NOTE: Although the following aricles list different addresesses to the Wichita Coin Shop~~The address in the 1969 Wichita Directory is 149 N. Broadway

COIN DEALER ~ JACK HAZELWOOD ~ DISAPPEARS

HAZELWOOD SAGA STILL MYSTERIOUS

Jack Hazelwood disappeared seven years ago, along with $100,000 in gold and silver coins. Some think much more.

His story has the makings of a legend.

Most thought him a successful Wichita coin dealer and described him as strictly a family man. In appearance he was. He even boasted that he wanted to retire at 34 as a millionaire.

At age 32, on Nov. 1, 1969, Hazelwood vanished. Left behind were a wife and four children, numerous debts, fraudulent deals and missing coins.

The disappearance, shrouded in mystery, has led authorities to the Far East, South America, Canada, the Philippines and places too numerous to mention.

Yet police have failed. Jackie D. Hazelwood remains on the books as a missing person. His case gathers little more than dust.

Nothing has been proven. No charges have been filed. And now, after seven years, his family has made no attempt to have him declared legally dead, according to Probate Court Judge Clark Owens.

But Harley Puckett, the Wichita detective who for so many months followed a man's trail that led nowhere, has his own suspicions.

"Personally, I think he skipped," said Puckett, who now is retired from the police force and has his own coin shop.

"We did everything we could think of," Puckett said. "He had it planned."

It started long before that Sunday when Hazelwood's wife, Joyce, entered the Wichita Stamp and Coin Co., 419 S. Broadway, to find it ransacked and her husband gone.

Evidence shows that it began at least three months before, Puckett said. The plan allegedly involved the shipping of coins, planting of bogus contracts and the plotting of his own kidnaping.

Puckett had known Hazelwood since 1960.

Hazelwood was "strictly a family man" who didn't smoke, drink, dress flashy or have a girlfriend on the side.

"He didn't do anything out of the ordinary," Puckett said. "If he did anything out of hand, he kept it to himself. He didn't do it in public."

But Hazelwood, a smart man and hard worker, wanted money, Puckett said. "He was out for all he could get, as far as he was a businessman."

At the time he disappeared, Hazelwood was connected with 22 businesses outside of Wichita in at least Missouri, Oklahoma and Kansas, Puckett said.

He was owner of Wichita Coin and Stamp Co. and the Spartan Coin and Stamp Co. and was president of HZD Enterprises Inc., all primarily in his two-story building on south Broadway.

HZD Enterprises, then the largest nationwide wholesale coin business in the country, also operated offices in Salina, Kan., and Tulsa.

But that wasn't enough for the man who said he wanted to retire as a millionaire. Hazelwood became an agent for Bankers Investment Co. (BIC) of Hutchinson, Kan.

As an agent for BIC, Hazelwood negotiated loans nation-wide and accepted privately owned coin collections as collateral.

Collections grew to about $1 million before his diappearance. They were stored in two vaults at Southwestern National Bank, 400 E. Douglas.

Individuals were calling and paying commissions to Hazelwood to have him as their agent for buying coins.

Business seemed to be booming. On July 18, Hazelwood purchased a 1961 Beechcraft model A33 aircraft.

However, looks were deceiving.

Several months earlier, in August, Hazelwood approached a Wichita real estate broker to have his coin shop put on the selling block, police later determined.

The broker told authorities that he had received an offer of $50,000 for the structure but that Hazelwood had turned it down and instead placed a $75,000 price tag on the property.

Court records of civil suits filed after his disappearance showed that Hazelwood had borrowed large sums of money, through the use of promisory notes, from banks and lending institutions.

At least one note was for more than $9,000.

Police later uncovered "several bogus contracts," Puckett said, although all were not necessairly connected with coins. The former detective refused to elaborate.

But Puckett said a coin dealer could use bogus contracts to collect large sums of money before the lending institutions would find out.

