First Lt. Benjamin Hilton, 25, a B-47 bomber pilot at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, left his wife and young son on an early November day in 1959 to go deer hunting near Sonoita. It's the last time they saw him alive.
His body was found the next day, in the snow-covered Canelo Hills. He'd been shot between the eyes at close range during what turned out to be a gunfight.
Local law enforcement questioned hunters in the area, performed ballistics tests on dozens of rifles, trying to match them to the various shell casings found near Hilton's body and gave lie detector tests to seven men, but none offered clues to who killed the officer.
Status
Santa Cruz County Sheriff Tony Estrada said his department is searching for the records from Hilton's homicide, but because the case is 50 years old, locating them is proving a challenge. In the 1970s, the department moved into a new building, and during the transition boxes of reports were shuffled around. However, Estrada said records for "major incidents like this would always be maintained."
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In their own words
Eric Hilton was 15 months old when his father was murdered. All he knows about the man he learned from family and friends.
Benjamin Hilton was an Indiana farm boy who graduated from Indiana University before joining the Air Force. He met his wife while stationed in Kansas. The couple moved to Tucson when Hilton was transferred to Davis-Monthan. He was preparing for an assignment in Guam when he was killed.
"He was an avid hunter and went deer hunting every season," Eric Hilton said. "He was scheduled to be back that same evening. When he didn't make it back my mom contacted his C.O. (commanding officer), and then the hunt was on. They didn't find him until the next day.
"Pilots are trained to survive, and my dad, being a very avid outdoorsman … wouldn't have let anybody walk up on him if he felt threatened, so he either knew him or didn't feel threatened by him. The way I heard it, there was a hell of a gunfight."
Hilton's wife never remarried. She and her son moved back and forth between Tucson and Kansas, where they had relatives.
"It would have been a lot different if I had had some time with him, I think. It bothers me that somebody's gotten away with it. There's never really been full closure," said Eric Hilton. "I think somebody out there, if they're still around, knows something."
Amber Padilla
