem took place Tuesday. The body was taken to the McCord undertaking parlors in Colville, awaiting advice from a brother L. J. Gilliland of Kansas City, Missouri. Mr. Gilliland arrived last night to make arrangements for shipping the body east.
   S. A. Oens of Gifford, who has lived near Gilliland for twenty years, was in Colville Thursday. The Oens and Gilliland families drove from the Black Hills to Gifford together in 1899, as pioneers in that district. Mr. Oens said that he always had found Gilliland a quiet and peaceful man during their many years of friendship. Gilliland was sixty years of age.
   The trouble between Hatch and Gilliland had covered a period of years. In July, 1917, a charge of assault in the third degree was made by Hatch against Gilliland, the complaint stating that the defendant had drawn a loaded revolver on Hatch with intent to kill. The case was later dropped, investigation showing that there was not grounds for such action. Most of the difficulty appears to have been over fences, stock, etc. The two men lived about a mile apart, Gilliland on a rented place.

-- transcription by Kate Maynard, 2010