1985-11-11
Convicted in the November 1985 shooting death of 42-year-old James D. Mitchell Jr., an off-duty Amarillo police officer. Mitchell was shot when he stopped to render aid after witnessing a one-car accident involving Hafdahl and two others. A witness told police that after the officer was shot, one of the men ran to the trunk of the wrecked car and grabbed what appeared to be a bag of marijuana from the trunk. Hafdahl and Shawn David Terry were sighted near the murder scene and arrested. The third man, Daniel Helgran, was later arrested in Clovis, New Mexico. Terry told police he witnessed Hafdahl shoot the officer. Helgra testified that he was removing the license plate from the wrecked vehicle when the shots were fired