Posse Member Vaso "Thomas" Mandarich

Vaso "Thomas" Mandarich

Posse Member Tom Mandarich was shot and killed in the Andy tunnels of the Utah-Apex mine while trying to apprehend a murder suspect.

The suspect had killed a man outside a dance hall in Bingham. When officers attempted to arrest him, he ambushed Deputy Sheriff Nephi Jensen, Deputy Sheriff Otto Witbeck, and Chief of Police J.W. Grant of the Bingham City Police Department on November 21, 1913, in Sarasota Springs.

Deputies, posse members, and local law enforcement officers converged on the Utah Apex mine in Bingham. Around 2:15 p.m., when Deputy Sheriff Douglas Hulsey lit a match in an attempt to smoke out the suspect, the suspect fired. Posse Member Mandarich and Deputy Hulsey were mortally wounded.

The suspect escaped the mine and was shot and killed in 1921.

Posse Member Mandarich had joined the search for the suspect as a posse member. Survivors include his wife and two young children.

From November 13, 1913 to November 29, 1913, Deputy Sheriff Nephi Jensen, Deputy Sheriff George Otto Witbeck, Deputy Sheriff Vaso Thomas Mandarich, Deputy Sheriff James Douglas Hulsey, and Chief of Police John William "Billy" Grant, of the Bingham City Police Department, were shot and killed while attempting to apprehend a murder suspect.