Roseville College Football Player's Lawyer Confirms Altercation With Elderly Man, Denies Murder

SALEM, Ore. (AP) - The attorney for a football player charged with killing a 66-year-old Oregon man last month says his client had an altercation with the man, but didn't commit murder.

Willamette University wide receiver Beau Smith, who turned 22 last week, has not entered a plea to the murder charge filed after the death of Michael Hampshire early Nov. 12.

"We're really working to convince the state this is not a murder case," defense attorney Walter Todd said after a brief court hearing Thursday in Marion County. "There are other possibilities - criminally negligent homicide, manslaughter in the second degree ... there are many other options."

Police arrested the senior chemistry major about a half-mile from where Michael Hampshire's body was found at 3:40 a.m. An autopsy showed Hampshire died of blunt-force injuries to the head, according to the Oregon State Medical Examiner's Office.

Prosecutors have yet to divulge the alleged chain of events and almost all the court paperwork has been sealed. Todd said his client saw at least part of the movie "Interstellar" on the night of the incident and was walking to his off-campus home when the altercation occurred. He said there was no weapon.

Deputy district attorney Doug Hanson said toxicology reports for Smith and Hampshire have not been completed.

Hampshire lived a short walk from where his body was found. A neighbor told the Salem Statesman Journal last month that Hampshire sometimes took walks when he couldn't sleep.

Hampshire had legal problems in recent years. His then-wife filed for a restraining order against him in December 2010, expressing concern that Hampshire was "probably psychotic and untreated," and may shoot her or himself.

Around that time, he was also indicted on several charges after allegedly threatening to kill a neighbor and the neighbor's dogs in coastal Tillamook County.

In an August 2013 letter to a Tillamook County judge, Hampshire said he was convicted of malicious mischief on April 25, 2011, and sentenced to three years on probation. In the letter, Hampshire asked to be released from probation so that he could visit a 97-year-old aunt in England. He told the judge he paid the full $3,400 restitution and had been seeing a counselor once a week and a psychiatrist one a month.

"I have also been religious about taking all prescribed medication," he wrote.

Friends of Hampshire declined comment after the hearing.

Willamette is a small private university about 50 miles south of Portland. Smith caught 25 passes and scored three touchdowns in the team's first eight games. He went to jail a few days before the final game of his college career.

Smith was on track to graduate in the spring, but has withdrawn from school, his lawyer said.

His parents, Rod and Julie Smith, traveled from Northern California to attend the hearing. They declined to discuss the case, but thanked people for their support and said Beau is "hanging in there."

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Copyright 2014 The Associated Press.