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Mark Hopkinson

Active

1977–1979

Region

Evanston and Fort Bridger, Wyoming, USA

State

WY

Kind

Serial

Status

Executed

Victims

4

Mark Hopkinson, a Bridger Valley businessman, arranged the dynamite bombing of the Evanston, Wyoming, home of attorney Vincent Vehar on August 7, 1977, after a lawsuit over an unpaid sewer fee; Vehar, his wife Beverly and their son John were killed and another son was injured. In May 1979, while Hopkinson was in federal prison in California on a separate bomb-plot conviction, Jeff Green, a former associate expected to testify to a grand jury, was tortured and killed and left near Interstate 80 near Fort Bridger. A Wyoming jury convicted Hopkinson of all four murders in September 1979. He received life terms for the Vehars and death for Green, and was executed at the state penitentiary in Rawlins in 1992, still denying guilt.

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Victims

We remember the people whose lives were taken.

• Vincent Vehar, 67 · August 7, 1977

  An Evanston attorney who had represented the Fort Bridger Sewer Board.

• Beverly Vehar, 51 · August 7, 1977
• John Vehar, 18 · August 7, 1977
• Jeffrey Lynn Green · May 1979

  A former associate of Hopkinson who had become a witness against him.

Timeline of locations

1. August 7, 1977
   Vehar home, Evanston (Crime scene, approximate area)

   A dynamite bomb destroyed the Vehar home before dawn, killing Vincent, Beverly and John Vehar. Another son, Tony, survived.

2. March 1979
   Federal prison, Lompoc, California (Prison, approximate area)

   Hopkinson was serving a 10-year federal sentence at Lompoc when Green was killed; prosecutors used his phone calls from the prison against him.

3. May 20, 1979
   Near an I-80 rest stop, Fort Bridger (Recovery site, approximate area)

   Jeff Green disappeared around May 18, 1979; his body was found two days later near a rest stop off I-80.

4. January 22, 1992
   Wyoming State Penitentiary, Rawlins (Prison, approximate area)

   Hopkinson was executed by lethal injection here on January 22, 1992.

Sources

• Mark Hopkinson (Wikipedia)
• Hopkinson v. Shillinger, 866 F.2d 1185 (10th Cir. 1989) (Public.Resource.Org)
• If killer had pleaded guilty, his life would've been spared (Deseret News, January 22, 1992)
• Dave Simpson: One fascinating day in Jackson (Cowboy State Daily)

Each location also lists its own sources in the data file.