Employes at Hazelwood's coin shop on south Broadway also noticed for some time that coins were disappearing overnight, Puckett said. Hazelwood explained to them that he was shipping coins out during late night work.

On Friday, the day before he disappeared, Hazelwood picked up a shipment of coins from Tulsa.

At 8:30 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 1, Jack Hazelwood left his home---for good.

He drove away in a car, with a packed suitcase, scheduled to go to a coin and stamp show in Oklahoma City.

Early that morning, he went to the then Municipal Airport and signed for a shipment of coins that arrived air freight.

About 10 a.m., Puckett said, Hazelwood stopped at the residence of another Wichita coin dealer to try to sell some coins.

In the afternoon, someone identifying himself as Hazelwood contacted a local burglary alarm company and aid he would be working late at his coin store.

But at 7:31 that night, police records show, the shop's burglar alarm was turned on and all doors were locked.

Two hours later, a man picked up a second shipment of coins at the airport. But this man, identified through photographs and handwriting analysis as Hazelwood, wore a small mustache.

Lights glared inside Wichita's main post office at Main and Third streets.

About 10:30, a man opened a door and walked in. He asked about a shipment of coins, but the shipment hadn't arrived.

The man couldn't wait. He walked out and was never seen again.

Neither was nearly $100,000 from the three shipments.

Sunday dawned. Joyce Hazelwood was a little concerned. She had been informed that her husband had not shown up at the coin and stamp show in Oklahoma City.

On an impulse, Puckett said, Mrs. Hazelwood went to the shop. No one was there.

Hazelwood's car and a suitcase he had packed for the trip were found in an enclosed garage at the rear of the coin shop.

The shop had been ransacked; two safes and some display cabinets were looted---but only of the most valuable coins. Police found no evidence of forced entry. Inside there were Hazelwood's torn shirt, a tie, his shoe, a smoking pipe and a piece of rope.

On the floor were two bullet casings.

The worst was feared---Hazelwood had been robbed and kidnaped. Only no one knew by whom or where they would have taken him.

"As far as his being kidnaped," Puckett said, "we put him out at the airport by himself and put him in the Wichita Post Office at 10:30 p.m.

"We never could come up with anything that would indicate that he had been helped," Puckett said. "We couldn't ever come up with anything."

Puckett thinks the bullet casings found at the scene, the ransacked shop an the looted safes were "more of the act.....to make it look good."

A contract found on the counter in the store indicated that a Wichita businessman had hired Hazelwood as broker for the shipments of coins picked up at the airport, but the contract was bogus.

"He didn't need that contract to bring in the coins," Puckett said. "The contract there was put out as one of his dodges to make it look good."

But no one---not even Puckett---can ever really be sure what happened that night.

Fifteen detectives immediately were assigned to the case. Puckett was called out the first night because of his long familiarity with coins and coin dealers.

The investigation checked train stations, tickets for airplanes, airports that rented planes and car dealers to see if a man looking like Hazelwood had been there.

The search led everywhere and nowhere. The Kansas Bureau of Investigation and the Federal Bureau of Investigation were called in.

Coin World, a nationally circulated weekly newspaper, said that it had received a report from a Montreal coin dealer who claimed that he had seen Hazelwood more than once in Canada.

Puckett said that a Hazelwood had been found in Canada but that it had been the wrong man.

The last strong lead came with the appearance of two checked written about January 1, 1970, in the Phillippines, drawing on a New York bank account. The signatures on both checks were similar to Hazelwood's handwriting.

Then there was nothing.

But by that time, Hazelwood's various businesses were in trouble.

Authorities conducted an audit. Although the results were never released, authorities indicated that the loss had been "extremely high."

Numerous civil suits arose. Banks, lending institutions and private individuals began fighting each other for the remains of Hazelwood's business empire and the accumulated $1 million in coins.

"Everything was liquidated to pay off his creditors," Puckett said. "It didn't pay them off."

In February 1970, his wife was granted a decree of separate maintenance on the ground that Hazelwood was guilty of gross neglect of duty.

