The Patriarch Hamilton Fletcher is murdered!

Hamilton Murdered!

WHO DUN IT?

Live from Hamilton with Arlo Wombatt

WOFI brings you to the Hamilton town Common and that roving reporter Arlo Wombatt.

ARLO WOMBATT: “This is Arlo Wombatt! We’re here live in downtown Hamilton, New Hampshire a mere few hours after the death of town patriarch Hamilton Fletcher. I have with me Hamilton Police Chief George Strickland. Chief what can you tell us?“

GEORGE STRICKLAND: “I can only say right now that Hamilton Fletcher was shot from behind in his first-floor study at the Fletcher mansion on Fletcher Hill.”

ARLO WOMBATT: ” I’m going to cut to the chase, Chief. Who shot Hamilton Fletcher?“

GEORGE STRICKLAND: “I’m not going to comment on that Arlo.”

ARLO WOMBATT: But you do have suspects?“

GEORGE STRICKLAND: “Yes.”

ARLO WOMBATT: “Hamilton had a lot of enemies.”

GEORGE STRICKLAND: “Arlo, that is the understatement of the year.”

ARLO WOMBATT: “Doesn’t make your job any easier, Chief.”

GEORGE STRICKLAND: “It’s not the number of people who wanted to get at Hamilton. Better to focus on who had the means, the motive and the opportunity.”

Hamilton Fletcher’s death makes sense. The list of people whose lives have been squelched, stomped, and squished by Hamilton Fletcher is boundless.

JC Gatlin tells us of his ten motives for murder. With Hamilton Fletcher’s death there had to be a motive.

To hide a secret, greed, revenge, obsession, frustration and hate, love, sex and jealousy, crime of passion, psychosis and mental disorders, to protect personal status, to protect a loved one, and empathy or sympathy.

Alex Harmon: Groundskeeper who was not paid and is fired by Hamilton. Seen leaving the scene of the murder on his motorcycle.

Malcolm Hayes : Company Controller: Made the Fletcher economic machine run smoothly for years-no thanks from Hamilton or extra monetary compensation. How upset was dear Malcolm Hayes?

Anna Fletcher: Flirty daughter of Hamilton Fletcher. Shafted by her father concerning funding a restaurant on the West Coast. Anna never got along with dear old dad.

We definitely have greed, frustration and hate. Even a crime of passion.

CH-1 Before the murder.

What real and unreal characters have specific motives for murder?

(From Nancy Bowers’s Iowa Unsolved Murders and Historic cases.)

-A US Cavalry man struck with an axe in 1866 because of an argument.

-Silas McCart (1860) stabbed because of a political disagreement.

–A coal miner in 1894 surprise surprise shot to death because of jealousy over a woman.

–Allan F. Shoemaker (1925) Gunshot as he tried to avoid arrest.

-George Diggle in 1888 killed by alcohol and morphine OD. His wife wanted him out of the way.

-1869 Jesse Wilkerson. Motive for death: Bullying by kicking.

-Oliver Pierson pushed from a great height. And what was the motive? Business quarrel.

-A con woman was strangled because she was hiding illegal activities.

-Dr. Swisher had a secret from the past. So, in 1898 he was shot dead.

–This man Nathaniel Carnagy bludgeoned to death. Motive: None. It was in a drunken rage.

-Let’s get rid of the husband. (Edwin F. Hodges) Motive: To get a wife! Method was poison and the year was 1869.

“Fred” Quade- Gunshot-1897- Family Quarrel. Jeremiah Rummell Zollinger was bludgeoned to death in 1897 because someone bore Zollinger a grudge from the time he served as Deputy and then Sheriff of Jasper County.

Jones and Strickland begin accumulating clues but they have no killer. Then the larger picture comes into view when the killer directly confronts Jones. In the end the question arises as to who gets Hamilton Fletcher’s estate. With everyone champing at the bit a shocking conclusion where everything changes. The motive for Hamilton Fletcher’s death was quite simple.

CH-3-Hamilton is dead

Robert P. Fitton

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