Tag: crime

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Chased Across Perkins County

By Jean Simon

The peaceful Perkins County prairie turned violent one hot summer night in July of 1953.

It was a hot July Saturday night in 1953, the kind of night that tests your temper. A sad-looking family in a sorry-looking Nash automobile arrived in the small town of New Salem, North Dakota, not far from the South Dakota border. They rented a motel room and at about 10:30 p.m. they parked by the town’s only cafe. The father, Edward Crane, was 32 years old; the mother was a few years younger and dowdy. Their five children ranged in age from 2 to 12. Earning a living for a family of five is hard when the father is AWOL from the Army. In fact it had been six years since the Cranes had a place to call home. They’d been wandering from place to place, often relying on what food could be begged from local churches.

The oldest boy told his dad that a bottle of pop would taste good. Crane gave the boy some change.”Just four bottles,” he said. The boy walked into the cafe. The owner’s plump, blonde wife was behind the counter. Several customers sat at small round tables on twisted wrought-iron chairs with wood seats. The light inside was dim, partly due to years of cigarette smoke blended with bacon grease that slowly darkened the cafe’s wallpaper.

“I want some pop — four red ones.” The woman reached for the pop cooler rather slowly and pushed the four bottles across the counter.”That will be 41 cents please.” The boy put four dimes on the counter.”Guess you’ll have to have another penny, Sonny.”

“Don’t have one!” he snapped back. Just then his father and mother appeared at the cafe door.

“What the hell’s holding things up anyway?” the father bellowed, as the clerk held out her hand.

“We have to have another penny to make the governor happy you know.”

“Well, I ain’t payin’ the governor nothin’. The kid has paid for the pop, that’s it,” said the father.

The storekeeper then pushed through a two-way door and came to the counter. He was a large man, a little too heavy but almost handsome with his dark, curly hair.”Listen folks, I don’t make these laws, ya know, but one thing I do in this place is to carry them out, get that?”

The father led the family out the door, leaving the pop on the counter. Before he drove away he fired five shots at the cafe, breaking a window. The owner reached for the phone and said,”I’m calling the cops.”

Within a mile from New Salem, the Nash was overtaken by Police Chief Edward Mumby, accompanied by Walter Hoherz, a friend who farmed near town.”I think you better come with us,” Mumby said to the father.

They were a dismal group, walking across the dark prairie on uneven ground, sometimes stumbling and not knowing which way they were going or where.

Crane didn’t seem scared, but Vera did. Her husband was always in trouble. Now they’d have to follow the police car back into town. The 12-year-old was nervous and quiet; the other two boys were quarreling, hitting one another and unaware of the serious situation. The 3-year-old girl, in a plain grey dress too long for her, looked sad. The youngest child, a 2-year-old, was asleep in the car seat, a sticky baby bottle lying beside her. When the car stopped, flies descended by the dozens. The little girl wiped them from her face with the back of her hand. The sleeping child brushed them away in her sleep.

Crane wasn’t very cooperative as Chief Mumby placed him in the back seat and returned to the front with Hoherz, who was driving.

A flash of panic swept over Crane; everything seemed jumbled up. It was the same old routine.”Read him his rights, too bad we don’t have any place for your wife and kids, don’t you have relatives some place?” His mind was racing; he felt he couldn’t stand being jailed again. He pulled a gun from his shirt and fired wildly. The first bullet hit the back of Mumby and the second went through the roof of the car directly above the driver. The car came to an abrupt stop when Hoherz saw the pistol near his head. His friend had collapsed; blood was oozing from his mouth. Crane made him back the car up so he could load his family in the back seat with him. He waved wildly to his family in the other car as he breathlessly said to Hoherz,”You’re getting me out of this, fella!”

Vera was always submissive. She seemed afraid and helpless. She’d left home at a young age, drifting from one waitress job to another. She married the tall and confident Crane, hoping for security and protection. But babies seemed to come fast. Crane often had a temper when he came home from the Army base at night. It wasn’t what she expected in a marriage. One night he loaded everyone into the car and started driving. He had been in trouble before for forgery.”Oh well, they won’t look too hard,” he said.”There’s plenty of soldiers.”

Now he had killed a man, and he wanted them to leave their car and climb into the farmer’s car with the dead policeman. Why? But she gathered the children and obeyed. The kids were sent to the back seat, and they all headed south for South Dakota on the main road with the frightened Hoherz driving.

Not a word was uttered as the car moved along except for Crane’s constant urging to go faster, then changing to”be careful.” A few miles down the road, he ordered Hoherz to dump the policeman’s body out.

The miles piled up behind them. It was too dark to distinguish figures, but a huge sign by the road made Crane suddenly do some thinking.”Have we crossed the state line?” he mumbled to himself.”Jesus, I’d be in real trouble if I got caught kidnapping. Hold it,” he yelled.”Turn around and go back.”

They returned to a road sign designating the state line.”This is the place,” Hoherz announced.

“Get out,” Crane said.”This is where you start walking.”

Illustration by Emmylou O’Brien.

Hoherz tried not to show his relief, outwardly at least, but he quickly brought the car to a stop. Crane ordered Hoherz to show him how to shift the car and how to start it. Then he said,”Give me your billfold. You can keep the money, but I need a new identification.”

The Crane family then drove off into South Dakota, and Hoherz started to shake.”Oh, my God, oh my God,” he said to no one. As the car disappeared out of sight, sounds of the prairie night took over. He made his way to the nearest farmhouse to call the law.

The sunny morning broke cooler, luckily, for the Zeona community picnic had already started. Men came in clean overalls and dress trousers, big hats, caps, bare heads, boots and shoes. The older women wore cleanly starched and ironed print dresses, skirts and blouses; some younger ladies wore slacks.

Food filled a big table made from planks placed on sawhorses — potato salad, fried chicken, meatballs, Mrs. Bekken’s lefse and wieners ready for youngsters to roast over the fire. There was the customary chocolate cake with chocolate frosting, lemon and sour cream raisin pies and homemade ice cream. A copper wash boiler simmered with coffee. Lemonade cooled in a crock borrowed from the rural schoolhouse.

