Hancock County, Ohio - Chapter 18: Murders and Murder Trials, 1881

Chapter 18: Murders and Murder Trials

ALTHOUGH uo less than six meu have been indicted and tried for the crime of murder, in some form or other, in this county, yet no one has ever been convicted ot or sufiered the extreme penalty of the law for murder in the first degree. In other words, no one has ever been legally hanged in Hancock County. Some of the cases seemed to be of the most aggravated kind, but by some defect in the law, or in the judgment of the jury, no verdict was ever rendered, calling for capital punishment. The county has now been organized for more than sixty years, and but six trials have been had for murder, three of which have occured wdthin the last eight years.

In 184G, a horse was stolen in Hardin County, and the thief was pursued through this county, several persons here joining in the chase. Amongst them was John Parish, who resided in Williamstown, in this county. Parish was a powerfully built man, brave as a lion, and resolute in any undertaking. At Van Buren the thief w'as overtaken, and so hard pressed was he, that he left his horse and took to the fields, about a mile beyond that village. Parish at once dismounted and pursued him. Overtaking him in the field, he closed in with him, finally overpowering him. He then gave the signal for the others to approach, but while doing so, the thief pulled his revolver and shot him dead, and made his escape. Afterward a man who gave his name as Benjamin F. Dulin, was arrested, charged with being the uumlerer. After laying in jail for some months, he had a preliminary hearing before the Associate Judges of the Common Pleas Court. A. large number of witnesses were pres ent from Lake and Geagua Counties, in the interest of the prisoner, and he succeeded in proving an alibi and was discharged. It was, however, pretty generally believed that Dulin was the murderer. The prosecution was conducted bv the late Abel F. Parker, who was then Prosecuting Attoruey, assisted by Aaron H. Bigelow. The prisoner was defended by Judge M. C. Whiteley and Wm. M. Patterson. The real murder, if Dulin was not, was never known.

William Foster

At the November term of court, in 1856, William Foster, who lived in Jackson Township, was indicted for murder in the second degree, for the killing of his son, Andrew. The facts in the case, as related by Judge Whitely, who defended Foster at the trial, were about these: Foster was of weak mind, irritable, and easily influenced by others. He had married a second time, the mother of Andrew beino" dead. The boy was about fifteen years old, and he and his step-mother could not agree, and all misconduct, or supposed misconduct of the boy, was reported to his father, who became excited, and without inquiry, would punish the boy severely. It seemed that the boy was possessed of a morbid appetite, apparently, his hunger was never appeased. He would get up in the night, even, and seek food.

terribly bruised, and injured in loins and back. From these wounds he afterwards died, and his father w^as arrested, indicted and tried for the killing.

Judge Whitely says that it did not certainly appear on the trial, just who did inflict the w'ounds, as some evidence tended to show that the step-mother had also taken a part in the assault. At the April term, in 1856, the following jury were empannelled, before w'hom Foster was tried : Lower Walters, William Moffat, Peter Byal, Benjamin Dudley, Richard Wall. Samuel Ramsey, Hugh Boyles, Samuel Knowlen, Perry Edgington, John Boyles, Samuel Huifman, Eli Paxon. YerfWct^ Manslaughter. Sentence, five years in the Penitentiary at hard labor. After about two years service, Foster died.

The trial was conducted on the part of the State by William Gribben, Prosecuting Attorney, assisted by W^illiam Mungen, the defense by M. C. Whitely and Andrew Cotiinberry.

In 1868, there lived in Fiudley, a man by the nameof x\dam Conkle, whose wife was not of the Mrs. Ceaser kindabove suspicion - and it was alleged that she had been frequently visited by one James Winnell, a young man employed about the offices in the court house, as copyist. He was almost a stranger, and but little known of him, other than that he w^as a dissipated rough.

