A double homicide at the Egert Hotel

Hannah Gross
NLJ Correspondent 
With Leonard Cash, Historian
 
In this week’s installment of “History on Main,” Leonard Cash begins a new, two-part series on the Egert Hotel, located next to the Black Hills Dental building on 314 Stockade Ave. Today, it is an apartment building. 
A July 26, 1935, article in the News Letter Journal reported that owner Henry Egert was finishing the final pieces of construction before opening his hotel for business on Aug. 10. Cash said Egert always constructed his buildings without a foundation, including his hotel, laying timbers on the ground and nailing the building to them instead, adding that Egert also built the Chief Hotel. 
The Egert had 20 rooms with new furniture, rugs and drapes. Each room had electric conveniences, “which are found only in the largest hotels today.” The interior and exterior were designed in the Spanish type, and “every method possible is being used to obtain comfort” for the guests. A private telephone switchboard was also available for the guests. 
By Aug. 28, 1935, Egert transferred ownership to Tom Howell and his wife. 
Over two years later, the paper announced on Nov. 16, 1937, that Mr. and Mrs. Laurence D. Mason bought the “luxurious hotel” from the Howells, “who are among the county’s most prominent citizens.” The Masons came from Hot Springs, South Dakota, where he was a manager of the Evans Hotel for 12 years. Prior to that, he had been involved in a hotel business in Belle Fourche, South Dakota, so he was an experienced man. He and his wife had an 8-year-old son, Larry, when they moved
to Newcastle. 
A news report from July 13, 1939, reveals that Egert was building another hotel for $50,000. It was located in Custer, South Dakota, of a stucco Spanish type with 90-foot frontage. The building was to be entirely
air conditioned. 
The next article to appear in Cash’s records is Mason’s obituary, some several years later on July 3, 1952. Mason passed away suddenly on June 25 at Weston County Memorial Hospital of a stroke. The Rev. Kenneth Rice of First United Methodist Church officiated the funeral services, while the American Legion performed the graveside rites. 
Mason was born June 20, 1890, in Manchester, Iowa. He attended school and college in Iowa before homesteading near Harding, South Dakota. He was working in Belle Fourche when he married Marion Hedgis on Oct. 24, 1920. He was a World War I veteran, and during World War II, he served on Newcastle’s ration board. He was a member of the Masonic lodge in Hot Springs and the Congregational Church.
Business at the hotel started to heat up around Feb. 16, 1967, when William Ritchie Jr., who was about 23, was being held in Rapid City without bond on a warrant charging him with the first-degree murder of Egert Hotel owner Marion Mason, who was found dead with a bruised face on Feb. 12. The warrant was delivered by Weston County attorney Thomas L. Whitley, Sheriff Wilcox and Police Chief James Passons. The body of William E. Adams, 35, was also discovered that same Sunday afternoon in one of the
hotel rooms. 
Earl Scarry, a salesman from Colorado, came across Mason’s body when he entered the hotel with his wife to register. He contacted the Newcastle Police Department, believing her to have died of a heart attack. Willis Larson arrived on the scene, and when he, along with the assistant police chief, Earl Hopkins, was searching each room for clues, also found Adams on the
second floor. 
Mason’s room was torn up as if someone was looking for something, possibly indicating a robbery. The police were told that a young man paid $550 cash for a used car. Both bodies were taken to Cheyenne for an autopsy, and it was revealed that the victims had been strangled to death. 
Adams had been on his way to the VA hospital in Sheridan. His personal items were found in a trash can at the railroad depot in Newcastle. County coroner Don K. McColley scheduled an inquest for both murders, where a three-person coroner’s jury was used. It was reported that there were obvious signs of a struggle with Mason but not with Adams. Sherriff Wilcox noted that Adams had a medical history of spinal meningitis. 
Mason’s funeral services were pending until her son Larry came home from California to make the arrangements.
According to the Feb. 23, 1967, paper, it was revealed that Mason was most likely strangled with a belt or cord. The jury was composed of Don Boyer, Mike Koski and Wayne Grieves. It was speculated that Adams died Saturday afternoon, Feb. 11, and Mason died after midnight but before 5:30 a.m. on Sunday, because she had been seen at midnight but the suspect “showed up about 5:30 a.m. with a large roll
of bills.”
Another article from the same issue reported that the funeral for Mason was held at McColley’s and officiated by the Rev. Robert Morgan. Mason was born in Whitewood, South Dakota, where she attended school. That edition of the paper also announced that the hearing for Ritchie, the accused suspect, was postponed. 
On March 2, 1967, a report titled “William Ritchie Fights Extradition” said that Ritchie did not waive his extradition from South Dakota to Weston County, so his hearing was to be continued until March 15. Whitley submitted the extradition papers to Wyoming Gov. Stan Hathaway to return the accused party to
Weston County. 
The March 2, 1967, paper announced that the 21-room hotel was for sale and must be sold immediately.
By March 9, 1967, Hathaway sent the extradition papers to South Dakota Gov. Nils Boe.
According to an article from March 16, 1967, Pennington County Judge Marshall Young quashed a warrant used in the search of the car and motel room connected to Ritchie’s arrest because it was “improperly issued … without
probable cause.” 
The following issue reported that Ritchie filed a writ of habeus corpus in his battle against the extradition charges. The article noted that Boe signed the extradition papers for the Tuesday hearing, although Judge Young granted eight days for the defense attorney to file the writ. 
“An appeal is also planned by South Dakota state’s attorneys on a recent order in Rapid City scrapping evidence against Ritchie,” the article says.
However, defense attorney Don Shultz said that it was Wyoming’s responsibility to “admit the evidence in question,” regardless of the South Dakota ruling. 
On March 30, 1967, the paper announced that a hearing for the filed writ was set for Wednesday afternoon in Rapid City circuit court to test the legality of the papers signed by Boe due to the incorrect wording calling the defendant a “fugitive from justice from South Dakota, instead of Wyoming,” which the attorneys thought “fatal to the legality of the extradition warrant.” Deputy State Attorney Robert LaFleur said a corrected warrant would be expected
by hearing. 
More complications arose in this prolonged murder trial, and we will learn what happened to Ritchie in next
week’s issue.