After lunch, the crowd separated intoclusters. Kids played ball and hunted meadowlark nests. Women shooed flies and covered the food, then retired to the farm kitchen of the hostess, Rachel Feryance, to talk about children, gardens and recipes. Men broke up into groups to”talk politics” and exchange news on making hay and their harvesting progress. Not many were aware of news flashes on the local radio stations.”Be on the lookout for a plain black car… man, woman and five children escaped in a car after shooting a police officer in North Dakota over a dispute over a penny sales tax. This man is considered dangerous.”

Meanwhile, Ed Crane had restlessly driven gravel side roads all afternoon in Perkins County, looking for a safe way to get food for the kids and fuel for the car. It was late and dark when he decided they couldn’t go much further. As he topped a slight rise in the road he saw a gate leading into a cow pasture with a well-traveled road; he headed down the trail. Within minutes he found a perfect place to”stash” the black car with the empty gas tank and the bullet hole through the top. It was just under the face of a small stock dam in a deep, short draw in Dale Simon’s pasture. He turned the car abruptly down the steep hill, where it fit under the dam like it was in a box.

“It’s a man and woman with five kids, figure it out for yourself … “

Vera remained glum and silent, like she had for the past several hours. The children had whined and complained very little in spite of their discomforts. For a long time no one spoke or moved.

It was getting dark and chilly. Mosquitoes started to buzz in the car windows. Vera finally broke the silence in her tearful way.”Ed, we’ve got to do something.” The smallest child started to cry from hunger. They were at the breaking point.†

“So, we’ve got to do something, O.K. What I’d like to know. Go feed you in some fancy restaurant I suppose.” But even as he spoke, Crane knew that sitting in the car on the prairie at night was accomplishing nothing. He opened the door and got out.

They were a dismal group, walking across the dark prairie on uneven ground, sometimes stumbling and not knowing which way they were going or where. Ed was ahead, walking too fast for the rest of them; but the landscape became easier to see as they walked along. A barbed wire fence appeared to their left, small sagebrush and gullies made up the terrain. When car lights showed up, it helped them locate the main gravel road. It seemed like hours had gone by when car lights again appeared, going a short distance and turning.”Maybe there’s a place down there. Maybe we can get food. Oh, let’s rest for awhile,” said Vera. She dropped to her knees, exhausted from carrying the small child.

Finally, the seven walked across the small creek and through a gate to the porch of the farmhouse.

The Hathaways awakened with a start when the knock came on their door. They hadn’t been in bed very long. The picnic and other events of the long day had kept them up. Thank goodness the children had not been disturbed. As they got out of bed, May whispered to Cliff that it might be the fugitive family they heard about on the radio.

Cliff opened the door and was surprised to find it wasn’t a neighbor, but a strange man and woman and five children — cold, dirty and mosquito bitten, a pitiful group. Crane spoke immediately.”Could we get some milk or something for the kids? Our car broke down.”

“Sure, come in. We’ll make some coffee for you. Where is your car? Did you come a long ways?” Cliff talked in the friendly manner common to West River.

May started coffee on the stove and got cookies from the jar. The milk in the large gallon jar was from that night’s milking. Vera meekly handed the baby’s bottle to May, who was taken aback.”That’s what the poor baby has been drinking,” she thought to herself as she took the dirty nipple from the bottle that had a trace of sour milk in the bottom. She rinsed it and filled it with fresh milk. As she handed it to the woman, the baby reached up, grabbed the bottle and sucked hungrily. The other four children devoured milk and cookies. Nothing was said for a while. Cliff, puzzled by the strange group, asked,”Where’d you say your car quit?”

“Oh, a ways back, but a guy came along and is pulling it to town. Our other boy is steering it. Sure hope he gets along all right, the fella was kinda drunk.”

As Cliff pondered their unlikely story, Crane swallowed his coffee and said,”Guess we better go. We’ll wait until they bring the car.” Vera got up, showing signs of deep fatigue and mental strain. They all followed Crane to the door.

The sun wasn’t up, but the sky was light in the east as they walked past the yard gate, then slowly started down the road. Suddenly Cliff was filled with pity. No one should let such small kids face the mosquitoes.”Here, let me take you,” Cliff burst out, and much to May’s surprise he headed toward his pickup. Without much conversation they all crowded into the cab. As Cliff started the motor, Crane said,”Maybe you better take us to Chance. I have a job on a ranch up there.”

Almost certain by now that it was the fugitive family, Cliff said,”If you want to go to Chance, I will have to get some gas at the store.” The 5 miles to the store seemed to take a long time. Cliff was squeezed into the corner of the cab. When the gas pumps appeared before him he felt more comfortable, because he knew there were other people there.

The store was quiet. After a few minutes, Lee Simon, the Zeona store owner and a good friend of Cliff’s, came to the door in his stocking feet. Crane handed Cliff a $5 bill. At the same time, Cliff noticed Crane turning sideways in the seat and he had the uncomfortable feeling that he had a gun. Crane quietly told the oldest boy to go into the store with Cliff. Knowing Lee was without shoes, Cliff said he’d pump the gas. Cliff and the strangers painted an unusual picture so early in the morning. Lee wondered about it, but said nothing until Cliff came inside the store.”What the hell’s the deal anyway?” he asked.†

“It’s a man and woman with five kids, figure it out for yourself,” he quietly replied. He left the store quickly and started back down the road in the direction they’d come.†

“Something is sure wrong. That’s not like Cliff,” Lee said to his wife, Lillian, as she started breakfast.

The small farmhouse was so quiet. May couldn’t stand the silence when she could no longer see the pickup as it slid up over a rise in the road. She ran to higher ground to see if she could see anything at all. The farther she went the more she trembled, hoping the kids wouldn’t wake up, and still hoping they would break the silence and anxiety. When she returned to the house, she had made up her mind. After breakfast she would go to Cliff’s parents’ home a short distance away and milk the cow, but not tell them about their early morning”visitors.” She knew Cliff’s folks, Cecil and Lena, would panic before she finished telling the story.

Meanwhile, Cliff headed the pickup for Chance. When they had driven about 5 miles down the road, past the Gilbert Dalen place (Cliff’s uncle) and the rural school near the river with cottonwoods and buffalo berry brush, Crane suddenly said,”Stop right here and let us out.”