These visits coming to the knowledge of Conkle, he warned Winnell not to come near his house, nor to hold any communication whatever with his wife, on penalty of being killed. Winnell, whilst on one"of his sprees, in April, 1S68, visited the residence of Conkle, who then resided in the frame building on east Main Cross street, adjoining the residence of James Robinson. Being apprised of his visit, Conkle immediately hurried home, and on ascending the stairs, found Winnell and his wife in a room together. He of course,, highly excited, commanded Winnell to leave, who no doubt being afraid of bodily harm, seized a cavalry saber which chanced to be in the room, assaulted Conkle, drove him from the room, and made his escape down the stairway. Thereupon Conkle seized a loaded shotgun standing in the hall and gave pursuit. Winnell fled across the lot in the rear of the house, crossed into the alley known as Hyatt's Alley, down which he made his way towards Main street, hotly pursued by Conkle. When about two hundred feet east of Main street, Winnell being closely pressed, turned upon Conkle, with the saber which he still retained, when Conkle fired at him, the charge entering near the left temple, causing instant death.

Conkle gave himself up, and after a Coroner's inquest was held on the body of Winnell, had a preliminary hearing before E. T. Dunn, Esq., who held him to answer to the Grand Jury, in a bond of $1,500.

In October, 1868, the following named Grand Jury, towit : Isaac Davis, B. Finch, Job Phillips, Adam Roth, J. H. Wilson, Robert Crawford, Washington Martin, John Henry, L. C. Groves, John Reed, Henry Bowers, John Palmer, Eli Paxon, Samuel Creighton, and G. W. Galloway, returned a true bill of indictment for murder in the second degree.

The trial was had in November, 1868, before Judge James Pillars and the following jury : x^Varon Cole, Jacob Groul, Jacob Thompson, Frederick Ernst, Samuel Mosier, Joseph Helms, Joseph Morrell, A. S. Beek, Henry Bayless, Jacob H. Loehr, Washington Eaton and Jacob Harris. The defense was that the prisoner, at the time of killing, was act-

The prosecution was conducted by William H. Anderson, now of North Baltimore, who was then Prosecuting Attorney, assisted by A. B. Shafer. The defense was conducted by Henry Brown, J. F. Burket and A. Blockford, of Findley, and W. V. Layton, Wapakonetta. A great number of witnesses were examined, and the case was closely tried, but the verdict was generally regarded as a just one. Conkle left the county at once, and has been lost sight of The woman in the case, also left, before the day of trial, and has never returned.

The town was shocked on the morning of February 3d, 1873, by the report that Jacob Gartee, a young man about twenty years of age, and whose parents resided in the town, had deliberately and in cold blood, murdered Nicholas Bensing, residing on the farm of M. D. Shafer, Esq., just east of town, on the Tiffin road. Sheriff Henry and Coroner Karst, accompanied by Marshal Ruhl, had already, during the night, been informed of the murder, it having occurred early in the evening of the 2d of February, and were on the spot, and before daylight of the 3d, had the murderer under arrest.

The facts, as they w^ere afterwards developed, were substantially these : Gartee had been in the employof Bensing for some time, chopping wood, and boarded in the family. On the night of the murder, having armed himself with a single barreled pistol, he gave notice at the supper table, that he was going into town. Mrs. Bensing, the wife of the murdered man, gave him a letter to mail, and he started, but instead of going directly to town, he concealed himself in the log barn in which the chickens were kept, where by cans- ing an alarm amongst the chickens, he induced Bensing to approach, to ascertain the cause, and when within a few feet of him, placed the pistol between the logs and fired, striking Bensing in the breast, who retreated a few steps, fell and expired just as his wife, who had been alarmed by the report, could reach him. Gartee then ran doAvn the lane, and across the fields, to the Tiffin road, near the residence of Wm. Snyder, and thence to town.

After remaining in town a short time, he started to return to Bensing's, but was met on the road by a messenger, who informed him of Bensing's death, and a request that he return to town, and inform the friends of the murdered man. (rartee returned with the friends, and the otficers having become convinced that Gartee was the murderer, boldly charged him with the crime, which he admitted, and pointed out the place where the pistol was secreted. He was immediately arrested and lodged in jail.

