Andrew E. Stoner - Wanted in Indiana: Infamous Hoosier Fugitives

Published by The History Press

Charleston, SC

www.historypress.com

Copyright 2021 by Andrew E. Stoner

All rights reserved

First published 2021

e-book edition 2021

ISBN 978.1.43967.215.0

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020948632

print edition ISBN 978.1.46714.730.9

Notice: The information in this book is true and complete to the best of our knowledge. It is offered without guarantee on the part of the author or The History Press. The author and The History Press disclaim all liability in connection with the use of this book.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form whatsoever without prior written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The author gratefully acknowledges the support of the following in the preparation of this work: John Rodrigue, Hayley Behal, Anna Burrous and The History Press and Arcadia Publishing; Steven L. Polston, Jerry Miller, John Maxwell and Randolph Scott; Ron Hoke and Jeff Keim of Goshen Historical Society; Ray Boomhower of the Indiana Historical Society; Sherlyn L. Hayes-Zorn of the Nevada Historical Society; John Harris and the Indiana Album; Kelly Lippie of the Tippecanoe County Historical Association; and Keenan Salla of the Indiana State Archives.

INTRODUCTION

In the summer and fall of 1970, pop radio stations across the nation (most of them on the AM dial) were offering up a catchy song, Indiana Wants Me, complete with police sirens and gunfire, reflecting the deadly end for a Hoosier fugitive.

Written, sung and produced by R. Dean Taylor, a Toronto native, the song tells the story of a young man on the run after killing someone in Indiana for insulting his girl. Taylor said he wrote it after watching the Academy Awardnominated 1967 film Bonnie and Clyde, and it scored his firstand onlyhit on the charts.

While Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow werent Indiana fugitives, in their same era the state had produced the nations first Public Enemy No. 1 in John Dillinger. Dillingers criminal exploits were well known by the time Indiana Wants Me became a hit, and unfortunately, Indiana provided many other notable fugitives who would leave their own marks.

Indiana Wants Me was produced by a new record label, Rare Earth, a project of Motown impresario Barry Gordy Jr., and peaked at number 5 on the Billboard Top 100 list on November 7, 1970. It landed on Cashbox magazines Top 100 Singles for the week of November 14, 1970, and for the year, Indiana Wants Me ended up number 54 on the Top 100 songs of 1970, as measured by Billboard magazine, and remained on the charts for fifteen weeks.

There wereand arehaters of the song. Author Tom Reynolds included Indiana Wants Me on his list of the 52 Most Depressing Songs Youve Ever Heard.

What is clear is that Indiana fugitives whove declared, Lord, I cant go back there have meant those words with a vengeancesuch as two Lafayette youth who murdered the Tippecanoe County sheriff s deputies who were transporting them to prison; a series of troubling breakouts from the venerable (but not escape proof) Indiana State Prison in Michigan City; a gun-toting Elwood girl who was a favorite of newspaper reporters throughout the 1930s and 40s; diamond thieves; a young married couple who turn into robbers while on their honeymoon; fugitives who eluded capture for more than twenty years; a seventeen-year-old Indiana fugitive executed by the state of Nevada; and even a fugitive who became a Kentucky cop while on the run from Indiana.

In the modern era, spree killers driven by insatiable drug habits and vicious sexual predators emerged, with Indiana producing the very first fugitive profiled (and captured) via the popular television show Americas Most Wanted.

The stories here examine not only the trail of destruction criminals have left in their wake but also their lives on the run. In the end, either through hard work by police or death, Indiana fugitives have answered to the rule of law in all eras.

192029

TOO FAT TO BE A FUGITIVE?

Fugitive(s): Edward Stevens and Arthur Welling

Wanted For: April 11, 1920, safe robbery, Indianapolis, Indiana

July 4, 1920, escape, Marion County Jail, Indianapolis, Indiana

Captured: Stevens, June 8, 1921, Carlinville, Illinois

Welling, December 11, 1921, San Francisco, California

Twenty-four inmates at the Marion County Jail in Indianapolis took the term Independence Day literally on July 4, 1920, and successfully escaped the aging jail as the sheriff slept.

One man who did not escape, Edward Stevens, was only left behind because the space left over after his cell bars were sawed through was too small for the big man to fit through. Twenty-four others had no problems getting out, including Stevenss partner in crime, Arthur Welling. Both Stevens and Welling had been indicted for using nitroglycerin and dynamite caps to blow open the safe of a filling station at Twenty-Fifth and Meridian Streets on April 11, 1920.

The two men were arrested shortly after the safe was blown and its contents of more than $2,000 was lifted. The Indianapolis Star reported, The robbery is one of the neatest jobs in Indianapolis in many months. The character of the work, they [police detectives] said, indicated clearly that it was done by professionals. Police said the safe was blown by pouring a charge of nitroglycerine into two holes drilled into the door of the safe. The explosion was so precise, police reported, that no other parts of the filling station office were damaged or disturbed. Six days later, detectives, acting on a tip, arrested Stevens and Welling at the Severin Hotel in downtown Indianapolis, and they were housed on the second floor of the Marion County Jail, known as U.S. row, usually reserved for federal inmates.

On May 16, 1920, the sheriff announced that he had interrupted a large escape scheme believed to be masterminded by some of the twenty-five federal prisoners. Four hack saws were found smuggled into the jail inside a loaf of bread, which had been sent to the jail for one of the prisoners. The bread, a dozen rolls and a two-layer cake were delivered at the jail Sunday noon by a boy, thought to have been a Western Union messenger, and were to be given to Ollie Brown, a taxicab driver, who is held on a charge of manslaughter. The baked goods touched off suspicion when a deputy noted a thumb print on one end of the bread, as well as cigarette papers visible between the layers of the cake.

The federal inmates had been given opportunities to leave their cells during the day and were permitted to exercise in the corridors, and Sheriff Robert F. Miller believed they planned to use the saws to cut the bars of the outside windows of the jail. Miller said that he attempted to learn from Western Union who had sent the baked goods to the jail, but there was no record of it there. Sheriff Miller seemed satisfied that he had thwarted any attempts to escape the jailthat was until July 4, when two dozen of his captives walked away unmolested. A jailer on the second floor, where the men were housed, was knocked on the head, gagged and tied up in order to assist in the getaway.