The family piled out of the pickup. Cliff picked up the old cotton”Indian” blanket he kept in the seat and gave it a toss toward them, pulled the door shut and drove away as fast as he dared. As he stepped on the gas, he slid low in the seat, expecting to hear a gun shot. It didn’t come. When May saw him drive into the yard, she was overcome with joy. But there was still the issue of how to apprehend the wanted man.

Lee Simon was still puzzled when he began to drive to Newell, 50 miles away, to do some carpentry work. Soon he heard a news bulletin on the pickup radio, the same that was broadcast the day before:”Keep on the lookout for a man, woman and five children. The man is wanted for shooting a police officer, considered dangerous.” It was the first time Lee had heard about the man who was wanted for a shooting over a penny sales tax.

That had to be the family in Cliff’s pickup. When he got to Newell, he immediately contacted the county sheriff. By that time, word had already spread to law officials and farmers and ranchers in a large area. Cliff had informed Gail Coe, a local deputy, of the location of Ed and his family in the brush along the Moreau River.

A number of Cliff’s neighbors lived along the river. It was the pattern begun in homestead days; settle close to water, wood and shelter for livestock. Neighbors spread the word by party-line telephone as far as it reached. Raymond Edwards and Gilbert Dalen, who were making hay near the river, were told to keep on mowing and raking as if nothing was wrong.

Strange things happen when excitement runs high and panic takes over. Women seek neighbors for comfort. Hazel Burge went to Polly Edwards, taking her half-risen bread dough along. Lena and Cecil Hathaway hurriedly drove to the location to”see,” well ahead of the officials. Christine Dalen forgot to put on her”bloomers,” as she called her underpants, as she dressed and ran out of the farmhouse. All this happened while Crane hid in the underbrush. But he let the kids wade in the Moreau River, in full view of the people who were driving over the nearby bridge.

By noon vehicles of every kind were heading to the spot north of the river where two roads converged. From the air it looked like a giant anthill, a major departure from the usual tranquility of the rural community. Deputy Coe, a pilot, was instructed to circle above Ed Crane and his family, and to pin-point Crane’s location in the brush. Crane kept moving, but as the local officers approached on foot he dropped his gun and gave up without a struggle.

Edward F. Crane then revealed his real name. His Nash car was registered to Fred E. Werren, one of the aliases he had been using. The family was taken to Bison, and later moved to North Dakota after some disagreement between the two states over who would be responsible for the wife and children. Eventually, Edward Crane was sentenced to 30 years in a North Dakota prison. When the radio news reached all over the United States about Crane, Vera’s relatives in Connecticut notified officials in North Dakota that a legacy of $3,000 had been left for her by her father, who had died several years earlier. No one knew where she was, and she had last seen her father in 1946.

Walter Hoherz’s car was taken to Bison, where the owner picked it up. That gave the Bison and Zeona communities even more to talk about. Whenever the issue arose, Cliff Hathaway’s dilemma was discussed. He couldn’t bear to see the fugitive’s family suffer, everyone said, so he got involved and risked his life.

Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the January/February 2008 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call (800) 456-5117.

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Elk Point Tragedy

By Derald Keiser

The old courthouse in Elk Point was packed during the last week of March in 1933. People lined up outside waiting for the courtroom doors to open at 7:30 each morning. When they did, seats filled immediately, leaving other curious spectators to stand in doorways, hallways and even down the stairs as they tried to catch a glimpse of the proceedings.

On trial was Moville, Iowa farmer Nile Cochran. He was accused of shooting and killing 67-year-old R. D. Markell, an Elk Point man who operated a milk hauling business with his sons and was determined to deliver milk to markets in Sioux City, despite a milk strike, a growing number of picketers and their threats.

The confrontation which erupted on Feb. 3, 1933 on Highway 77 four miles west of Sioux City was a product of the times and the culmination of events which had begun almost a year earlier as South Dakotans struggled with the Great Depression, widespread farm foreclosures and disastrously low farm prices.

Out of this sense of hopelessness and despair emerged talk of action. When the idea of withholding farm products from the market until prices rose to a more acceptable level caught on, the Farm Holiday Movement was born.

By the summer of 1932, the movement was becoming a strong force in the counties around Sioux City. Under the leadership of Mike Reno of Des Moines, members of the militant organization had begun their efforts to stop all produce — including grain, milk and livestock — from coming to market. Roads leading into major markets were picketed and truckers, except for a few of the most daring and determined, did not make it through.

R. D. Markell of Elk Point and his sons were among that determined lot. They had moved to the Union County area after plans for renting a farm near Wessington Springs fell through due to a bank failure. While other truckers sometimes had to haul their loads back to farms or have them dumped in the road ditches, the Markells were more dauntless. They strongly believed that no picketers should stop them from bringing their loads of milk into Sioux City because they were bringing milk not produced by Union County producers. The Markells hauled milk from the Vermillion area while another son, Warren, operated a truck hauling milk from farms east of Sioux City. Nevertheless, each day they had to get through picketing farmers.

Picketers at Jefferson on Aug. 13 used water hoses to stop Markell’s trucks. Markell then sought the help of Union County Sheriff G. N. Slocum. After a second dousing, Sheriff Slocum ordered Jefferson town officials to turn off water to the picketers. He then accompanied Markell’s trucks through Jefferson. At the Sioux River bridge at Riverside, 300 farmers attempted to stop the trucks, but they scattered as the Markells spread through. Sioux City police flashed guns to stop the picketers as the truck proceeded to Roberts Dairy in Sioux City.

Another night, Sheriff Slocum and four deputies attempted to help get five truckloads of cattle through the picketers. When the first truck was halted, the sheriff fired a shot into the air from a short-barreled shotgun. The picketers disarmed him and threw the gun in the weeds. Then, according to a Sioux City newspaper, “They gave orders to the sheriff, who found himself absolutely alone. His aides had fled.”