The notice of the suit was served on Hazelwood by publication in a newspaper.

Joyce Hazelwood was hurt so deeply by the disappearance, a friend of hers said, that for a time she refused to believe that her husband wasnt coming back.

Eventually, she and her four children moved out of the home they had shared with Hazelwood. All now live with her parents.

She works at a clothing store in southwest Wichita.

When contacted last week, she began to read a statement that she and her attorney had prepared. The statement said that the family had not received any word from Jack and that "he is assumed dead." Before she could finish, she began to cry.
(Wichita Eagle ~ December 6,1976 ~ Submitted by Lori DeWinkler)

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WIFE OF MISSING COIN DEALER BELIEVES HUSBAND LONG DEAD

The wife of missing Wichita coin dealer Jack Hazelwood, who vanished over seven years ago with more than $100,00 in gold coins, said Thursday she has believed her husband dead since shortly after he disappeared.

Speaking in a clear, composed voice, Joyce Hazelwood testified about her husband during a Sedgwick County District Court hearing on her petition to have him declared legally dead.

Judge James Beasley of the court's probate department took the petition---which seeks a determination of death so that Hazelwood's estate may be administered---under advertisement, saying he would rule on it "in a couple of days."

Mrs. Hazelwood described her husband---a successful and well-known coin deal who vanished admidt indications of a kidnaping, and created a case that led to nothing but dead ends---as a devoted husband and a good father to his four children.

"We had a very good marriage. We had been married 14 years," she testified.

Her petition, filed las month, refers to the missing coin dealer as "Jackie Duane Hazelwood, deceased" who "mysteriously disappeared" Nov. 1, 1969, and has not been heard from since.

Under Kansas law, an absent person may be declared "presumed to be dead" for the purpose of probating an estate if:

"(He has ramained) unheard from by those persons most likely to hear from him for a period of not less than seven years" and if "one or more persons who had a bona fide motive for locating the absentee have conducted a diligent search for the absentee in all places where his presence could reasonably be expected."

Both those conditions have been met, Mrs. Hazelwood's petitions alleges.

The woman, who is asking the court to determine if she is a widow, talked about her husband's nationwide reputation as a skilled coin dealer and broker, about his civic interests and devotion to his children.

She said she knew of nothing that would have motivated him to leave and never contact her again.

Mrs. Hazelwood testified the couple owned a home, two cars and an airplane, in addition to Hazelwood's businesses.

She said the home, airplane and one of the cars were mortgaged, but said their values exceeded the amounts of indebtedness.

To her knowledge, she testified, Hazelwood owed no debts that were in default at the time of his disappearance. Suits were filed after he vanished, foreclosing the mortgages, and for recovery of missing coins that had been in his shop on consignment before he vanished. The coins have not been found, she said.

She said that on the morning of Nov. 1---a Saturday---she helped her husband pack a suitcase for a trip to Tulsa, where he was to deliver a shipment of coins. Then he left.

"Have you had any communication with him since"? asked Karl Friedel, her attorney.

"No, sir," she replied. Nor, she said in response to another question, has she heard from anyone who has seen or heard from him.

Mrs. Hazelwood said she believed her husband had picked up part of the coins the day before. The others, she said she understood, were picked up on Saturday---at least $80,000 in all, she testified.

She said she became concerned the next day after receiving several phone calls from Tulsa asking about the coins and Hazelwood.

"if Jack was to be somewhere, he was there, or someone knew why," she said.

Sunday evening, she entered her husband's store with other employes. She said she found Hazelwood's coat draped over a chair, and a shoe, its laces still tied.

"Things were completely out of place," she testified. "It looked like there had been a struggle or something."

A torn shirt---the one he had donned Saturday morning---was on the floor, she said. In the wall were bullet holes.

Police were called. In the days that followed, Mrs. Hazelwood testified, a policeman was with her 24 hours a day, and a recording device was placed on her telephone in case her husband---or kidnapers---tried to contact her. They didn't.

