Two Lives for Five Dollars (Part 7)

(Continued from Part 6)


That's right — a Last-Minute Reprieve. If this were fiction, you'd be rolling your eyes at the cliché. But sometimes reality is cliché and vice versa, and Governor McNutt really did decide, just before midnight, to grant Richard another 30 days to come up with new evidence.

Given his recantation of the wronged-sweetheart story, it was of course abandoned. Richard's latest story involved two other men and a 14-year-old boy — Ed Davis, the hired hand. The reports do not tell us exactly what role Richard assigned to young Ed, but he was kind enough not to suggest that the boy had pulled the trigger.

This time the triggerman was Leon Baldwin, a 32-year-old pipefitter and former Hobart resident now living in Miller. Richard said he'd been afraid to name him before because Baldwin had threatened to kill him if he did. The other man was Baldwin's brother-in-law, Eldon "Bud" Boursier. The motive? As usual, a woman's honor.

According to Richard, Baldwin's story was that he, his wife Ramona and her brother Bud had attended a party at Henry Nolte's house.* As the party went on, Henry began making amorous advances to Mrs. Baldwin. She was offended; so was her husband; so was Henry, in turn, and he ignominiously kicked them out of his house. Baldwin wanted revenge. He and Boursier, accompanied by Richard and Ed, went to Henry's house the afternoon of December 30. They waited into the night. When they heard the car pull into the yard around 1 a.m., Baldwin picked up Henry's shotgun and went outside. Richard heard two shots ring out, then Baldwin walked back into the house, put the gun down and said, "Well, I've got him."

Richard's attorneys filed a motion for a new trial based on this story. The motion was set for hearing on June 18 before Judge William Murray.

Asked by the press to comment, police were skeptical. The investigation of the crime scene had convinced them there was only one killer, and they had not found a shred of evidence implicating Baldwin or Boursier. The notion that little Ed Davis was in on it must have seemed laughable. Prosecutor Fred Egan was confident the motion would be denied.

On June 18 Richard was brought from Michigan City to Crown Point for the hearing. He was pale of face and impassive of demeanor, and the hair on his head where it had been shaved for the electrodes had not fully grown back in.

Prosecutor Egan came to court not exactly compassed about with a cloud of witnesses, for he had not thought it necessary to bring anyone in for live testimony; but he rode down an avalanche of affidavits that crushed the defense. Leon Baldwin could not have met with Richard at Henry's house the afternoon of December 30: he had worked that day from 7 a.m. until 4:04 p.m. at the Carbide and Carbon Chemicals plant in Whiting, and he had a manager's affidavit to prove it. That night, and up until the time of the murder, he had been playing bridge with his wife and eight other people; they all signed affidavits saying so. As for Boursier, several affiants placed him, from early evening until 1:00 a.m., working in the checkroom at the Knights of Columbus building in Gary.

Judge Murray chided Richard for impugning the character of innocent men, advised him to make peace with his Maker, and denied the motion for a new trial. Richard was sent back to Michigan City.

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*As near as I can figure, that is; Richard's story was either garbled in the telling or poorly reported.

(To be continued)