The Farm Holiday Movement continued to gain followers. Four thousand people jammed into the Ritz Ballroom, two and a half miles south of Beresford, on Aug. 17, 1932 to hear Reno, the group’s leader, speak. Amplifiers carried his three-hour oration to 6,000 more outside. After Reno’s speech, Joe Trudeau of Jefferson brought the crowd to its feet with a pledge of support and a ringing endorsement of the movement. Less than a week later, directors and owners of the elevators in Elk Point resolved to stop purchasing and shipping grain.

Roads leading into major markets were picketed and truckers, except for a few of the most daring and determined, did not make it through.

As months passed, picketers became more determined to stop the flow of milk into Sioux City and the Markells became more iron-willed in their determination to get their loads of milk into Sioux City. The inevitable happened on Feb. 3, 1933, near the Gadbois farm on paved Highway 77.

The Markells had notified Tom Collins, Union County ‘s new sheriff, that they planned to bring their truck, loaded with 1,000 gallons of milk, to Sioux City. Seventy picketers, from Plymouth and Woodbury counties in Iowa, stood on the road or along the Milwaukee’s railroad tracks. Armed with shotguns, rifles and revolvers, they waited for the Markells’ truck.

When the Markells approached, they saw two telephone poles that picketers had placed in the road. The truck stopped and R.D. Markell, who was riding in the passenger seat, got out to move the poles. His son, Frank, was driving and two other sons, Harry and Keats, were hunched between milk cans inside.

Suddenly, a shot rang out. Some said the Markells fired first, others believed that the picketers did. Markell continued removing the poles from the road. News accounts say he was shot in the abdomen while getting back into the truck. The two Markells in the back of the truck rose up from between the milk cans and began firing at the picketers. With blood streaming down their faces, Harry and Keats Markell kept firing from the back of the truck. A rifle bullet chipped off the end of Keats Markell’s thumb. Later the bullet was found in the stock of his gun.

Sheriff Collins, who was at the scene, ducked behind a nearby building on the Gadbois farm when the battle was at its height. He reported a deafening barrage of rifle and shotgun fire. Somehow, Frank Markell was not hit by gunfire and the truck, with windshield and front tires shot out, proceeded on to Riverside.

The elder Markell was taken to St. Vincent Hospital, thought to be near death. Showing remarkable stamina, he survived for several days. Keats Markell was hospitalized for a short time with buckshot wounds on his face. From his hospital bed he declared that he was going right back on the road hauling milk, saying, “They can’t scare me out.”

Nile Cochran, a fanner and picketer from Moville, Iowa, admitted firing the shot at the truck. After treatment at Methodist Hospital for minor wounds, he was taken to the Sioux City jail before being extradited to the Union County jail.

When the case went to trial, his parents from Winner and his wife and seven children from Moville, were among the spectators packed in the courtroom. After a week-long trial, Cochran was convicted of second degree manslaughter and sentenced to three years in prison. He was taken to the penitentiary in Sioux Falls on March 30, 1933.

Editor’s Note: The author, Derald Keiser of Alcester, was a Union County historian. He died in 2004. This story is revised from the May/June 1998 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call 800-456-5117.



Posted on by — Leave a comment

We Gave One the Chair

By Gail E. Myers

South Dakota borrowed this electric chair from Statesville, Illinois 67 years ago. Photo by Gail E. Myers.

Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the March/April 2009 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a back issue or to subscribe, call 800-456-5117.


When murderer Clifford Hayes faced electrocution under South Dakota’s three-year-old capital punishment law, it posed a problem for Warden G. Norton Jameson because South Dakota didn’t have an electric chair.

Hayes was convicted of murdering Grant County Sheriff Melbourne Lewis in the summer of 1941. Thirty-year-old Hayes had just been released from prison for good behavior and intended to ride the rails to the West Coast. He waited in Aberdeen for a westbound train, but when none came, Hayes sneaked on a boxcar going east and got off in Milbank. He stole a .22 rifle and ammunition and later shot the gun to scare some kids. A report of a man shooting a rifle on the Milbank streets brought out Sheriff Lewis. Hayes reportedly hid in a shed and opened fire on him.

Hayes brazenly announced as he pleaded guilty that he’d already spent too much”bad time in jail” and wasn’t going to spend the rest of his life there. He’d die first.

The 1939 state legislature passed a highly controversial return of capital punishment, illegal since 1915, and mandated electrocution. However, they made no provision or appropriation for the chair nor the extensive wiring, power sources, switches and high-voltage transformers needed to carry out an execution.

Warden Jameson solved the problem using the creative management skills that made him a legend in penal administration. He borrowed an electric chair for Statesville Penitentiary in Joliet, Illinois. Statesville was notorious for electrocuting three men in one day in 1928.

He might also have been aware of some power-play Illinois politics. A confusing mandate said that only counties with a population over one million could maintain an electric chair, conveniently moving all Illinois executions to Cook County and leaving electric chairs across the state out of commission.

Jameson oversaw a prison revolt in 1942 and the 1947 execution of George Sitts during his 25-year tenure are penitentiary warden.

In a letter dated Sept. 11, 1942, Warden Jameson wrote about the chair’s expense to the state of South Dakota.”I do not have the exact figures on the cost of the chair, but to date it would not exceed $250 which includes transportation and installation.”

He also described how it was installed.”The chair was set up by a man from Illinois who does not desire any publicity, and our own men here. It was transported out here by him in a truck.”

The borrowed chair occupied a room near the penitentiary’s high-ceilinged and cavernous jute mill. The mill was full of noise, brown dust, and clusters of men feeding rope-making machinery. Outside the execution room stood a closeted and locked high bank of electrical transformers, throw switches, and heavy cables. Through windows in an adjacent stone wall, the switch operator could see both the chair and the victim.

Finding the electric chair was just the beginning of the warden’s responsibilities. Jameson needed to set the execution time and announce it to the public 48 hours in advance. He also had authority over assembling witnesses and notifying attendees required through statute, such as the attorney general, the states attorney and the trial judge. The inmate could request two clergy of any denomination and up to five relatives or friends.

Everything was ready in 1942, but the Joliet chair would be used only when the defendant’s lawyers exhausted their appeals and the condemned man declined commutation from death to life in prison.

The electrocution never took place. On Dec. 7, 1942, Hayes changed his mind and asked to have his sentence commuted to life without parole. He died in 1993 at the state penitentiary. There is no published record of what happened to the borrowed chair.