Asked whether anything was missing from the store, she said "somewhere around $30,000 in coins," as well as a typewriter and an adding machine, were gone.

In response to questions from Beasley, Mrs. Hazelwood testified she did not know the value of coins left behind in the shop, and said she had never been told whether the bullets fired there were from a gun her husband sometimes kept there.

She testified she reluctantly filed a suit for legal separation from Hazelwood in 1970. The separation was granted in a court action that gave her title to all property owned by her or Hazelwood.

In response to a question from Friedel, she testified it was Friedel's idea for her to file for separation, so that she could get clear title to the Hazelwood home and other property.

"You didn't really want to file?" Friedel asked.

"No, sir," she said, smiling slightly.

The separation decree is filed with Mrs. Hazelwood's probate court petition. It grants her title to a car, household goods, a house and 3,220 shares of common stock in HZD Enterprises Inc., Olympic Press Inc. and HZD Investment Corp., as well as Hazelwood's collection of books on coin and stamp collecting.

In addition to the petition, which lists as heirs Mrs. Hazelwood, two adult sons, a 16-year-old son and a 13-year-old daughter, a will signed in 1961 is on file with the court. The will grants Mrs. Hazelwood all property in the event of her husband's death.

The existence of the will makes the probate action necessary, Judge Beasley said

Floyd Hazelwood, the missing man's father, and Harley Puckett, a former Wichita police detective who helped investigate the disappearance, also testified at Thursday's hearing.

Both the elder Hazelwood, from Salina, Kans., and Puckett, who had been an acquaintance of Jack Hazelwood, said they had made several contacts with coin dealers in an attempt to get news of the missing Wichitan, without success.

Floyd Hazelwood testified he had seen hi son about four times in the month before he disappeared, and had noticed no erratic behavior. His relations with his wife and children appeared to be good, and he was trusted in his business, he said.

"He would have contacted me," he said when asked why he believes his son no longer is alive.

Puckett said he investigated Hazelwood's appearance, and said leads were followed to Montreal, Tulsa, Fort Worth, California and New York---to dead ends.

Puckett testified he thought one of two things might have happened to Hazelwood to place his life in danger.

Either Hazelwood was robbed and kidnaped at his shop, or he became "in peril" because of the coins he carried, Puckett said.
(Wichita Eagle ~ January 28, 1977 ~ Submitted by Lori DeWinkler)

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MISSING COIN DEALER DIED IN '69, JUDGE RULES

Missing Wichita coin dealer Jack Hazelwood died about Nov. 2, 1969, the day Hazelwood's wife found his abandoned car and torn clothing in his ransacked coin shop, Associate Judge James Beasley ruled Wednesday.

The ruling in the district court's probate department was in response to a petition filed in December by Joyce Hazelwood, and is a step toward the administration of Hazelwood's estate.

Beasley heard testimony last week from Mrs. Hazelwood, Floyd Hazelwood, father of the missing man, and former Wichita police officer Harley Puckett, who investigated the coin dealer's disappearance.

All told the judge they had not heard from Hazelwood and knew of no reason for him to abandon his home and business.

Mrs. Hazelwood, who testified she has believed her husband dead since shortly after he disappeared, told Beasley at the hearing she thought Hazelwood had picked up $80,000 in gold coins before he vanished.

She testified she went to her husband's coin shop when a Tulsa man to whom the gold coins were to be delivered called her and said Hazelwood hadn't showed up.

She testified she found the shop in disarray, bullet holes in the wall, parts of her husband's clothes strewn about and $30,000 in coins gone.

Kansas law says a person may be declared "presumed to be dead" for purposes for probate law if he has been missing at least seven years and hasn't been found despite a diligent search.

"The evidence not only shows that Mr. Hazelwood was exposed to circumstances of peril, but also that his character, habits, domestic relations and the like render highly improbable a voluntary abandonment of his family, his home and his business," Beasley said.

