A Venango County man has been charged with fatally shooting a woman from Parker.
State Police in Franklin charged 48-year-old Clayton Hindman this week following his arrest in Missouri last month, and his recent extradition back to Pennsylvania.
Hindman was booked into the Venango County Jail on Tuesday afternoon. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for next week.
Police say their investigation started in late July when they were called by Hindman’s daughter to make a welfare check at her father’s home on Hillcrest Avenue in Polk- which is a small town just north of Butler County near Franklin. Police got inside and found a woman’s badly decomposed body in the living room. Hindman was not there.
The deceased victim was later identified as 38-year-old Salina Chilson, who was reported missing July 3 to the Emlenton Borough Police Department. The Venango County Coroner estimated the victim had been deceased a few weeks.
Hindman reportedly fled to Missouri to stay with a girlfriend. He then allegedly told her he had killed a man in self defense.
A motive for the killing is unclear.
