FRANKLIN, Venango County — A Polk man is headed for trial on charges he fatally shot a 38-year-old Emlenton woman in the face with a .44-caliber pistol.

Clayton J. Hindman, 49, was ordered held for court on homicide and other charges in the death of Salina Poppy Chilson, at a preliminary hearing Friday in Franklin.

District Judge Matthew Kirtland made his ruling even though investigators have not positively identified the victim. A manner of death also is pending.

Hindman was arrested Aug. 27 for the killing after his extradition from south-central Missouri, where his girlfriend lives. He has since remained in the Venango County Jail without bond.

The hearing came seven weeks after Polk police discovered what they believed to be Chilson's badly decomposed body July 25 in the living room of Hindman's rental home in Polk.

Friends had reported her missing July 3.

The decomposition was so advanced, county Coroner Christine Rugh testified, that she could not immediately determine if the remains were of a man or woman. Rugh said it appeared the victim had been dead “for weeks.”

While witnesses at the hearing described evidence that led them to believe the remains were those of Chilson, authorities still are awaiting results of DNA testing for a positive identification.

Polk police officer Alan Heller testified about a strong odor coming from Hindman's home when he got there to make a welfare check of the defendant on behalf of his daughter.

“It smelled like something was decaying,” Heller said.

The doors were locked, but the landlord later let the officer inside. He soon came upon the body, which was covered by a comforter.

Rugh examined the remains. She noticed a gun in the left hand. The safety was on.

Police later would learn that Chilson was right-handed, suggesting someone intentionally placed the .25-caliber pistol in her left hand, said Trooper Keith Johnson, the lead investigator.

Rugh said she carefully examined the remains.

“I removed the skull and placed it on a towel separate from the remains,” she said. She thought its characteristics were “rather effeminate” looking.

That apparently was the first clue that the remains did not belong to Hindman.

Soon came another.

“I kind of just tapped on the chest of the remains,” Rugh said, “and felt a bra.”

During her examination of the skull, Rugh found trauma on it. “The mandible,” she said, “was fractured in at least three sections.”

State police were notified as was Dennis Dirkmaat, a forensic anthropologist at Mercyhurst College in Erie, to assist in collecting the remains for further examination.

An X-ray during an autopsy by the Allegheny County Medical Examiner's Office uncovered a bullet among the remains.

The tentative cause of death, according to the autopsy, was a gunshot wound to the head. There was no ruling on the manner of death. The full autopsy report is pending.

Dirkmaat, in a subsequent report based on his team's examination, Rugh said, concluded the victim “exhibited no other trauma other than a gunshot to the face.”

The report also found the bullet path was “front to back,” she said, “entering the mid face and exiting the back of the head.”

Additionally, the evidence suggested “a close- range shot with a larger caliber bullet.”

Police lab findings later identified the bullet as a .44-caliber.

Hindman, meanwhile, turned himself in to authorities in Ava, Mo., where his girlfriend lives. Johnson said that on July 27 police got a call from the Hindman, who advised he was turning himself in, at the urging of his girlfriend.

He spoke by telephone and said he was “running scared,” Johnson said. He apparently said little else.

By the end of that day, police got an arrest warrant for Hindman that would hold him in a Missouri jail until he could be extradited.

The trooper also eventually talked by telephone to the defendant's girlfriend, who recounted his unexpected arrival there. He drove there in his pickup and came carrying a duffel bag.

She also passed on what Hindman told her about the incident under investigation.

“He told her (the victim) was a male he had been drinking with, and when he came out of the bathroom the male was standing there pointing a gun at him,” Johnson testified.

“He made his way to the living room and the male was still pointing a gun at him. So he reached under a pillow on his couch (for a gun) and shot the male in the face.”

Johnson also revealed the contents of text messages between Hindman and Chilson, and between Hindman and his last employer, the owner of a motorcycle shop near Emlenton.

The day she was reported missing was the last time Chilson and the defendant texted. They planned to meet at the Unimart store in Emlenton on the morning of July 3, Johnson said.

The texts between Hindman and his employer after Chilson was reported missing and before the remains were found in his home suggested the defendant was afraid of something he had done. In one text, Hindman said, “I am so (expletive). In another, he said, “Mustang layin in my live room.”

Johnson testified that friends of Chilson told police that “Mustang Sally” was one of her nicknames.

Another of Hindman's texts said: “can't (expletive) believe I had to do something like this. My soul is hurting.”

A search by deputies of the girlfriend's home turned up a gun case holding two Ruger .44 Magnum pistols, Johnson testified, which police believed belonged to Hindman.

While lab results are incomplete, the trooper said, an Aug. 8 report indicated the bullet fragment uncovered during the autopsy was from a .44-caliber round. The report found the round could have been fired from several gunmakers, including Ruger.

In addition to homicide, Hindman is charged with aggravated assault, possession of an instrument of crime, simple assault and reckless endangerment.