The judge scheduled a hearing for March 2 on whether a will, dated June 19, 1961, which leaves the couple's possessions to Mrs. Hazelwood in the event of her husband's death, will be admitted to probate.
(Wichita Beacon ~ February 3, 1977 ~ Submitted by Lori DeWinkler)

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DID HAZELWOOD DIE ACCIDENTALLY?

Jackie Hazelwood, a Wichita coin dealer who disappeared 11 years ago, is dead, parties to a federal lawsuit agreed Tuesday. But the combatants---Hazelwood's family a life insurance company---couldn't agree on whether the death was a accident.

The insurer---Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States---did agree to pay Union National Bank of Wichita $135,434 on a policy on the life of Hazelwood, according to bank attorney Richard Loyd. But Equitable is fighting a suit by Joyce Hazelwood, the missing man's wife, to recover about $844,000 on two seperate life insurance policies.

The settlement with UNB was for the value of a policy Hazelwood put up as collateral on loans, plus interest and premiums paid by the bank to keep the policy valid after his disappearance, Loyd said.

Joyce Hazelwood attended the trial's opening Tuesday, accompanied by three of her four children, Jack, 17, Mary, 20, and Wayne, 21. The family members, who say they haven't heard from Jackie hazelwood since he disappeared Nov. 1, 1969, watched intently as their attorneys, William Wood and William Fry, opened arguments aimed at collecting on the life insurance policies. The trial will continue today.
(Wichita Eagle-Beacon ~ December 10, 1980 ~ Submitted by Lori DeWinkler)

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WITNESS TELLS OF NIGHT COIN DEALER VANISHED

A former parking lot attendant near Jackie Hazelwood's coin shop testified in federal court Wednesday that in the early morning hours of Nov. 2, 1969, he watched a stranger step into shadows in the shop garage.

The witness, Rick Coons, 840 N. Harding, said details of the incident, which occurred when he was a 17-year-old West High School student, were made vivid to him under hypnosis by Wichita psychologist Don Schrag.

In other testimony Wednesday, evidence was presented that Hazelwood, whose 1969 disappearance with more than $100,000 in gold coins was surrounded by mystery, and three corporations in which he was involved were about $400,000 in debt when he disappeared.

The lawsuit, against Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States, seeks $844,000 on two separate life insurance policies for the Hazelwood family and their attorneys. Attorneys for the Hazelwoods are trying to show that the coin dealer died Nov. 1, 1969.

A state district probate court ruled in February 1977 that Hazelwood died about Nov. 2, 1969. That ruling was made so that Hazelwood's estate could be settled.

Coons told U.S. District Court Judge Patrick Kelly that when he got off work shortly after midnight, he drove down the alley behind the coin shop, 149 N. Broadway. He testified that he saw a man, dressed in leather coat, blue jeans and cowboy boots, standing next to the car in the coin shop garage.

The man stepped into shadows by the car, Coons testified, and when Coons returned to the spot, minutes later, the garage door was shut and the stranger gone.

Coons said he told his story to Wichita police at the time of the incident, but wasn't questioned later. Hazelwood, a prominent coin dealer in the Midwest before his disappearance, left his Wichita home Saturday morning, Nov. 1, 1969, and hasn't been heard from since, according to his wife, Joyce Hazelwood.

Coons testified Wednesday that the man he saw in the alley was not Hazelwood, whom he said he had seen once on a visit to the coin shop.

In other testimony Wednesday, Ron Gott, company attorney, presented evidence that at the time of the disappearance, Hazelwood and three corporations, HAD Enterprises Inc., HZD Investment Corp. and Olympic Press Inc., had debts of about $400,000 on Oct. 31, 1969. Other evidence disclosed unpaid bank loans and failure to pay federal withholding tax in some quarters.

Under questioning by Gott, Karl Friedel, attorney for the Hazelwoods at the time of the disappearance, said he had been told by experts that from 7:30 p.m. Nov. 1 until the same time the next day, the shop's complicated alarm system wasn't activated.