Before the electric chair was banned in South Dakota, one man died in its clasp. Thirty-three-year-old George Sitts was executed on April 8, 1947 in Sioux Falls. Sitts had escaped from a Minnesota jail where he was serving a life sentence for killing a liquor store clerk. He killed Butte County Sheriff Dave Malcolm and State Criminal Agent Thomas Matthews near Spearfish in 1946 while resisting arrest.

Sitts was the fourth man sentenced to electrocution in South Dakota, but the only one whose sentence wasn’t commuted. He was executed at 12:15 a.m. with 41 witnesses. His last words reportedly were,”This is the first time authorities helped me escaped prison.”

The chair used that night is now kept at the Cultural Heritage Center in Pierre. It is almost identical to the borrowed Illinois electric chair. Collections Curator Dan Brosz carefully compared photos of the Joliet model with the museum’s and concluded the two look similar but are not the same. Those differences suggest that inmates constructed a second chair using the borrowed chair as a model.

Thirty-three states in the nation have capital punishment, but only six states still employ an electric chair as an option. In 1984 South Dakota followed other states and mandated lethal injection, believed to be more civilized.



Posted on by — Leave a comment

Reminders of Our Outlaw Days

By Katie Hunhoff

Every region has favorite outlaws and villains but few have the outlaw-rich history of Dakota Territory and South Dakota.

Those who came to Dakota Territory were either bravely adventurous or very desperate. The faint of heart did not leave family, friends and comforts of home for a dangerous and uncertain existence. South Dakota remains the center of the American frontier, and we are surrounded by remnants and reminders of territorial history.

Furthermore, descendants of some of our most colorful characters still live here. Last year I helped write a South Dakota Magazine article on outlaws. We featured a man who had lured investors to the Hills by switching mineral samples. The suckers realized they had been duped when miners processed 3,000 tons of ore and extracted only $5 in gold. It’s a good story, but one of our readers took offense. “My grandfather was not a crook!” wrote a nice lady from West River. It turns out her ancestor was also a pillar of the Rapid City community.

Other reminders of our outlaw past remain in every corner of the state. In Geddes the cabin of fur trader Cuthbert DuCharme sits in the city park. DuCharme, called “Old Paps” because of a talent for whiskey-making (Papineau is French for whiskey), lived along the banks of the Missouri River. His roadhouse boomed when Fort Randall was established, and wild parties were held every night.

On the other side of the state, a tree used for hanging three accused horse thieves still stands on Skyline Drive in Rapid City. The tree died long ago, but the trunk is now embedded in concrete, a grey reminder of an era when hangings were punishment for a crime that might not merit a prison sentence today.

One of those killed that night was a teenager. His two traveling companions admitted their guilt, but declared to the very end that the boy was innocent. Some Rapid Citians felt there was a curse on their city because of the boy’s hanging.

Yes, our past is hard to escape. A new gravestone now marks the Gregory County burial site of Jack Sully, the famous Robin Hood of the Rosebud country. The shackles worn by Lame Johnny on his last stagecoach ride (vigilantes stopped the coach and hanged him) are now split between the State Historical Society in Pierre and the 1881 Custer Courthouse Museum. Potato Creek Johnny’s 7.75 ounce gold nugget can be seen at the Adams Museum in Deadwood. And you can still sleep at Poker Alice’s house in Sturgis.


Reminders of our outlaw history are all around. South Dakota Magazine recently published a book, South Dakota Outlaws and Scofflaws, about the colorful characters who settled Dakota Territory. The book also points readers to historical places that can still be visited today — like Old Pap’s cabin and the hanging tree. For more information, call us at 1-800- 456-5117.


Posted on by — Leave a comment

Some Cells Will Be Filled

By Cory Allen Heidelberger

I attended a Republican candidates forum here in Spearfish the other night. (There are no Democrats running, so to get my political fix, I have to hang out with the other side.) One of the questions for our State Senate candidates was whether South Dakota has too many people in prison and, if so, what would the candidates do to reduce the prison population. Mildly ominous chuckles and suggestions rolled through the audience before the two candidates took their swing at what they admitted is a somewhat intractable problem. The candidates agree that to reduce our prison population, maybe we need better parenting and education.

This discussion got me thinking about one prisoner making the Lake County jail more crowded this spring. Carl V. Ericsson allegedly drove down from Watertown to Madison one January night and killed Norm Johnson, a man who taught me English at MHS. If anything could get me muttering to my neighbors about frontier justice methods of reducing the prison population, it would be the murder of which Ericsson stands accused.

The 73-year-old Ericsson allegedly shot the 72-year-old Johnson over a grudge from when they were MHS students over 50 years ago. Over fifty years ago. Ericsson and Johnson had lived more than twice as much life as they had when they knew each other in high school. After all that time, to let an adolescent grudge drive you to murder… well, you’d have to be nuts.

Ericsson appears ready to admit exactly that. According to the press, Ericsson’s lawyer has told the judge that Ericsson is ready to plead guilty but mentally ill. If that plea agreement holds, Ericsson will increase the state prison population by one for the rest of his natural days.

Ericsson probably isn’t the kind of prisoner my neighbors at the Spearfish forum had in mind. Asking how we could have kept him out of prison is as futile as asking how we could have saved Norm Johnson’s life. (Despair, if not madness, lies down that road: we’ve lost Norm, and we can’t get him back.) Ericsson’s parenting and schooling were just fine. His brother Dick became a successful attorney and city official in Madison. Carl Ericsson got a college degree, stayed married to one woman for 44 years, and had no criminal record… until one winter day, something cracked.

South Dakota’s prison population and expenditures are growing. I hope our candidates will spend this election year talking about why that’s happening and what we can do to change that. We can keep some prison cells empty by strengthening education, economic opportunities, and other policies to reduce the poverty and despair that drive some people to crime. We can identify offenders who may benefit from alternatives to incarceration. We can raise our kids with patience and love, not fear and hate.

But some people will still go wrong. I do not know what personal gesture or policy action we might have undertaken 5 or 50 years ago to keep Norm Johnson alive and to keep Carl Ericsson stable and out of stripes. No matter how hard we try, some prison cells will still be filled.

