Woodsman Sought In Porter Slaying Fatally Shot By Posse

 

GREENVILLE, Aug. 8-A Woodsman sought for weeks deep in the Maine wilderness for questioning in the June 3 slaying of Wesley F. Porter, Patten guide, was shot and fatally wounded today by a member of the posse. He died this afternoon in a Greenville hospital.The man gave his name as Alphonse Morency, 32, of St. Sabien, P. Q., State Police Lt. Merle E. Cole said.Arthur "Chub" Foster, guide and camp owner at Mattagamon, near Webster Lake, where Porter was shot, and Porter's 16-year-old son, Clinton, were sitting by a trail near Fourth Musquacook lake at about 10 o'clock this morning when the woodsman stepped from the woods into the trail. Foster fired the shot that ended the long manhunt, W. Earle Bradbury, Maine chief fish and game warden, said."For a few moments," Bradbury said, "the man didn't see Foster, toward whom he was walking. Suddenly he looked up and, seeing Foster, pulled up his shotgun and swung toward Foster. Foster let him have it in the leg in self-defense."Dr. F. J. Pritham was flown from Greenville and brought the man to the local hospital by plane, arriving here at 1:40 this afternoon. The woodsman died at 4 p. m. Dr Pritham, a county medical examiner, said death was due to wound from a high-powered rife bullet in the right thigh, loss of blood, and the man's weakened condition.Deputy Sheriff David Knowlton said the woodsman, who spoke only French, told an interpreter he had been in the woods since June 1942, because he was afraid of being drafted. Knowlton said Morency admitted shooting into a camp at Clear lake, where two men were resting, and shooting into a Soper mountain camp where a warden shot back at him.Morency looked to be about 35 years old. He had long, black hair, and his face was covered with three or four inches of beard. He was wearing a warden's coat which was believed to have been one taken. from a camp at Webster Lake.He was carrying a single barrel 20-gauge shotgun. Officials said. one of the shells he was carrying was similar to those found at the scene of the Webster Lake shooting June 3, but no tests had been made yet."Arrangements were being made tonight to bring the posse out of the woods.Wesley F. Porter, 46, Patten guide was shot June 3 at dusk as heoutside a Webster where he had guidedlake cabin three Massachusetts fishermenThe Massachusetts trio, William Buchanan and Robert Hames, both of Athol, and Robert Jarvis of Greenfield, said they heard three shots as they investigated a noise near the camp and returned to find Porter badly wounded. He died six hours later..