When Friedel and Joyce Hazelwood entered the shop in search of Hazelwood late Nov. 2, they noticed that valuable coins were missing, and found a tobacco pipe, a coat they thought was Hazelwood's and a man's shoe.

Under questioning by the judge, Friedel said Wednesday that Hazelwood was assembling coins to sell at the times of the disappearance. Hazelwood called the airport to check on the arrival of shipments, Friedel testified.

In earlier testimony, attorneys tried to untangle Hazelwood's extensive business dealings, which included a loan company in which coins were used as collateral.

The trial is expected to last until Friday. The insurance company is arguing that it isn't known for sure how or when Hazelwood died, so it shouldn't have to pay double the amount of the $100,000 life insurance policy on Hazelwood with an accidental death clause.
(Wichita Eagle-Beacon ~ December 11, 1980 ~ Submitted by Lori DeWinkler)

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WITNESS RECALLS MEN IN HAZELWOOD SHOP

Two men, one husky with curly hair and the other wearing blue jeans and cowboy boots, were in Hazelwood's coin shop after closing time the day the coin dealer disappeared, a Wichita woman testified in federal court Thursday.

Jean Bills said she entered the shop, 149 N. Broadway, at about 2:45 p.m., Nov. 1, 1969, and saw the men watching customers.

When she passed the store about 4 p.m., the men, behind a counter, were alone in the shop with Hazelwood, Bills told U.S. District Judge Patrick Kelly.

The testimony came in the third day of the trial in which Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United State is being asked to pay $844,000 to the Hazelwood family and their attornies for two life insurance policies in Hazelwood's name. Attorneys for the Hazelwoods are trying to show that Hazelwood's death was accidental so the company would be forced to observe a double-indemnity clause in one policy.

William Wood, attorney for the Hazelwoods, said normal closing time for the shop was 3:30 p.m. on Saturdays. November 1, 1969, was a Saturday.

During Wednesday's proceedings, Rick Coons of Wichita testified that he spotted a stranger wearing a leather coat, blue jeans and cowboy boots in the alley behind the coin shop during the early morning hours of Sunday, Nov. 2, 1969. Coons, at the time, was an attendant at a nearby parking lot.

Harlie Puckett, a retired Wichita Police Department detective who helped investigate the Hazelwood disappearance, testified that when he entered the shop Nov. 2, visible items included a rope 8 to 10 feet long, a torn white shirt, and a chain in the center of the room.

There was blood on the floor by the chair, Puckett testified, but he said that although a sample was taken, he didn't know whether the blood was Hazelwood's.

Glenn Holmes, senior vice president of Southwest National Bank in Wichita and a banker for Hazelwood also testified Thursday. He said two men had come into the bank on Nov. 3, 1969, and expressed concern about Hazelwood's disappearance. Holmes identified one as Jonas Shapiro, a New York coin dealer, according to Hazelwood's attorney. He identified the other man as Quentin McDougall.

Asked about McDougall's identity, Holmes said: "As far as I'm concerned, he was a hit man for (Shapiro)."

Shapiro, Holmes said, dealt in coins with Hazelwood, a prominent Midwestern coin dealer until his unexplained disappearance.

So far in the trial, only attorneys for the Hazelwoods have called witnesses.

Ronald Gott, attorney for Equitable Life, said he has tried to prove through cross-examination of witnesses that Hazelwood had serious financial problems. Gott said he would call witnesses today, which is expected to be the last day of the trial.
(Wichita Eagle-Beacon ~ December 12, 1980 ~ Submitted by Lori DeWinkler)

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INSURANCE FIRM MUST PAY HAZELWOOD HEIRS $375,000

Coin dealer Jackie Hazelwood's death in November 1969 was accidental and probably in the hands of "third parties," a federal court judge in Wichita said Friday in awarding Hazelwood's heirs $375,000 in insurance.