Ugly rumors were afloat that the wife of the murdered man, was perhaps, a party to the crime, and the fact that the prisoner and the murdered man were good friends, and had no quarrel, and there being no apparent cause for the commission of so cold blooded a murder, gave some color to the truth of these rumors. At the preliminary examination held before D. B. Beardsley,. J. P., which was a most rigid one, so far as Mrs. Bensing was concerned, no evidence sustaining the theory of her guilt was found. Gartee was committed without bail, for the crime of murder.

On the 2Sth of May, 1873, the Grand Jury, to-wit: Geo. Heck, David Lee, William How^ard, Alfred Davis, Adam Stineman, Jackson Currie, Simon Bushong, Anthony Huntington, Joseph Fleck, Elias Wilson, J. C. Brown, Eliab Has-

The case came up for trial, on a plea of not guilty, before Judge Pillars, and a jury as follows: William Hartman, Peter Hosier, Michael Glauner, David Bish, Alexander Phillips, J. L. Hartman, Jacob Bushong, Daniel Hoy, Charles S. Kelley, John Boyles, Henry Shuler and L. D, Smith. The trial began on the 29th day of July, and occupied about ten days. The plea for the defense was insanity. The prosecution was conducted by Prosecuting Attorney George F. Pendleton, and W. H. Anderson, and the prisoner was defended by Henry Brown and ]\I. D. Shafer. Verdict of the jury, "Murder in the Second Degree." The prisoner was sentenced to the penitentiary for life, at which place he died in less than a year from the time of his sentence.

Orange Township, and all that part of the county, was thrown into a state of the wildest excitement, on account of the death by poison, of Mrs. Malissa Charles, wife of John Charles, on the 6th day of June, 1876. This excitement was intensified when it was known that Isaac B. Charles, a brother of the husband of the deceased, had been arrested, charged with the crime of murder. At the preliminary examination, before W. M. McKinley, Esq., as well as on the final trial, the circumstances connected with the case, were about as follows:

Mrs. Charles had made bread from flour purchased shortly before at Ada, 0., and the family partaking of it, became suddenly sick, eleven of them in all, and Mrs. Charles died from its effects. The prosecution had two theories regarding the matter. One w^as, that the tlour, after being purchased at Ada, had remained in the wagon standing in an alley, while the family were at dinner, and that whilst there, the sack had been opened by the prisoner, and poison introduced, which showed its jn'esence in the bread.

The other theory was that the poison - arsenic - had been placed in the yeast crock at the house of the murdered woman, by Isaac B. Charles, whilst on a visit to the family, and that the poison had been obtained from a quantity purchased by John Charles, husband of the woman, for the purpose of killing rats, and left in the room where the yeast crock stood, which was a kind of up ground cellar.

The cause for the poisoning - for there appeared no apparent one - was said to be found in the fact that, Isaac B. Charles, having formerly been Treasurer of the village of Ada, and about to become a defaulter, made. use of a large sum of money belonging to the estate of his father, of which estate he was the administrator, and now that a settlement was tO' be made, formed the plan of murdering, by poison or otherwise, all who stood between himself and the balance of his father's fortune, and that the poisoning of this family was but the first step in the plan.

An indictment for " Murder by Poison" was found on the 2Lst of October, 1876, by William Bright, Noah Spitler, S. ]M. F. Bame, W. H. Todd, John Wyant, Augustus Hortzie, A. S. Beck, Isaac Cooper, S. B. Leonard, G. W. Ernst, William Ptussell, D. D. McCahon, Henry Rudisell, David Bibler and Hugh Fellers. After much delay, and the interposition of a number of motions, the case was finally tried in January, 1877, before Jf^udge Pillars, and a Jury, on general plea of "Not Guilty." The Jury were Thomas H. Taylor, Hugh McConnell, Abraham Overholtz, Oliver Powell, John Haddox, William Anderson, Isnac Davis, E. C. Palmer, Frederick Mack, Joseph Wilson, John Reed and John

Cusae. Verdict, " Guilty of Murder in Second Degree/' The prosecution was ably conducted by Henry Brown, Prosecuting Attorney assisted by Frank H. Doughert}', of Kenton, and AV. H. Whitely, of Findley, and the defense was stubbornly made by A. Blackford, J. F. Basket and J. H. Smick, of xUla. Charles was sentenced to the Penitentiary for life, where he is now serving his sentence.

