CU FILM SHOWCASING FAMOUS LEGAL

MYSTERY TO BE SHOWN ON CAMPUS JUNE 18

The identity of a man killed 130 years ago was immediately called into question,
generated two exhumations, six separate trials and two rulings of the U.S. Supreme
Court, one of them a landmark decision on admissible forms of evidence.

But the dead man's name remained a mystery until a dogged University of Colorado
law professor and a colorful CU-Boulder anthropologist teamed up to crack the
case. Ernesto Acevedo-Munoz, an associate professor of film studies, and 10 CU
film studies students made a film of the forensic sleuthing that will be publicly
screened for the first time on June 18.

The 55-minute film will be shown at 7 p.m. in room 100 of the ATLAS building,
located just north of the Euclid Avenue Autopark on the CU campus. The event is
free and open to the public.

In 1879, John Hillmon left his home and wife in Lawrence, Kan., to look for land
for a cattle ranch. Hillmon's traveling companion, John Brown, later returned to
say he had accidentally shot Hillmon. Widow Sadie Hillmon claimed the deceased's
$25,000 life insurance policy.

The insurance company balked, and the body was exhumed to verify that the grave's
occupant was Hillmon. The insurance company argued that it was not. The insurance
company theorized that Hillmon and Brown had conspired to kill another man,
Frederick Adolph Walters, to depict Walters' body as Hillmon's, and then to
collect the money.

A key piece of evidence in the case was a letter from Walters to his fiancé in
which Walters mentioned that he was traveling with Hillmon and was soon to come
into a great sum of money.

In the third trial, the judge suppressed that evidence, ruling that it was
hearsay, which is generally inadmissible. Hearing that case on appeal, the
nation's high court then crafted an exception for the hearsay restriction when
hearsay was deemed to indicate a person's "state of mind."

Marianne Wesson, a CU law professor, has been captivated by the case, in part
because she questions the "state of mind" exception to the hearsay rule. She
petitioned for the right to exhume the corpse, and she recruited anthropology
Professor Dennis Van Gerven, a widely known forensic anthropologist, to lead the
exhumation. For DNA extraction and analysis, the team relied on Ken Krauter and
Helen Marshall, a professor and researcher, respectively, in CU's department of
molecular, cellular and developmental biology.

In May 2006, Wesson, Van Gerven, Acevedo-Munoz and his film crew went to the grave
in Lawrence and got to work. The results were initially discouraging, but Van
Gerven was later reported to have had a "eureka moment," declaring with confidence
that the man buried in Hillmon's grave was, in fact, Hillmon.

In addition to the 10 students from film studies, students from anthropology and
law also collaborated on the film. Wesson, Van Gerven and Acevedo-Munez will
attend the screening and answer questions.

ATLAS is a CU-Boulder institute for undergraduate, graduate and outreach programs

that supports technology education for people and programs that traditionally do
not have access to equipment and resources.
For information on other events on campus, visit the CU-Boulder Events Calendar at
http://www.colorado.edu/events.