Posted on by — Leave a comment

The Cadillac Caper

We had a good laugh after reading a story in the March 27 edition of the Wessington Springs True Dakotan. They learned about the incident in the Plankinton South Dakota Mail, and now we’re retelling the tale to you.

It’s said that criminals often return to the scene of their crime. That was true on March 9th, when the Aurora County Courthouse in Plankinton was the scene of a brazen daytime theft. Larry Unruh had parked his red Cadillac out front while he took care of some official business inside. When he left the building, the Cadillac had disappeared.

Luckily, Deputy Preston Crissey was on the scene. He sprang into action, running upstairs to the Sheriff’s Office to issue a stolen car bulletin and alert the Highway Patrol, then back out to patrol the streets of Plankinton and track down the culprit.

Mr. Unruh headed up to the Sheriff’s Office to make a report of his own. When questioned by Sheriff David Fink, Unruh reported that the vehicle was full of gas and his girlfriend’s purse was inside, full of money.

“While the investigation continued, Sheriff Fink looked out the courthouse window to the north and surprisingly saw a vehicle fitting that description traveling east very slowly on Fifth Street,” read the South Dakota Mail report.

Unruh looked out the window. Yes, it was the missing Cadillac…and it was pulling back in to the courthouse parking lot. The two men went into the Clerk of Courts office to get a better view from their window.

Two figures got out of the pilfered Caddy. The getaway driver was a young high school girl. Her passenger was a man with a clipboard — driver’s license examiner Dale Steffen.

“According to Sheriff Fink, the young girl’s parents dropped her off for her driver’s test and drove away. Not knowing this, Mr. Steffen believed that was the family’s vehicle, while the nervous young driver assumed it was the test vehicle.”

“Mr. Unruh told Sheriff Fink, ‘I’m not pressing charges!'” said the Mail.

We hope that the teasing has died down in Plankinton for all parties involved. Thanks to the South Dakota Mail and the Wessington Springs True Dakotan for sharing the story.

Posted on by — Leave a comment

The Super Bowl of Drug Busts

By Bernie Hunhoff

Akaska is home to two dozen people until the walleye start biting, and then the population swells with anglers. The quiet village on the east shore of the Missouri is an hour’s drive from Pierre — but your DC-7 can make it in ten minutes, and you can land in the grasslands near the river. It’s been done.

On Super Bowl Sunday afternoon in 1980, some local men left their ice-fishing shacks on the Missouri and headed home to watch the game. About sundown a huge plane flew low over their heads. They saw it land about 3 miles away.

The fishermen followed with their pickups, thinking they’d seen a plane crash. When they neared the landing site, they saw a suspiciously undamaged plane. Two men in the plane said they had engine trouble; one of them muttered something about being low on fuel.

One of the Akaskans parked his pickup in front of the plane so it couldn’t take off, and another ducked around the back of the plane and let the air out of the tires. Soon the two strangers fled into the night.

Local authorities eventually arrested six men and seized $18 million worth of marijuana in the plane — the biggest drug bust in state history. Apparently the plane had flown to Colombia to rendezvous with local dealers. They intended to land during the Super Bowl when everyone would be watching television, but due to a strong south wind, they arrived early and were spotted.

This is one fish story they don’t have to embellish at the Sportsmen’s Bar in Akaska.

Editor’s note: This story originally appeared in South Dakota Curiosities: Quirky Characters, Roadside Oddities and Other Offbeat Stuff by Bernie Hunhoff. To order a copy, visit our online store or call us at 1-800-456-5117.

Posted on by — Leave a comment

The Day the Courthouse Burned

By Bernie Hunhoff

Courthouses are second only to churches as the most important buildings in 66 South Dakota cities. That’s where we go for marriage licenses and birth certificates. It’s where we register to vote, and for the draft. It’s where we pay our taxes and buy our license plates and complain to the county commission.

Most of our courthouses are built of stone and brick, and some may outlast the coliseum in Rome. But a few were built of wood and they are more susceptible to the whims of man and nature.

The citizens of Corson County are still saddened by the events of April 1, 2006 when their old, wood-frame courthouse in McIntosh erupted in flames shortly after midnight. Firemen from McIntosh, McLaughlin, Isabel and Lemmon rushed to help, but the dry old building burned like straw. By morning, the county’s five vaults were standing solidly amidst the smoking, smoldering rubble.

Contents in the vaults were soggy and sooty, but intact. Everything else was lost.

Karl Brooks, a Corson County native now living in West Virginia, sent us the Corson News Messenger that was published a few days later. He also sent the June 8 issue which announced the arrest of Dwight “Trey” Crigger, a drifter from Texas who came to South Dakota with a combine crew and was hired by the county weed board.

Crigger, 25, a member of the McIntosh fire department, was also charged with an earlier fire at the county shop. “If Crigger started the fire,” wrote the editor, “some of his actions are puzzling. He had worked hard on restoring the pickup used for spraying the by the weed and pest board. It was parked in the shed that burned and destroyed. Maps he had prepared showing noxious weed locations were burned in the courthouse fire.”

The young man confessed to the crime and was sentenced to 15 years in the state penitentiary, and assessed $1.1 million in damages. He never explained why he torched his adopted town’s beloved and historic courthouse.

Posted on by — Leave a comment

The Verne Miller Story: From Lawman To Outlaw

By Brad Smith

Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the May/June 1996 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call 800-456-5117.

No stone would be left unturned in the search for Verne Miller in the aftermath of the Kansas City Massacre of June 17, 1933. FBI photo.


In November of 1920 the Huron newspaper, the Evening Huronite, promoted a young candidate for Beadle County sheriff by editorializing that with his election “crooks and licentious characters will have no protection and the safety of our wives and children and the future well-being of our families will be fully guaranteed.” Thirteen years later the U.S. Justice Department announced a nationwide manhunt for a man they identified as “the most dangerous criminal in the country.”

