to Him for mercy. I trust in the Lord.”
Mott’s booklet includes McDougle’s full
confession, his sad farewell to his wife
and child, and his final words.
Among the signers of McDougle’s
death sentence are several Topeka
names: James M. McConnell, M.A.
Denny, and Wm H. Poyser (the Topeka
United Methodist Church has a stained
glass window bearing Poyser’s name).
Allen Ramsby was not among the
signers.
Latta, Hill and Ulmer, whom Mott
describes as “the chief pioneers and leaders of the banditti”, were hunted down.
Hill was nabbed along the Iowa-Missouri border and returned to Indiana.
He escaped from the Noble County Jail
on March 6, 1858, and never heard of
again. Caught in Warren, Ohio, on July
17, 1858, Ulmer was sentenced to eight
years. Latta went to prison in Iowa for
counterfeiting. In 1860 he received a
pardon, apparently in return for pumping $20,000 in counterfeit currency
into a political race. Latta died in 1867,
at the age of 68, and was buried in
Wisconsin.
Rerick’s history concludes with:
“The criminal class was awed by the determined spirit of the Regulators; arrests
were speedily made, and in a very short
time the country was quiet. Since then,
the feeling of peaceful security has been
disturbed only during the era of tramps”.
Marshalls ... cont. from 17
interaction he has with the public
and trying to resolve problems in
ways that benefit the parties involved
and the community as a whole. Stoltz
used an example, “Some time ago I
was approached by a person that I
had arrested for operating a vehicle
under the influence. This person had
had numerous arrests for driving under the influence before my contact
with him. He told me, it was not in
fact, that I had arrested him and put
him in jail, but rather the way I encouraged him after he served his time
that he was able to make changes in
his life. He stated, without that interaction there is no doubt in his mind
that sooner or later he would have hit
and killed someone, or himself.”
Fitch and Stoltz recalled some of
their most interesting moments in
law enforcement. Fitch remembers
a moment early in his law enforcement career when he was involved
in the investigation of the fatal
accident between the LaGrange
County Ambulance and a car. That
accident took the lives of four people
including an unborn child and two
LaGrange County emergency medical
technicians.
That was the first accident that
Fitch covered and it ended up being
a personal injury as well as a multiple
fatality accident. A happier experience was the time that the Shipshe
Police Department was able to donate
counterfeit sunglasses, which had been
confiscated at the flea market, to the
Marines serving in Iraq. Tom said,
“Some of the sunglasses were actually
traded by the Marines for intelligence
on caches of guns.”
Stoltz commented, “In my career
in law enforcement I have gotten to be
involved in numerous investigations
ranging from a murder in Michigan
to simple loud music complaints.” He
continued, “It has been my privilege to
watch and learn and work with numerous officers from different departments on how to investigate these
complaints. I can state without a doubt
that after working with officers of the
Topeka Police Department, along with
officers from the Shipshewana Police
Department, LaGrange Police Department, Wolcottville Police Department,
LaGrange County Sheriff’s Department
and the Indiana State Police, that they
all have the same goal of making the
community a safer place to work and
live. Fitch echoed Stoltz’s sentiments
and added, “There’s probably not more
than fifty or sixty officers total in
this county.” He continued, “We’re a
very tight knit group and we all work
together very well.”
The Hometown Treasure · January ‘13 · pg 19