In 1^77 there lived in the village of Benton, Henry K. Nott and Frank H. Knapp, both physicians, and both in practice. Unfortunately there had sprung up bad feelings between the two, the result, no doubt, ol professional jealousy, and the over oliicious meddling by friends of both parties, and although a great amount of brave talk and loud boastings, as to what would be done, accompanied by ugly threats, yet no one could believe that much else than a war of words, or at the farthest, a little round at fisticuffs would be the result. Imagine the consternation which spread over the village, when the astounded inhabitants realized that Dr. Knap[) had in l)road day light shot Dr. Nott to death, in one of the streets of the village.

Dr. Knapp was at once arrested, taken before John Bergman, Esq., who at once remanded him to the jail of the county to await the action of the Grand Jury. Intense excitement prevailed, and the friends of the two unfortunate men took sides, and for a time society was so torn up, that almost everybody in the village, or who came to it, were regarded with suspicion by one side or the other. The killing was done on the 15th day of November, 1877, and the court being then in session, a s])ecial Grand Jury were duly impanneled on the 5th day of December, composed of William Anderson, D. J. Cory, Henry Byal, Moses Louthen, J. C. Garnett, Frank Karst, sr., B. F. Kiramens, William Mc-

Kinnis, Daniel Buck, Henry N. Cronninger, John Markel, Samuel Mover, A. J. L. Hartman, Charles E. Jordan and Abraham Yerger, who returned a verdict of "Murder in the First degree."

Upon this indictment the defendant was tried on a plea of "Not Guilty," the defense being that the shooting was done in self-defense, claiming that the murdered man had made an assault on the defendant, just previous to the shooting, and that he had fired two shots at the defendant, intending to kill him, and that to save his own life the defendent did the shooting which killed Dr. Nott. This the prosecution denied, and alleged and sought to prove, that at the time of the shooting, and just previously thereto, there had been no quarrel, no meeting in fact between the parties, but that the defendant had gone to the lower end of the village, procured a gun, came back, sought out his victim, whom he found on a side street, approached him unperceived, and without notice, deliberately shot him, from the effects of which Dr. Nott immediately expired. Upon these declarations the cause was tried before a Jury, empanneled after all the motions and objections known in criminal practice were made and overruled. Judge Pillars presiding. The Jury were A. J. Nunamaker, James Staflbrd, George Biggs, G. W. Rinehart, A. C. Warden, Ephraim Leiber, William Vance, J. P. Lee, John Adams, H. H. x\lban, David Comer and P, H. Powell. After a trial which lasted twelve days, and arguments covering three days more, the jury returned a verdict of J^ot Guilty. Prosecuting Atttorney Henry Brown and E. T. Dunn conducted the prosecution, and A. Blackford and M. D. Shafer managed the defense.

that history. In these cases, as in all others, there was of course a diversity of opinions as to the guilt or innocence of the parties, and the characters of the murdered men did not pass without severe criticism in some instances. The only regi*et of every good citizen is that the records of our otherwise fair county should be compelled to record such monster infractions of the law.

There were a few other indictments found for felonies of the kind treated of in this chapter, but parties were never put on trial under the indictments. In 1854, Philemon P. Pool was indicted for an assault with intent to kill. Samuel Ramsey was indicted for stal)bing Nicholas Oram with intent to kill. Dr. R. J. Haggerty was indicted for the killing of Dr. Mansfield at Mt. Blanchard, and Levi Chain was indicted for the killing of his son Jerry at Findley, by stabbing him with a pocket knife. All these cases were disposed of on pleas for less offences.