The sheriff’s department believes the murder was Saturday afternoon around 4:30. The department got a call from a woman who said she had just witnessed her ex-husband kill her boyfriend.

Officers were told the body was in the woods near a monastery. They went there and found the body. It had two bullet holes and looked like it had been beaten with a blunt instrument.

The woman told officers that her ex-husband had asked her and her boyfriend to help him move some vehicles. She said it was somewhere along County Road 335 that Hitchcock stopped his vehicle and put up the hood.

The woman and Hilhouse thought Hitchcock had car problems and stopped to help. She says Hitchcock opened the driver's side door of his vehicle and pulled out a long gun and shot Hilhouse twice and then dragged him into the woods, beating him with a baseball bat.

“Based on the evidence we had, we thought there had been premeditation involved,” said Prosecuting Attorney Chris Wade.

An autopsy is planned for Tuesday and the investigation is ongoing. As for a motive, investigators say they don't know one.

Hitchcock has a previous conviction, according to Wade, for unlawful use of a weapon. Some folks around the area said Hitchcock used to run a salvage yard in Douglas County, southeast of Ava.

Howell County sheriff's deputies arrested Hitchcock west of West Plain on Sunday after a judge issued a warrant and set Hitchcock's bond at $250,000 cash.