INDIANAPOLIS — Four hours after the 1976 Indianapolis 500 ended, as the rainy, overcast sky brought an early darkness to Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Elmer George and his wife, Mari Hulman, were spotted inside the president’s exclusive third floor suite overlooking Turn 2 — and they were in the middle of a heated argument.
“Mrs. George, in tears, was seen being comforted by an unidentified woman near the suite about 7 p.m. Sunday,” IndyStar reported at the time.
Earlier that month, on May 3, 1976, Mari had filed for divorce from Elmer, court records show. And around IMS, the rumors were flying that the “it” couple of the Speedway was on the outs.
Elmer George, 47, was a former Indy 500 driver turned vice president of IMS, in charge of its international radio network. Mari Hulman, 41, was the daughter of Anton (Tony) Hulman, who had bought the track in 1945, saving it from almost certain ruin.
Mari and Elmer had been married 18 years, a romance that began when Mari, just 20 years old, partnered with a longtime family friend, Roger Wolcott, to form the HOW racing team. That team fielded sprint cars for drivers, including Jerry Hoyt, Eddie Sachs, Tony Bettenhausen, Roger McCluskey — and Elmer George.
The racing bond between Mari and Elmer evolved and, two years later, had turned to wedding bells. They were married in April 1957.
But by 1976, there was a shadow over their relationship, a shadow that would be deadly.
His name was Guy M. Trolinger, a 34-year-old horse trainer who worked at the Hulman family farm.
After Elmer’s argument with Mari at IMS, he was seen leaving the track. He made the 73-mile drive to Terre Haute to a two-story, white farmhouse on the Hulman estate where Trolinger lived, police reports say.
Elmer was armed with a .22 caliber, semi-automatic pistol.
“As the puzzle comes together, it presents a picture of George as a kind of stranger in his own house, jealous, moody, protective of his children,” IndyStar reported June 3, 1976, three days after Elmer was killed.
“A picture also emerges of Trolinger, the handsome horse wrangler, who had gotten very close to Mari.”
Gunfight ensued in Terre Haute
The discord between Mari, Elmer and Trolinger had been weeks in the making, maybe months, but on Indy 500 race day in 1976, it was at a boiling point.
Trolinger was a married father of two children, who had come to work for the Hulman family in January 1975, training quarter horses and being a caretaker of the farm. In the year and four months that passed before the shooting, Mari and Trolinger “became close companions,” the Indianapolis News reported.
At the time of the shooting, Trolinger was in the middle of a divorce from his wife in New Mexico, where he had lived before coming to Terre Haute.
On race day 1976, Elmer called Trolinger, “Mari’s alleged boyfriend,” IndyStar reported at the time, from the Speedway. On that phone call, police said, Elmer told Trolinger to vacate the caretaker’s house on the Hulman farm. He was not welcome there. Elmer gave Trolinger an ultimatum.
As the 60th running of the Indianapolis 500 played out on May 30, 1976, with Johnny Rutherford winning from the pole position driving for McLaren in the shortest Indy 500 officially completed due to storms, Elmer watched. And he cheered.
But later that night, after he and Mari’s argument, he pulled up to the Hulman farm and parked his Buick 500-mile race pace car on a road near the house where Trolinger lived. Elmer used a crowbar and hammer to pry open the back door of the home, police said.
Just after midnight on May 31, 1976, a gunfight ensued in Terre Haute, and it ended with a killing.
Elmer was struck by five .22 caliber rifle shots, one in the face and one in the stomach and died at the scene, according to police reports.
Before he died, Elmer fired at least twice at Trolinger from a small caliber pistol, police said.
“Elmer was found lying in a pool of blood in the upstairs hallway of a residence on the Hulman farm,” IndyStar reported June 1, 1976.
Trolinger was not injured. But after calling police to tell them Elmer had been killed in a shootout at his house, he was arrested and held without bond in the Vigo County jail on a charge of assault and battery with intent to kill.
‘Trolinger broke into tears’
The Vigo County grand jury was summoned within days of the killing to hear 23 witnesses during two days of testimony. Among those who took the stand were Mari, A.J. Foyt, Elmer’s longtime friend and driver, and Tony Hulman, Mari’s father and owner of the Speedway.
Foyt was subpoenaed as police believed he had witnessed the argument between Mari and Elmer at IMS after the 1976 Indy 500. Hulman appeared before the grand jury for nearly an hour. Betsy Trolinger, who was in the house at the time of the shooting, and the aunt of Trolinger, testified.
“It is said that the events of the last year came together after the 500-mile race in the Hulman suite at the Speedway,” IndyStar reported. “Pieces of the puzzle are being sifted by the grand jury.”
On June 4, 1976, five days after the Indy 500, “Trolinger broke into tears when the Vigo County grand jury ruled Elmer’s death was justifiable homicide,” IndyStar reported. “Vigo Circuit judge, Joseph Anderson, dismissed the charge of assault and battery with an intent to kill against Trolinger and ordered the horse trainer’s arrest record cleared.”
The grand jury ruled that Trolinger killed Elmer in self-defense.
“My client and myself are very happy because justice was reached this afternoon,” Trolinger’s court-appointed attorney William Smock said after the verdict. “My client, from the beginning, was very cooperative with authorities. He called the police, gave them statements and even was willing to testify before the grand jury.”
As the years passed after the shooting, Mari began to publicly identify Trolinger as her “boyfriend,” but she never remarried.
When she died in 2018, her obituary listed Trolinger as “her longtime companion.”
Follow IndyStar sports reporter Dana Benbow on X: @DanaBenbow. Reach her via email: dbenbow@indystar.com.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Nightmare after the Indy 500: The killing of Mari Hulman’s husband, Elmer George, 50 years ago
Reporting by Dana Hunsinger Benbow, Indianapolis Star / Indianapolis Star
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