"I told you so," said a beaming Joyce Hazelwood as she embraced her attorneys and her children after the decision by U.S. District Judge Patrick Kelly.

Kelly said he couldn't say what happened to the coin dealer, but said he couldn't ignore "uncontested" physical evidence of foul play surrounding Hazelwood's baffling disappearance 11 years ago.

Kelly ordered the Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States to pay the Hazelwoods the balance of $295,000 in insurance, plus interest accrued since Nov. 1, 1969. The insurance company already has paid the $100,000 face value of one of the policies, but because of Kelly's ruling that the death was accidental, another $100,000 is due on the double-indemnity policy, and $95,000 is due on another accidental death policy.

William Fry, one of the Hazelwood family's lawyers, said the insurance and interest would amount to about $375,000, although Fry and the insurance company's lawyer are to meet to compute the exact amount.

Kelly declined to give the family $375,000 more in attorneys' fees. The judge said such fees were to penalize parties for "unreasonable refusal" to pay disputed amounts. It wasn't unreasonable, he said, for the insurance company to withhold payment in the Hazelwood case, described by the judge earlier Friday as "bizarre."

Hazelwood, 32, vanished Nov. 1 after going to his coin shop at 149 N. Broadway. About $100,000 in gold coins disappeared with him.

Hazelwood's shop was ransacked; bullet holes were found in the walls; coin cases had been removed, and articles of his clothing were scattered about. Blood was on the floor.

Police and private detectives investigated the case for years, but no trace of Hazelwood was found. In 1977, Sedgwick County's probate court ruled, based on Hazelwood's 7-year absence, that he was dead.

Joyce Hazelwood testified Friday that she and her husband had known each other since they were "5 or 6" years old and that she had worked with him in his coin shops. Not only was her husband successful in the coin business, she said, but they were preparing to launch a second business insuring credit cards against loss.

"He was very excited about this," she testified. "He also did not undertake projects that took this much time unless there was a profit."

Joyce Hazelwood discovered the coin shop ransacked Nov. 2. She had gone to the shop after representatives of a Tulsa coin show her husband was scheduled to attend called to ask why he wasn't in Tulsa.

Hazelwood's car still was in the garage of the coin shop, she said, and his suitcase, undisturbed since she had packed it earlier that day, was in the car.

Asked about evidence that her husband's three businesses were almost $400,000 in debt, and their net worth, after liabilities, $147,000.

Earlier in the trial, there was testimony about strangers seen in or near Hazelwood's shop the day he vanished. One witness, a former parking lot attendant, said he saw two men behind the shop after closing time. One was wearing blue jeans and a cowboy hat, said the witness, Rick Coons. Jean Bills, a customer, said she saw two men---including one in blue jeans and cowboy boots---in the shop after closing time.

Ron Gott, attorney for the insurance company, put only one witness on the stand, a burglar alarm expert who said the system in Hazelwood's shop should have been activated if there had been intruders. The alarm never went off, according to testimony.

Gott also introduced letters purporting to claim that signatures on promissory notes pledged by Hazelwood as collateral on loans were forged. Gott acknowledged that they were only allegations, and produced no witnesses to back them up.

Kelly said "there are some mysteries that have been brought to this case by the parties....much of which has been suggested and not proven."

He said that he couldn't say whether the two men spotted by Bill were connected to the disappearance, but said that "whatever she saw, it was sufficient for her to think that it was unusual and she should report it."

Kelly said he couldn't ignore the "significant uncontested physical facts" of Hazelwood's ransacked office. He acknowledged that there were hints Hazelwood may have killed himself or absconded with the coins, but said he believed that if Hazelwood's disappearance was voluntary he would have made some effort to contact his family.

Gott said the insurance company would appeal the decision. Fry said the Hazelwoods probably will ask the judge to reconsider his refusal to make the insurance company pay the family's attorneys fees.
(Wichita Eagle-Beacon ~ December 13, 1980)

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