Both observations were accurate and, incredibly, both referred to the same enigmatic man: Verne Miller. He has been described as “easily the most contradictory and mysterious figure of the 1930s Public Enemy community.” A handsome blue-eyed redhead, he did not drink or gamble and abhorred swearing. However, he was the chief suspect in from five to 12 murders and was rumored to have participated in many more. His path from respected South Dakota lawman to reviled national outlaw is a puzzling one, with unanswered questions at every turn. Even his early life is shrouded in mystery. Various documents list his birth date as 1892, 1895 and 1896, and his birthplace as Interior, S.D., Kimball, S.D. and Illinois.

What is known is that Miller’s parents divorced when he was young, leaving him on his own at an early age. He dropped out of school at the age of ten. In 1914 he moved to Huron to work as a mechanic. In 1916 he joined the Army and served on the Mexican border. In the spring of 1917 he returned to Huron and married. A month later he was recalled to military service. On April 17, 1918, Miller landed in France with the 164th Infantry. Color Sergeant Verne Miller returned from World War I a genuine hero. A decorated marksman and sniper, he was awarded the French Croix de Guerre for bravery. He was wounded twice and suffered lung damage in a poison gas attack.

Soon after his return from Europe, Miller joined the Huron city police force. The local newspaper heralded his arrival. “Lawbreakers had better watch out,” the editor announced, “if they want to keep their health.”

Right from the start, Miller’s law enforcement career was marked by dedication and courage, sometimes to the point of foolhardiness. Less than three months on the force, Miller arrested W.S. Davis, a member of a prominent Huron family, for blocking traffic with his car. Davis argued vehemently but his protests held little sway with the conscientious young patrolman and only earned him a night in jail.

On another occasion Miller’s courage may have saved a life. M.B. Balsiger, manager of the local theater, engaged R.E. Beckwith, a war veteran and popular speaker, to lecture on his military experiences. On the night of the lecture a disagreement arose regarding the speaker ‘s fee and Balsiger knocked the young man unconscious. The war was fresh in everyone’s mind and patriotic fervor was high. When news that Balsiger had beaten up a war hero reached the street, an angry mob gathered outside the theater. The building was doused with yellow paint and the mob demanded that the manager give himself up. A frightened Balsiger turned to Officer Miller for help. Miller first ordered the crowd to disperse. When they ignored him, Miller led Balsiger toward the protection of the police station. Someone in the mob threw a brick, striking the manager in the head. Miller drew his pistol and advanced on the mob. Finally the rioters dispersed and Balsiger’s life was spared.

This sometimes reckless devotion to duty did not go over well with everyone in Huron. In May of 1920 Miller resigned from the police force, saying that he and Police Chief Johnson suffered fundamental disagreements over the conduct of police business. But Miller had no intention of leaving law enforcement. By this time he had already been named the Republican candidate for Beadle County Sheriff. The 1920 sheriff’s campaign was hotly contested with Miller the focus of numerous rumors and accusations. Still he managed to eke out a 41-vote victory.

The career of the once-feared Beadle County Sheriff would come to an abrupt and startling end as Verne Miller turned gangster.

Sheriff Miller was an active community leader. He was a founder of the Huron American Legion post and served as its delegate to the state convention. He was an avid fisherman and amateur boxer. He proved to be an active sheriff as well. Records note that he located and destroyed nine moonshine stills during his first six months in office. So much bootlegged liquor was confiscated that Miller began using it as antifreeze in the radiators of the sheriff’s department vehicles.

Miller gained a reputation for being quick to use his weapon. It was said that, while a city officer, he twice fired on tourists for violating traffic ordinances. After the election the county commission warned Miller of the legal ramifications of an over-eager trigger finger.

On at least one occasion this reputation proved useful. A prison escapee turned himself over to authorities when, while hiding in a pasture, he heard what was apparently the backfire of a passing car. He told a reporter, “I thought Verne Miller was on my trail and had started shooting at me. I sure wished that I was back in jail again.”

In the spring of 1922 Sheriff Miller was well on his way to re-election and a second term. Then Miller’s wife, Mildred, was admitted to a Rochester, Minn., hospital. Miller told his deputies that he was taking a short leave to visit his wife and from Rochester they would go to a Washington, D.C. sanitarium to take treatments for his lungs. After a couple of weeks with no contact from the sheriff, his deputies became worried and then suspicious. They discovered that, shortly before he left, Miller had withdrawn $4,000 from various bank accounts, money that had apparently come from county property tax collections. The career of Sheriff Verne Miller came to an abrupt and startling end. The career of Verne Miller, gangster, was just beginning.

The State Sheriff’s Office was called in and a search begun for Miller and the missing funds. For three months there was no sign of the sheriff, then South Dakota officials received a call from a St. Paul, Minn., hotel operator wondering if they were still looking for Miller.

In the 1920s and 1930s there were several places where bandits and outlaws could go to “cool off”; communities where a tacit agreement had been reached between local officials and the criminal element. The most popular of these havens was St. Paul. As one criminal noted, “In those days if you hadn’t seen a friend for a few months you looked two places — prison or St. Paul.” The St. Paul police force of the 1920s was the most corrupt in the country, so it was inevitable that a renegade lawman like Miller would seek refuge there. Before the hotel owner notified South Dakota officials he had called the St. Paul chief of detectives and was assured that Miller was no longer wanted. The S.D. State Sheriff’s deputy who arrested Miller reported that Miller’s first phone call while in custody was to that same chief of detectives.

Back in the Beadle County jail where, just a few months before, he had been jailer rather than jailed, Miller displayed his resolute self-reliance. He turned down offers from friends to raise the $ 10,000 bond. Miller pleaded guilty to the embezzlement of $2,600 in county funds and was sentenced to two years in the state penitentiary.

Verne Miller’s 1923 FBI Photo.

Verne Miller entered the South Dakota State Penitentiary on April 4, 1923. Armed with numerous character references, including one from the states’ attorney who had prosecuted him, Miller soon landed the cushy position of warden’s chauffeur. He passed his prison term driving the warden about the city and corresponding with his many friends and supporters. Miller was released on parole in September of 1924. According to records, he found work as a farm laborer near Doland, making $70 a month. But Miller had sampled the good life and it could not be lived on that sum. Within a year he was indicted for bootlegging. He paid a $200 fine in Sioux Falls federal court in October 1925 and disappeared.

