Stephen Vanrensselear Hotchkiss, 27, was shot and killed inside a trailer in Corrales, New Mexico, on November 18, 1974. His wife, Terri Hotchkiss, told authorities she acted in self-defense after he allegedly attacked her with a lead-filled homemade blackjack; she reported severe injuries and required hospitalization. A deputy at the scene described bullet holes and casings scattered throughout the trailer.

The Sandoval County grand jury reviewed the case and declined to indict, ruling the shooting a justifiable homicide; no prosecution followed. Decades later the 1974 shooting resurfaced during a separate murder trial involving Terri, then known as Terri Gilbert, but the jury in that later case was only told she had once fired a handgun in self-defense. No other arrests or suspects have ever been named in Stephen Hotchkiss’s death.