Two Lives for Five Dollars (Part 4)

(Continued from Part 3)


The Hobart Index-Commonwealth reprinted the entire text of Richard Chapman's second story — his written confession:

I had been staying at the Anker home near Reynolds, Ind. for about a week, and on Sunday, December 30, I hitch-hiked to Wanatah on Route 43, then to Valpo, on No. 30. I loafed around Valpo for a while and then hitch-hiked to Ainsworth on the Lincoln highway. I walked across the fields to Chas. Chester's farm and helped Chester fix the wind mill and stayed there for dinner. I left Chester's place about 2 o'clock in the afternoon, and walked to Nolte's place. I saw a small boy there and asked him if Henry was home, he said no. I then asked him if he was the Harms boy, and he said yes. The boy soon left, and I went to the rear of the house and raised a window and got into the house. I searched the rooms looking for money and jewelry but could only find a watch and chain. I then found a suitcase and filled it full of clothes such as sox, shirts, underclothes, neckties, and a pair of new shoes. I dressed up in a grey suit and overcoat and waited for Nolte to come home so I could rob him, and get his car. While I was waiting, I played the radio and got something to eat.

About 1 o'clock Nolte came home, there was another car with him, but that car turned around and went back. Nolte put his car in the garage, then went into the milkhouse, and then into the basement and fixed the fire, I had his shotgun loaded and was waiting for him to come in the house, as soon as he opened the door, I shot him, he staggered and fell and I loaded the gun again and shot him in the head. I then searched him and took his pocketbook containing about five or six dollars, then I took him by the feet and dragged him into the cellar way. I then went into the house and got the suitcase and a 22 rifle and put them in the car and drove to Hobart. I pulled off the metal plate containing the identification cards and threw it away at Dorman's bridge. I then drove to the Nickle Plate garage at Hobart and tried to get the lights fixed, but they could not fix them, so I drove to Valpo, and had them repaired at the Lincolnway garage, then I drove to Wanatah and took route 43 back to Reynolds.

On the way back I threw away some of the clothes and also took off the license plates and threw them away. I then changed back into my old clothes, drove the car into a side road a couple of miles away from where I stay and walked home.

From Hobart, Richard was transferred to the county jail at Crown Point. All the evidence developed by authorities in Hobart and Lake County, Valparaiso and Porter County, Reynolds and White County, was assembled by the newly elected Lake County prosecutor, Fred Egan, now presiding over his first grand jury. On January 10, the grand jury returned an indictment charging first-degree murder. Because the murder occurred in the course of robbery, the death penalty would be mandatory if Richard were found guilty.

Trial was set to begin on January 22. Richard had no money to hire an attorney; the court appointed the "county poor attorney," Wilton J. Sherman, to represent him. Sherman would spend the next nine months working to save Richard's life in the face of considerable difficulties, some of which were created by his uncooperative client, others by his client's long-lost birth mother.

For Nellie Chapman had now resurfaced after an absence of fifteen years. She was living in Irondale, Ohio, married to a man by the name of Fishback. Her story was sad indeed. She had relinquished custody of Richard when he was about five, she said, because Richard's father had deserted the family, leaving her alone with eight children to support. She explained her failure to get in touch with Richard before the crime brought him into public view by saying that she had believed him dead for the past fifteen years, although none of the newspaper accounts explained how she arrived at that belief. She recounted to Wilton Sherman a horrifying incident during her pregnancy with Richard, when she had seen one of her small daughters burned to death. It had affected her mind, she said.

Sherman surmised that it may have affected Richard's mind, too. His plans for Richard's defense began to focus on the theory of insanity. His investigation into Richard's background turned up evidence of what Sherman called "unmistakable signs of insanity in boyhood." After a hearing on January 22 which resulted in a continuance of the trial until January 30, the newspapers reported some of Sherman's findings: "Chapman stole jewelry from his mother and hid it in a rain barrel. At another time he stole a watch and hung it under a gutter spout." It isn't clear from the news reports whether the mother in question was the birth mother or the foster mother.

Sherman asked the court to appoint a Chicago psychiatrist, Dr. H. Hulbert, to examine Richard to determine his sanity or insanity. Judge William J. Murray agreed to the examination, but appointed three local doctors to conduct it: Dr. E.S. Jones of Hammond, Dr. J.A. Teegarden of East Chicago, and Dr. Theodore V. Templin of Gary.

Trial opened on January 30.

(To be continued)