The next few years offer infrequent glimpses of Verne Miller and his activities. In February of 1928 he was indicted for his part in a Minneapolis speakeasy shootout. The charges were dropped for lack of evidence. In 1929 Miller was running Canadian gambling interests for Lepke Buchalter, one of the most powerful figures in organized crime on the East Coast and an important connection in Miller’s growing criminal resume.

In late 1930 Miller was back in the Twin Cities. He held up the Wilmar, Minn., bank with Machine Gun Kelly and the dean of American bank robbers, Harvey Bailey. In 1931 with Harvey Bailey and Oklahoma outlaw Frank Nash, Miller robbed a bank in Sherman, Texas.

In the summer of 1932 Miller paid his last visit to his father’s farm near White Lake. Friends and relatives remember that the gangster’s shiny new car and expensive clothes made quite an impression in that Depression-ravaged farm community.

In December of 1932 Miller drove a getaway car for the infamous Barker gang when they held up the Third Northwestern Bank of Minneapolis. That robbery resulted in tragedy when two city officers happened on the scene and were slain in a hail of machine-gun fire. The Barker gang split up after the Minneapolis bank robbery. Miller moved to Kansas City to cool off.

A few months later Miller received a frantic call from the wife of his old friend, Frank Nash, saying that her husband had been arrested by federal agents. That phone call touched off events that would culminate the next day in the bloody outrage that will forever be known as the Kansas City Massacre.

On the morning of June 17, 1933, the parking lot of the Kansas City Union Railroad Station was crowded with arriving and departing passengers, their family and friends. Few in the crowd paid any attention to the group of men moving warily among the parked cars. If they had they would have seen seven nervous lawmen surrounding a handcuffed prisoner. The prisoner was Frank Nash. The lawmen, FBI agents Vetterli, Caffrey, Smith and Lackey, Kansas City detectives Grooms and Hermanson, and Oklahoma Police Chief Otto Reed, had reason to be nervous. Nash was a well-known criminal with strong ties in the underworld. They feared that some of his friends might attempt a rescue.

As they loaded Nash into a waiting patrol car, their fears were realized. Three men jumped from a nearby car. One of them, brandishing a Tommy gun, commanded the law officers to “Hold it!” Time froze as the two armed camps regarded each other. Then one of the officers went for his pistol and all hell broke loose.

Within seconds it was over. Bodies were scattered about the parking lot. Grooms, Hermanson, Reed and FBI agent Caffrey were dead. Agents Vetterli and Lackey were seriously wounded. Nash, the object of the ill-fated delivery, was also among the dead. One woman, surveying the bloody scene, moaned, “It’s just like Chicago.” The bandits escaped unscathed.

The late 1920s and early 1930s marked a decade of lawlessness. Colorful outlaws such as Pretty Boy Floyd, John Dillinger, Machine Gun Kelly, and Ma Barker were as familiar to the public as politicians and movie celebrities. Even in that context the Kansas City Massacre was a shocking and galvanizing event. The attorney general declared the massacre “a challenge to the government. The army of crime has declared war against the United States.” It took the FBI two weeks to identify Miller as the leader of the Kansas City gang and their reaction was certain and instantaneous. No stone would go unturned in their search for the gangster.

Controversy still surrounds the Kansas City Massacre. Historians disagree on the identity of Miller’s two accomplices. Even the motives behind the massacre are in dispute. Many say that Miller was trying to rescue Nash while a nearly equal number believe Nash’s death was a gangland hit. Regardless of motive, it is doubtful that the intent was to murder the law officers. Even someone as impetuous as Verne Miller would have foreseen the outrage that followed the unprovoked slaughter.

Miller left Kansas City immediately but the FBI, in their efforts to find the fugitive, put the heat on all of the underworld. Alvin Karpis, a member of the Barker gang, was called before representatives of the old Capone Syndicate. “Where,” they demanded, “is Miller?” Karpis asked what they wanted of his one-time partner. “Everybody’s after that bastard,” he was told.

Miller fled to New York, seeking protection from his old friend, Lepke Buchalter, but the word was out that anyone suspected of harboring Miller would be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. No place was safe.

In October of 1933, the FBI traced Miller to Chicago. They surrounded his apartment but Miller escaped in a flurry of bullets. Miller’s escape, though, was an omen of the tightening dragnet. With every lawman in the nation as well as the might of the criminal underworld after him , Miller’s days were numbered.

On the evening of November 29, 1933, a motorist on the outskirts of Detroit discovered a naked mutilated body alongside the road. Fingerprints taken by the FBI confirmed that the search for Verne Miller was over.

News of Miller’s death was greeted by his family and friends in South Dakota with a mixture of regret and resignation. The Evening Huronite reported that most of the citizens of Miller’s hometown “refused to remember his reputation of a life of crime and grieved the Verne Miller, fearless sheriff and valiant soldier, they knew.” His wife, Mildred, though legally separated from Miller since 1929, stuck by him, saying “I don’t believe all the things they say about Verne. Because he became involved in a few scrapes nearly every major crime in the country was laid to him. He was wonderful to me and I have nothing against him.”

His grief-stricken father made plans for the funeral; plans that, like most of Verne’s life, were plagued with controversy. Miller, as a veteran and American Legion member, was entitled to full military rites. However, the national American Legion commander forbade the local post from participating, saying it would only bring embarrassment to the organization. National proclamation notwithstanding, Miller’s flag-draped casket was escorted from White Lake to Huron by a contingent of uniformed ex-servicemen, Miller’s friends. There, following a simple ceremony before an overflow crowd, Verne Miller’s doomed journey came to an end.

In one final twist in the tragedy of Verne Miller’s life, the erstwhile lawman contributed greatly to the future of law enforcement. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover used the outrage generated by the Kansas City Massacre to lobby Congress for a true national crime-fighting force. Prior to the massacre, FBI agents could not carry weapons and were not even empowered to make arrests. Within months of the Kansas City killings, Congress passed a comprehensive crime bill giving the FBI all the powers they sought.

Perhaps it is this that provides some final sense and purpose to the otherwise squandered life of Verne Miller–a lawman gone bad.