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Eureka man Aaron Michael Bryant, 31, is in custody in Arizona after fatally stabbing Tommy Edward Hinton, 62, and Annette Lee Hinton, 59, former owners of the now-closed Fortuna restaurant Tom’s Sourdough Pizza Villa, according to the Bullhead City Police Department.

In a statement posted to social media, the Bullhead City Police Department said that on Friday, June 16, around 5:49 p.m., officers responded to a 911 open line on which a woman was yelling for help. Dispatchers received another call about a man stabbing a woman.

Officers later determined that Bryant stabbed the Hintons during an argument and was then shot by a neighbor, the police department reported. 

According to the Mohave Daily News, medics responded to the scene and requested air medical transport, which took one patient via helicopter to Valley View Medical Center in Fort Mohave, Arizona, near borders of both Nevada and California.

Officials later said that Bryant is in custody.

Tom’s Sourdough Pizza Villa, a longtime fixture in Fortuna, closed its doors in August 2018, after which the Hintons moved to Arizona. (The building, at 101 12th Street, later reopened as Paul’s Live From New York.) There was also a Tom’s Sourdough on Myrtle Avenue Eureka for a while.

Several times over the past two years, Tom Hinton reached out to Bryant on Facebook, where Bryant was posting about employment and emotional struggles. At least twice, Hinton encouraged Bryant to leave Eureka and come to his part of southern Arizona, which is just across the Colorado River from Nevada.

“Hey buddy jobs everywhere down this way,” Tom Hinton wrote in an April 2021 comment beneath a post in which Bryant said jobs here were hard to come by.

A few months later Hinton repeated the invitation: “Come on down buddy. $15.00 for any job. The casinos are 5,000 workers short. Any job you can imagine.”

Bryant’s most recent post, published in February, was a request for help to get food, to which Tom Hinton replied, “What’s up kid. You doing ok,or just need a change? Let me know.”