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here that Lee began painting classes. He also“ found religion” with Jessie Edna Edwards, the prison minister.
After almost forty years a prisoner or fugitive, Lee was paroled for the final time in December of 1946. He and Jessie Edwards married in Indianapolis in May, 1947. They set up housekeeping in Brown County, with Lee pursuing his art and generally melting into the hills’ artist colony. With a“ tough on crimes” climate in Marion County by the new Prosecuting Attorney, George Simmons Dailey, the Indianapolis Star reported that during the night of August 10, 1949, a posse surrounded Ralph and Jessie Lee’ s studio-home and taking Ralph Lee into custody for Abner Peek’ s murder twenty-five years before.
His Brown County neighbors would have none of this. Ralph Lee was not the same man that committed the heinous act a quarter century gone by, and forgiveness was the force brought to the courtroom where he sat with his devoted wife and 81-year-old mother. Lee spoke for two hours in his own defense, pointing out that he had advertised his name to sell his paintings. After 38 days in the Johnson County jail, Judge Barnette released Ralph Lee, who returned to a happy reunion with his wife. Ralph and Jessie Lee thanked all for their support and“ landslide of brotherly feeling” in a letter published in The Franklin Daily Star.
Ralph Lee received commissions for military paintings and individuals for American Legion Posts, and he received state and national awards for poetry and art. Two of his“ Surrender Paintings” are in the American Legion National Headquarters in Indianapolis.
After Jessie Lee’ s death in 1955, Ralph married Jenny May Trisler. In 1973 Ralph died from pancreatic cancer. Ralph and Jessie are buried in the Nineveh Christian Church Cemetery in Johnson County. •
Lorenzo Wright captured Ralph Lee, the Brisbane Gray-Cap Bandit in 1917. In 1928, he moved to Florence, Arizona where he was appointed Warden at the State Penitentiary. He quieted a prison riot involving 300 inmates, raising his arms in the midst of flying benches, seats, plates, and food and demanding order.
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