In the pre-dawn hours of August 7, 1977, a monstrous explosion tore through the quiet streets of Evanston, a small city in the southwest corner of Wyoming. The blast instantly destroyed a family home, killing three of its occupants as they slept. The targets were Vincent Vehar, a respected 67-year-old Male attorney, his wife Beverly, and their youngest son, 18-year-old John Vehar.
The bombing was not a random act of violence but the culmination of a bitter and vengeful dispute that would unravel into one of Wyoming's most complex and notorious criminal cases.
Vincent Vehar was a long-serving former Uinta County attorney who had built a reputation as a man of integrity. In 1977, he was in private practice and represented a local water and sewer board in a contentious lawsuit against a man named Mark Hopkinson. The board was suing Hopkinson for failing to pay significant hookup fees for a trailer park his family was developing. Vehar had also previously represented a family in a water rights dispute against Hopkinson's father. Hopkinson, a man known for his intimidating presence, had made threats against board members and was scheduled to be deposed by Vehar on August 9, just two days after the bombing.
The plot to eliminate Vincent Vehar was orchestrated by Mark Hopkinson, who hired a young, local man named Michael "Mike" Hickey to carry out the murder. Hopkinson promised Hickey $2,000 and assistance in covering up a separate, unrelated murder of a teenage girl that Hickey had committed. On the night of August 6, Hopkinson ordered Hickey to bomb the Vehar home. In the early hours of August 7, Hickey drove to Evanston, crept up to the Vehar residence, and threw a dynamite bomb through a basement window. The resulting explosion was catastrophic, leveling the house and killing Vincent, Beverly, and John, who was about to start his adult life. A fourth family member, their son Tony, was seriously injured in the blast but survived.
For two years, the case remained unsolved, casting a shadow of fear over the community. The break came in May 1979 when Mike Hickey, facing scrutiny for the other murder, was called before a grand jury investigating the Vehar bombing. Hickey confessed to both the bombing and the earlier murder. In a plea agreement, he agreed to testify against Mark Hopkinson in the Vehar case in exchange for a 20-year prison sentence for second-degree murder in the other killing and immunity for the bombing.
Hickey’s testimony became the cornerstone of the prosecution's case against Hopkinson. The investigation revealed that Hopkinson's animosity towards Vehar was deep-seated and that he had previously tried to hire another man to kill the attorney. The case against Hopkinson grew even darker when he orchestrated another murder from behind bars. While awaiting trial for the Vehar bombing, Hopkinson arranged the torture and murder of Jeffrey Green, a potential witness against him.
In 1979, a jury found Mark Hopkinson guilty of the murders of Vincent, Beverly, and John Vehar, as well as the murder of Jeffrey Green. He was sentenced to three consecutive life sentences for the Vehar deaths and received the death penalty for ordering Green's murder, as the act demonstrated he remained a danger to society even while incarcerated. Hopkinson maintained his innocence until the end, but all his appeals were denied.
Michael Hickey, the man who physically planted the bomb, was released from prison in 1999 after serving his sentence. Mark Hopkinson was executed by lethal injection on January 22, 1992, the last person to be executed in Wyoming. The bombing that claimed the lives of Vincent, Beverly, and John Vehar left an indelible scar on their surviving family and the community of Evanston, serving as a chilling reminder of how legal disputes can escalate into unspeakable violence.
