The First Murder Trials

1858–1866 · FROM CHAPMAN'S "DARK DEEDS"

Chapman's 1880 county history opens its chapter of crimes — titled, in the manner of its century, "Dark Deeds" — with a sentence that frames the whole early record: "Thirty-eight years had passed from the time Pierre Navarre made here his home before the murderous hand was raised. The first case was that of Charles Eager." Navarre built at the bend in 1820; the county's first murder indictment in the histories came in 1858. What follows is Chapman's chapter, read first-hand, with each case's disposition as the court record gave it to him.

Charles Eager was indicted on October 7, 1858, for the murder of Charles Kelley at Mishawaka — the place is stated plainly, because the trial was this county's even where the killing was not the city's. Kelley and a party from South Bend, intoxicated, had fallen into a difficulty, in the course of which Kelley was stabbed in the heart. Chapman records that the evidence, appearing conclusive that Eager acted in self-defense, acquitted him; his counsel were W. G. George and John F. Miller. The record follows Eager one step further: he was afterward convicted of manslaughter in Allen County and sentenced to eight years' imprisonment.

Alexander Wilson killed his father-in-law, Samuel Pierson, near the Lamadee residence in Greene Township on Friday, August 3, 1860. Wilson had married Pierson's daughter; she divorced him in the spring of 1860 after what Chapman calls brutal treatment, and Wilson had repeatedly threatened to kill her, her father, and the family. He followed the Piersons with a shotgun, broke Samuel Pierson's arm with the gun barrel, and smashed his skull; Pierson died the next day. Chapman records the public temper plainly — the citizens were so incensed that Wilson would have been lynched had he been caught at the time — and it is printed here as the historian's statement of sentiment, not as an event. The sheriff offered $200 reward; Wilson was arrested and returned to Indiana, tried on a change of venue to LaPorte County, convicted, and sentenced to six years at Michigan City. The Governor pardoned him long before the term expired.

Thomas Boucher, a Virginian resident in Chicago who was working temporarily at Notre Dame, was indicted at the October term of 1865 for the murder of Alexander Laudemun, killed in South Bend's fourth ward; the killing was claimed to have been accidental. Tried at the April term of 1866, Boucher was found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to two years in the penitentiary. The Governor liberated him after he had served one.

Sources:

1. Chas. C. Chapman & Co., History of St. Joseph County, Indiana (1880), ch. XVI, "Dark Deeds," pp. 586–592 — read first-hand